At the same time it was evident they had gone very deliberately about

their work. The ceiling and doors of a heavy old press, the drawers of

which had been secured by strong and well constructed locks, had been

removed with so much neatness that no part of the wood-work had been

injured. The ceiling and doors were left standing by the side of the

press. The contents, consisting of jewels, articles of value, and fine

linens, were gone. Two strong boxes were found broken open, from which

gold and silver coin, with some articles of clothing, had been

abstracted. The value of the missing articles amounted to about two

thousand Dutch guldens. The house, however, contained many other

articles of value, which, singularly enough, had escaped the notice of

the thieves. In particular, the greater part of the widow's property

consisted of property in the funds, the obligations for which were

deposited, not in the press above-mentioned, but in an iron chest in

her sleeping-room. This chest she had accidentally removed, shortly

before her departure; placing it in a more retired apartment, where it

had fortunately attracted no attention.

The robbery had, apparently, been committed by more than one person;

and, it was naturally suspected, by persons well acquainted with the

house, and with the circumstances of its inhabitants. The house

itself, which was almost the only respectable one in the

neighbourhood, was situated in a retired street. The neighbouring

dwellings were inhabited by the poorer classes, and not a few of the

less reputable members of society. The inner fosse of the town, which

was navigable, flowed along the end of the garden through which the

thieves had, apparently, gained admittance, being separated from the

garden only by a thin thorn hedge. It was conjectured that the thieves

had made their way close to the hedge by means of a boat, and from

thence had clambered over into the garden, along the walks and

flower-beds of which foot-marks were traceable.

The discovery of the robbery had created a general sensation, and the

house was surrounded by a crowd of curious idlers, whom it required

some effort on the part of the police to prevent from intruding into

the premises. One of them only, a baker, and the inhabitant of the

house opposite to that of the widow, succeeded in making his way in

along with the officers of justice. His acquaintances awaited his

return with impatience, trusting to be able, from his revelations, to

gratify their curiosity at second-hand. If so, they were disappointed,

for, on his exit, he assumed an air of mystery, answered equivocally,

and observed, that people might suspect many things of which it might

not be safe to speak.

In proportion, however, to his taciturnity was the loquaciousness of a

woolspinner, Leendert Van N----, the inhabitant of the corner house

next to that of the widow. He mingled with the groups who were

discussing the subject; dropped hints that he had his own notions as

to the culprits, and could, if necessary, give a clue to their

discovery. Among the crowd who were observed to listen to these

effusions, was a Jew dealer in porcelain, a suspected spy of the

police. Before evening, the woolspinner received a summons to the

town-house, and was called upon by the burgomaster for an explanation

of the suspicious expressions he had used. He stammered, hesitated,

pretended he knew of nothing but general grounds of suspicion, like

his neighbours; but being threatened with stronger measures of

compulsion, he at last agreed to speak out, protesting, at the same

time, that he could willingly have spared persons against whom he had

no grudge whatever, and would have been silent for ever, if he had

foreseen the consequence of his indiscretion.

The substance of his disclosure was to this effect:--Opposite the

German post-house, at the head of the street in which the woolspinner

lived, there was a little alehouse. Nicholas D---- was the landlord. He

was generally known among his acquaintances, not by his baptismal or

family name, but by the appellation of the Blue Dragoon, from having

formerly served in the horse regiment of Colonel Van Wackerbarth,

which was popularly known by the name of the Blues. About two years

before, he had become acquainted with and married Hannah, the former

servant of Madame Andrecht, who had been six years in that situation,

and possessed her entire confidence. Unwilling to part with her

attendant, and probably entertaining no favourable notion of the

intended husband, Madame Andrecht had long thrown impediments in the

way of the match, so that the parties were obliged to meet chiefly at

night, and by stealth. Nicholas found his way into the house at night

through the garden of his acquaintance the woolspinner, and across the

hedge which divided it from Madame Andrecht's. Of these nocturnal

visits the woolspinner was at first cognisant, but, fearful of getting

into a scrape with his respectable neighbour, he was under the

necessity of intimating to the bold dragoon, that if he intended to

continue his escalades, he must do so from some other quarter than his

garden. Nicholas obeyed apparently, and desisted; but, to the surprise

of the woolspinner, he found the lovers continued to meet not the less

regularly in Madame Andrecht's garden. One evening, however, the

mystery was explained. The woolspinner, returning home after dark, saw

tied to a post in the canal, close by Madame Andrecht's garden, one of

those small boats which were generally used by the dragoons for

bringing forage from the magazine; and he at once conjectured that

this was the means by which the dragoon was enabled to continue his

nocturnal assignations. With the recollection of this passage in the

landlord's history was combined a circumstance of recent occurrence,

trifling in itself, but which appeared curiously to link in with the

mode in which the robbery appeared to have been effected. Ten days

before the discovery of the housebreaking, and while the widow was in

the country, the woolspinner stated that he found, one morning, a

dirty-coloured handkerchief lying on the grass bank of the fosse, and

exactly opposite his neighbour's garden. He took it up and put it in

his pocket, without thinking about it at the time. At dinner he

happened to remember it, mentioned the circumstance to his wife,

showed her the handkerchief, and observed jestingly, "If Madame

Andrecht were in town, and Hannah were still in her service, we should

say our old friend the Blue Dragoon had been making his rounds and had

dropt his handkerchief." His wife took the handkerchief, examined it,

and exclaimed, "In the name of wonder, what is that you say? Is not

Hannah's husband's name Nicholas D----?" pointing out to him at the

same time the initials N. D. in the corner. Both, however, had

forgotten the circumstance till the occurrence of the robbery

naturally recalled it to the husband's mind.

The woolspinner told his story simply; his conclusions appeared

unstrained: suspicion became strongly directed against the Blue

Dragoon, and these suspicions were corroborated by another

circumstance which emerged at the same time.

During the first search of the house, a half-burnt paper, which seemed

to have been used for lighting a pipe, was found on the floor, near

the press which had been broken open. Neither Madame Andrecht nor her

maid smoked; the police officers had no pipes when they entered the

house; so the match had in all probability been dropped on the ground

by the housebreakers.

On examination of the remains of the paper, it appeared to have been a

receipt, such as was usually granted by the excise to innkeepers for

payment of the duties on spirits received into the town from a

distance, and which served as a permit entitling the holder to put the

article into his cellars. The upper part of the receipt containing the

name of the party to whom it was granted was burnt, but the lower part

was preserved, containing the signature of the excise officer, and the

date of the permit: it was the 16th March of the same year. From these

materials it was easy to ascertain what innkeeper in the town had, on

that day, received such a permit for spirits. From an examination of

the excise register, it appeared that on that day Nicholas D---- had

received and paid the duties on several ankers of Geneva. Taken by

itself, this would have afforded but slender evidence that he had been

the person who had used the paper for a match, and had dropped it

within Madame Andrecht's room; but, taken in connexion with the

finding of the handkerchief, and the suspicious history of his

nocturnal rambles which preceded it, it strengthened in a high degree

the suspicions against the ex-dragoon.

After a short consultation, orders were issued for his apprehension.

Surprise, it was thought, would probably extort from him an immediate

confession. His wife, his father--a man advanced in years--and his

brother, a shoemaker's apprentice, were apprehended at the same time.

A minute search of the house of the innkeeper followed; but none of

the stolen articles were at first discovered, and indeed nothing that

could excite suspicion, except a larger amount of money than might

perhaps have been expected. At last, as the search was on the point of

being given up, there was found in one of the drawers a

memorandum-book. This was one of the articles mentioned in the list of

Madame Andrecht's effects; and, on inspection, there could be no doubt

that this was the one referred to--for several pages bore private

markings in her own handwriting, and in a side-pocket were found two

letters bearing her address. Beyond this, none of the missing,

articles could be traced in the house.

The persons apprehended were severally examined. Nicholas

D---- answered every question with the utmost frankness and unconcern.

He admitted the truth of the woolspinner's story of his courtship, his

nightly scrambles over the hedge, and his subsequent visits to his

intended by means of the forage-boat. The handkerchief he admitted to

be his property. When and where he had lost it he could not say. It

had disappeared about six months before, and he had thought no more

about it. When the pocket-book which had been found was laid before

him, he gave it back without embarrassment, declared he knew nothing

of it, had never had it in his possession, and shook his head with a

look of surprise and incredulity when told where it had been found.

The other members of his household appeared equally unembarrassed:

they expressed even greater astonishment than he had done, that the

pocket-book, with which they declared themselves entirely

unacquainted, should have been found in the place where it was. The

young wife burst out into passionate exclamations: she protested it

was impossible; or if the book was really found on the spot, that it

was inexplicable to her how it came there. The Saturday before, (her

apprehension having taken place on a Thursday,) she had brushed out

the press from top to bottom--had cleared out the contents, and

nothing of the kind was then to be found there.

The behaviour of the married pair and their inmates made, on the

whole, a favourable impression on the judge who conducted the inquiry.

Their calmness appeared to him the result of innocence; their

character was good; their house was orderly and quiet, and none of the

articles of value had been discovered in their possession. True, they

might have disposed of them elsewhere; but the articles were numerous,

and of a kind likely to lead to detection. Why should they have

preserved the comparatively worthless article found in the drawer,

instead of burning or destroying it? Why, above all, preserve it in a

spot so likely to be discovered, if they had so carefully made away

with every trace of the rest?

Still unquestionable suspicions rested on the landlord. The thieves

must have been well acquainted with Madame Andrecht's house; and this

was undeniably his position. His handkerchief, found on the spot about

the time of the robbery; the half-burned match dropped on the

premises; the pocket-book found in his own house--these, though not

amounting to proof, scarcely seemed to admit of an explanation

absolutely consistent with innocence.

In this stage of the inquiry, a new witness entered upon the scene. A

respectable citizen, a dealer in wood, voluntarily appeared before the

authorities, and stated that his conscience would no longer allow him

to conceal certain circumstances which appeared to bear upon the

question, though, from an unwillingness to come forward or to appear

as an informer against parties who might be innocent, he had hitherto

suppressed any mention of them.

Among his customers was the well-known carpenter, Isaac Van C----, who

was generally considerably in arrears with his payments. These arrears

increased: the wood-merchant became pressing: at last he threatened

judicial proceedings. This brought matters to a point. A few days

before the discovery of the robbery at Madame Andrecht's, the

carpenter made his appearance in his house, and entreated him to delay

proceedings, which he said would be his ruin, by bringing all his

creditors on his back. "See," said he, "in what manner I am paid

myself," putting a basket on the table, which contained a pair of

silver candlesticks and a silver coffee-pot. "One of my debtors owes

me upwards of sixty guldens: I have tried in vain to get payment, and

have been glad to accept of these as the only chance of making any

thing of the debt. From the silversmiths here I should not get the

half the value for them: I must keep them by me till I go to

Amsterdam, where such things are understood; but I shall leave them

with you in pledge for my debt." The wood-merchant at first declined

receiving them, but at length, thinking that it was his only prospect

of obtaining ultimate payment, he yielded, and the articles remained

in his hands.

A few days afterwards, the robbery became public; the list of the

silver articles contained a coffee-pot and candlesticks; and the

wood-merchant, not doubting that the articles pledged had formed part

of the abstracted effects, had felt himself compelled to make known

the way in which they had been obtained, and to place them in the

hands of the officers of justice. He meant, he said, to convey no

imputation against the carpenter, but it would be easy to learn from

his own lips who was the debtor from whom the articles had come.

The court ordered the basket with the plate to be placed, covered,

upon the table, and sent forthwith for the carpenter. He arrived in

breathless haste, but seemed prepared for what followed, and without

waiting for the interrogatories of the judge, he proceeded with his

explanation.

Pressed by his creditor the wood-merchant, the carpenter, in his turn,

proceeded to press his own debtors. Among these was the Blue Dragoon,

Nicholas D----, who was indebted to him in an account of sixty guldens

for work done on his premises. Nicholas entreated for delay but the

carpenter being peremptory, he inquired whether he would not take some

articles of old silver plate in payment, which, he said, had belonged

to his father, and had been left to him as a legacy by an old lady in

whose family he had been coachman. It was at last agreed that the

carpenter should take the plate at a certain value as a partial

payment, and it was accordingly brought to his house the same evening

by the dragoon. The latter advised him, in the event of his wishing to

dispose of the plate, to take it to Amsterdam, as the silversmiths of

the place would not give him half the value for the articles. The

carpenter asked him why he had not carried it to Amsterdam himself.

"So I would," he answered, "if you had given me time. As it is, give

me your promise not to dispose of it here--I have my own reasons for

it."

If this statement was correct--and there seemed no reason to doubt the

fairness of the carpenter's story--it pressed most heavily against the

accused. He was thus found in possession of part of the stolen

property, and disposing of it, under the most suspicious

circumstances, to a third party.

He was examined anew, and the beginning of his declaration

corresponded exactly with the deposition of the carpenter. The latter

had worked for him: he was sixty guldens in his debt. He was asked if

he had paid the account: he answered he had not been in a condition to

do so. He was shown the silver plate, and was told what had been

stated by the carpenter. He stammered, became pale, and protested he

knew nothing of the plate; and in this statement he persisted in the

presence of witnesses. He was then shown the gold which had been found

in his house. It belonged, he said, not to himself, but to his

father-in-law.

This part of the statement, indeed, was confirmed by the other inmates

of his family; but, in other respects, their statements were

calculated to increase the suspicions against him. Nicholas, for

instance, had stated that no part of his debt to Isaac, had been

paid--that in fact he had not been in a condition to do so--while the

other three members of the household, on the contrary, maintained that

a few months before he _had_ made a payment of twenty guldens to

Isaac, expressly to account of this claim. Nicholas became vastly

embarrassed when this contradiction between his own statement and the

evidence of the witnesses was pointed out to him. For the first time

his composure forsook him--he begged pardon for the falsehood he had

uttered. It was true, he said, that he had counted out twenty guldens,

in presence of the members of his family, and told them it was

intended as a payment to account of Isaac's claim; but the money had

not been paid to his creditor. He had been obliged to appropriate it

to the payment of some old gambling debts, of which he could not

venture to inform his wife.

This departure from truth on the part of the accused had apparently

but slender bearing on the question of the robbery; but it excited a

general doubt as to his statements, which further inquiry tended to

confirm. The carpenter, anxious to remove any suspicion as to the

truth of his own story, produced a sort of account-book kept by

himself, in which, under the sale of 23d June, there was the following

entry,--"The innkeeper, Nicholas D----, has this day paid me the value

of thirty guldens in old silver." The housekeeper and apprentice of

the carpenter also deponed that they had been present on one occasion

when the dragoon had proposed that their master should take the silver

in payment.

If, on the one hand, the innkeeper had handed over to the carpenter

the silver plate, it was plain he was either the thief or the

receiver: if he had not done so, the carpenter had not only been

guilty of a calumnious accusation, but the suspicion of a guilty

connexion with the robbery became turned against himself. All

presumptions, however, were against the innkeeper. He had admittedly

been guilty of a decided falsehood as to the payment,--he could not or

would not give the names of any one of those to whom his gambling

debts had been paid, as he alleged,--and the fact that he had brought

the plate to the carpenter's was attested by three creditable

witnesses.

The general opinion in the town was decidedly against him. The utmost

length that any one ventured to go, was, to suggest that his

relations, who had been apprehended along with him, might be innocent

of any participation in his guilt; though, being naturally anxious to

save him, they might somewhat have compromised the truth by their

silence, or their statements.

The dragoon was removed from his provisional custody to the prison pf

the town; the others were subjected to a close surveillance, that all

communication between them might be prevented. As all of them,

however, persisted in the story, exactly as it had at first been told,

stronger measures were at length resorted to. On the motion of the

burgomaster, as public prosecutor, "that the principal party accused,

Nicholas D----, should be delivered over to undergo the usual

preparatory process for compelling confession," namely the torture,

the court, after consideration of the state of the evidence,

unanimously issued the usual warrant against him to that effect. Some

pitied him, though none doubted his guilt. The general impression in

the town was, that the courage of the innkeeper would soon give way,

and that, in fact, he would probably confess the whole upon the first

application of the torture.

The preparations were complete--the torture was to take place the next

day, when the following letter, bearing the post-mark of Rotterdam,

was received by the court,--

"Before I leave the country, and betake myself where I shall be beyond

the reach either of the court of M---- or the military tribunal of the

garrison, I would save the poor unfortunate persons who are now

prisoners at M----. Beware of punishing the innkeeper, his wife, his

father, and brother, for a crime of which they are not guilty. How the

story of the carpenter is connected with theirs, I cannot conjecture.

I have heard of it with the greatest surprise. The latter may not

himself be entirely innocent. Let the judge pay attention to this

remark. You may spare yourselves the trouble of inquiring after me. If

the wind is favourable, by the time you read this letter I shall be on

my passage to England.

"JOSEPH CHRISTIAN RUHLER,

"Former Corporal in the Company of Le Lery."

The court gladly availed themselves of the opportunity afforded by

this letter to put off the torture. At first sight it did not appear a

mere device to obtain delay. A company under Captain Le Lery was in

garrison in the town; in that company there was a corporal of the name

of Ruhler, who some weeks before had deserted and disappeared from his

quarters. All inquiries after him since had proved in vain. The court

subsequently learned from the report of the officer in command, that

he had disappeared the evening before the day when the news of the

robbery became public. He had been last seen by the guard in the

course of the forenoon before his disappearance. Some connexion

between the events appeared extremely probable.

But a new discovery seemed suddenly to demolish the conclusions

founded on the letter. It had been laid before the commanding officer,

who at once declared the handwriting was counterfeited; it was not

that of Ruhler, which was well known, nor had it the least resemblance

to it. The evidence of several of his comrades, and a comparison of

the handwriting with some regimental lists, undoubtedly in the

handwriting of Ruhler, proved this beyond a doubt.

The letter from Rotterdam thus was merely the device of some unknown

friend or confederate, and probably resorted to only to put off the

punishment of the accused. How indeed, if Ruhler was really implicated

in the robbery, should he have thus cast suspicion upon himself? If

his object had been merely to preserve the innkeeper and his friends

from the torture, he would have assumed some other name. In all

probability, therefore, some third party, implicated in the robbery,

had availed himself of the accidental disappearance of the corporal to

throw the suspicion of the robbery upon him, and to exculpate the

guilty parties, who, if brought to the torture, might be induced to

disclose the names of all their associates. To prevent this was

probably the object of the letter. This, at least, was the prevailing

opinion.

The strongest efforts were now made to discover the true writer of the

letter; and mean time the torture was put off, when two other

important witnesses made their appearance on the stage. Neither had

the least connexion with the other; nay, the circumstances which they

narrated appeared in some respects contradictory, and while they threw

light on the subject in one quarter, they only served to darken it in

another.

A merchant in the town, who dealt in different wares, and lived in the

neighbourhood of Madame Andrecht's house, had been absent on a journey

of business during the discovery of the robbery, and the course of the

subsequent judicial proceedings. Scarcely had he returned and heard

the story of the robbery, when he voluntarily presented himself next

morning before the authorities, for the purpose, as he said, of making

important revelations, which might have the effect of averting

destruction from the innocent. In the public coach he had already

heard some particulars of the case, and had formed his own

conjectures; but since his return, these conjectures had with him

grown into convictions, and he had not closed an eye from the

apprehension that his disclosures might come too late. Had he returned

sooner, matters would never have reached this length.

At the time when the robbery must have taken place, he had been in the

town. The carpenter, Isaac Van C----, called upon him one day, begging

the loan of the boat, which he was in the custom of using for the

transport of bales and heavy packages to different quarters of the

town. The boat generally lay behind the merchant's house, close to his

warehouse, which was situated on the bank of the town fosse already

alluded to. Isaac assured him he would require the boat only for a

night or two, and would take care that it was returned in the morning

in good condition. To the question why he wanted the boat at night,

he, after some hesitation, returned for answer, that he had engaged to

transport the furniture of some people who were removing, and who had

their own reasons for not doing so in daylight, implying that they

were taking French leave of their creditors. "And you propose to lend

yourself to such a transaction," said the merchant, peremptorily

refusing the loan of the boat. The carpenter interrupted him: assured

him he had only jested; that his real object was only to amuse himself

in fishing with some of his comrades; and that he had only not stated

that at first, as the merchant might be apprehensive that the

operation would dirty his boat. The merchant at last yielded to the

continued requests of the carpenter, and agreed to lend him the boat,

but upon the express condition that it should be returned to its place

in the morning. In this respect the carpenter kept his word; when the

merchant went to his warehouse in the morning, he saw the carpenter

and his apprentice engaged in fastening the boat. They went away

without observing him. It struck him, however, as singular, that they

appeared to have with them neither nets nor fishing-tackle of any

kind. He examined the boat, and was surprised to find it perfectly

clean and dry, whereas, if used for fishing, it would probably have

been found half-filled with water, and dirty enough. In this

particular, then, the carpenter had been detected in an untruth. The

boat had not been fastened to its usual place; the merchant jumped

into it for that purpose, and from a crevice in the side he saw

something protruding; he took it out; it was a couple of silver forks

wrapped in paper. Thus the carpenter's first version of the story--as

to the purpose for which he wanted the boat,--was the true one after

all. He _had_ been assisting some bankrupt to carry off his effects.

Angry at having been thus deceived, the merchant put the forks in his

pocket, and set out forthwith on his way to Isaac's. The carpenter,

his apprentice, and his housekeeper, were in the workshop. He produced

the forks. "These," said he, "are what you have left in my boat. Did

you use these to eat your fish with?"

The three were visibly embarrassed. They cast stolen glances upon one

another; no one ventured to speak. The housekeeper first recovered her

composure. She stammered out,--"that he must not think ill of them;

that her master had only been assisting some people who were leaving

the town quietly, to remove their furniture and effects." As the

transaction was unquestionably not of the most creditable character,

this might account for the visible embarrassment they betrayed; when

he demanded, however, the names of the parties whose effects they had

been removing, no answer was forthcoming. The carpenter at last told

him he was not at liberty to disclose them then, but that he should

learn them afterwards. All three pressingly entreated him to be silent

as to this matter. He was so; but in the mean time made inquiry

quietly as to who had left the town, though without success. Shortly

after, his journey took place, and the transaction had worn out of

mind, till recalled to his recollection on his return, when he was

made aware of the whole history of the robbery; and forthwith came to

the conclusion, that there lay at the bottom of the matter some

shameful plot to implicate the innocent, and to shield those whom he

believed to be the true criminals, namely, Isaac Van C----, his

apprentice, and housekeeper, the leading witnesses, in fact, against

the unfortunate dragoon.

The criminal proceedings, in consequence of these disclosures, took a

completely different turn. The merchant was a witness entirely above

suspicion. True, there was here only the testimony of one witness,

either to the innocence of the dragoon, or the guilt of the carpenter;

but the moral conviction to which his statement gave rise in the mind

of the judge was so strong, that he did not hesitate to issue an

immediate order for the arrest of the carpenter and his companions,

before publicity should be given to the merchant's disclosures. No

sooner were they apprehended, than a strict scrutiny was made in the

carpenter's house.

This measure was attended with the most complete success. With the

exception of a few trifles, the whole of the effects which had been

abstracted from Madame Andrecht's, were found in the house. The

examination of the prisoners produced a very different result from

those of Nicholas and his comrades. True, they denied the charges, but

they did so with palpable confusion, and their statements abounded in

the grossest contradictions of each other and even of themselves. They

came to recriminations and mutual accusations; and, being threatened

with the torture, they at last offered to make a full confession. The

substance of their admissions was as follows:--

Isaac Van C----, his apprentice, and his housekeeper, were the real

perpetrators of the robbery at Madame Andrecht's. Who had first

suggested to them the design, does not appear from the evidence. But

with the old lady's house and its arrangements they were as fully

acquainted as the dragoon. The apprentice, when formerly in the

service of another master, had wrought in it, and knew every corner of

it thoroughly. They had borrowed the boat for the purpose of getting

access across the canal into the garden, and used it for carrying off

the stolen property, as already mentioned. On the morning when the

robbery became public, the master and the apprentice had mingled with

the crowd to learn what reports were in circulation on the subject.

Among other things, the apprentice had heard that the woolspinner's

wife had unhesitatingly expressed her suspicions against the Blue

Dragoon. Of this he informed his comrades, and they, delighted at

finding so convenient a scapegoat for averting danger from themselves,

forthwith formed the infernal design of directing, by every means in

their power, the suspicions of justice against the innkeeper.

The apprentice entered the drinking-room of the innkeeper, and called

for some schnaps, at the same time asking for a coal to light his

pipe. While the innkeeper went out to fetch the coal, the apprentice

took the opportunity of slipping the widow's memorandum-book, which he

had brought in his pocket, betwixt the drawers. He succeeded, and the

consequences followed as the culprits had foreseen: the house was

searched, the book found, and, in the eyes of many, the dragoon's

guilt established.

If these confessions were to be trusted, the dragoon and his family

seemed exculpated from any actual participation in the robbery. Still,

there were circumstances which these confessions did not clear up;

some grave points of doubt remained unexplained. That the carpenter

had himself pledged the silver plate with the wood-merchant, without

having received it from Nicholas, was now likely enough; he had

accused him, probably, only to screen himself. But how came Nicholas's

handkerchief to be found by the side of the hedge? How came the excise

receipt, which belonged to him, to be used as a match by the thieves?

The carpenter and his comrades declared that as to these facts they

knew nothing; and as they had now no inducement to conceal the truth,

there could be no reasonable doubt that their statement might, in

these particulars, be depended upon.

The suspicion again arose that other accomplices must be concerned in

the affair; and the subject of the letter from the corporal who had

deserted, became anew the subject of attention. If not written by

himself, it might have been written by another at his suggestion, and

in one way or other it might have a connexion with the mysterious

subject of the robbery.

In fact, while the proceedings against the carpenter and his

associates were in progress, an incident had occurred, which could not

fail to awaken curiosity and attention with regard to this letter. The

schoolmaster of a village about a league from the town presented

himself before the authorities, exhibited a scrap of paper on which

nothing appeared but the name Joseph Christian Ruhler, and inquired

whether, shortly before, a letter in this handwriting and subscribed

with this name, had not been transmitted to the court? On comparing

the handwriting of the letter with the paper exhibited by the

schoolmaster, it was unquestionable that both were the production of

the same hand.

The statement of the schoolmaster was this,--

In the village where he resided, there was a deaf and dumb young man,

named Henry Hechting, who had been sent by the parish to the

schoolmaster for board and education. He had succeeded in imparting to

the unfortunate youth the art of writing; so perfectly, indeed, that

he could communicate with any one by means of a slate and

slate-pencil which he always carried about with him. He also wrote so

fair a hand, that he was employed by many persons, and even sometimes

by the authorities, to transcribe or copy writings for them. Some time

before, an unknown person had appeared in the village, had inquired

after the deaf and dumb young man in the schoolmaster's absence, and

had taken him with him to the alehouse to write out something for him.

The unknown had called for a private room, ordered a bottle of wine,

and, by means of the slate, gave him to understand that he wanted him

to make a clean copy of the draft of a letter which he produced.

Hechting did so at once without suspicion. Still, the contents of the

letter appeared to him of a peculiar and questionable kind, and the

whole demeanour of the stranger evinced restlessness and anxiety. When

he came, however, to add the address of the letter, "To Herr Van der

R----, Burgomaster of M----," he hesitated to do so, and yielded only

to the pressing entreaties of the stranger, who paid him a gulden for

his trouble, requesting him to preserve strict silence as to the whole

affair.

The deaf and dumb young man, when he began to reflect on the matter,

felt more and more convinced that he had unconsciously been made a

party to some illegal transaction. He at last confessed the whole to

his instructor, who at once perceived that there existed a close

connexion between the incident which had occurred and the criminal

procedure in the noted case of the robbery. The letter of the corporal

had already got into circulation in the neighbourhood, and was plainly

the one which his pupil had been employed to copy. The schoolmaster,

at his own hand, set on foot a small preliminary inquiry. He hastened

to the innkeeper of the village inn, and asked him if he could

recollect the stranger who some days before had ordered a private room

and a bottle of wine, and who had been for some time shut up with the

deaf and dumb lad. The host remembered the circumstance, but did not

know the man. His wife, however, recollected that she had seen him

talking on terms of cordial familiarity with the corn-miller,

Overblink, as he was resting at the inn with his carts. The

schoolmaster repaired on the spot to Overblink, inquired who was the

man with whom he had conversed and shaken hands some days before at

the inn; and the miller, without much hesitation, answered, that he

remembered the day, the circumstance, and the man, very well: and that

the latter was his old acquaintance the baker, H----, from the town.

The schoolmaster hastened to lay these particulars before the

authorities.

How, then, was the well-known baker, H----, implicated in this affair,

which seemed gradually to be expanding itself so strangely? The facts

as to the robbery itself seemed exhausted by the confessions of the

carpenter and his associates. They alone had broken into the

house--they alone had carried off and appropriated the stolen

articles. And yet, if the baker was entirely unconnected with the

matter, what could be his motive for mixing himself up with the

transaction, and writing letters, as if to avert suspicion from those

who had been first accused? Was his motive simply compassion? Was he

aware of the real circumstances of the crime, and its true

perpetrators? Did he know that the Blue Dragoon was innocent? But if

so, why employ this mysterious and circuitous mode of assisting him?

Why resort to this anxious precaution of employing a deaf and dumb lad

as his amanuensis? why such signs of restlessness and apprehension,--such

anxious injunctions of silence? Plainly the baker was not entirely

innocent: this was the conviction left on the minds of the judges; for

it was now recollected that this baker was the same person who, on the

morning when the robbery was detected, had contrived to make his way

into the house along with the officers of justice. It was he who had

lifted from the ground the match containing the half-burnt receipt,

and handed it to the officers present. His excessive zeal had even

attracted attention before. Had he, then, broken into the house

independently of the carpenter? Had he, too, committed a robbery--and

was he agitated by the fear of its detection? But all the stolen

articles had been recovered, and all of them had been found with the

carpenter. The mystery, for the moment, seemed only increased; but it

was about to be cleared up in a way wonderful enough, but entirely

satisfactory.

While the schoolmaster and the miller Overblink were detained at the

Council-Chamber, the baker H---- was taken into custody. A long and

circumstantial confession was the result, to the particulars of which

we shall immediately advert. From his disclosures, a warrant was also

issued for the apprehension of the woolspinner, Leendert Van N---- and

his wife--the same who had at first circulated the reports and

suspicions against the dragoon; and who had afterwards given such

plausible, and, as it appeared, such frank and sincere information

against him before the court. Both had taken the opportunity of making

off: but the pursuit of justice was successful--before evening they

were brought back and committed to prison.

The criminal procedure now proceeded rapidly to a close, but it

related to a quite different matter from the robbery. This third

association of culprits, it appeared, had as little to do with the

carpenter and his comrades as these had with the dragoon and his

inmates. But for the housebreaking, in which the persons last arrested

had no share, the real crime in which they were concerned would, in

all human probability, never have seen the light.

The following disclosures were the result of the confessions of the

guilty, and of the other witnesses who were examined.

On the evening of the 29th June, there were assembled in the low and

dirty chamber of the woolspinner, Leendert Van N----, a party of

cardplayers. It has already been mentioned that this quarter of the

town was in a great measure inhabited by the disreputable portion of

the public--only a few houses, like those of Madame Andrecht, being

occupied by the better classes. The gamblers were the Corporal Ruhler,

of the company of Le Lery, then lying in garrison in the place, the

master baker H----, and the host himself, Leendert Van N----. The

party were old acquaintances; they hated and despised each other, but

a community of interests and pursuits drew them together.

The baker and corporal had been long acquainted; the former baked the

bread for the garrison company, the latter had the charge of receiving

it from him. The corporal had soon detected various frauds committed

by the baker, and gave the baker the choice of denouncing them to the

commanding officer, or sharing with him the profits of the fraud. The

baker naturally chose the latter, but hated the corporal as much as he

feared him; while the latter made him continually feel how completely

he considered him in his power.

A still deadlier enmity existed between the corporal and the

woolspinner and his wife. The latter had formerly supplied the

garrison with gaiters and other articles of clothing, and he had

reason to believe that the corporal had been the means of depriving

him of this commission, by which he had suffered materially. But the

corporal had still a good deal in his power; he might be the means of

procuring other orders, and it was necessary, therefore, to suppress

any appearance of irritation, and even to appear to court his favour.

Such an association as that which subsisted among these comrades,

where each hates and suspects the other, and nothing but the tie of a

common interest unites them, can never be of long duration. The moment

is sure to arrive when the spark falls upon the mine which has been so

long prepared, and the explosion takes place, the more fearful the

longer it has been delayed.

These worthy associates were playing cards on the evening

above-mentioned: they quarrelled; and the quarrel became more and more

embittered. The long-suppressed hatred on the part of the baker and

the woolspinner burst forth. The corporal retorted in terms equally

offensive; he applied to them the epithets which they deserved. From

words they proceeded to blows, and deadly weapons were laid hold of on

both sides. But two male foes and a female fury, arrayed on one side,

were too much even for a soldier. The corporal, seized and pinioned

from behind by the woman, fell under the blows of the woolspinner. As

yet the baker had rather hounded on the others than actually

interfered in the scuffle; but when the corporal, stretched on the

ground, and his head bleeding from a blow on the corner of the table,

which he had received in falling, began to utter loud curses against

them, and to threaten them all with public exposure--particularly that

deceitful scoundrel the baker--the latter, prompted either by fear or

hatred, whispered to the woolspinner and his wife that now was the

time to make an end of him at once; and that if they did not, they

were ruined.

The deadly counsel was adopted: they fell upon the corporal; with a

few blows life was extinct; the corpse, swimming in blood, lay at

their feet. The deed was irrevocable; all three had shared in it; all

were alike guilty, and had the same reason to tremble at the terrors

of the law. With the body still warm at their feet, they entered into

a solemn mutual engagement to be true to each other; to preserve

inviolable secrecy as to the crime; and to extinguish, so far as in

them lay, every trace of its commission.

On the night of the murder, they had devised no plan for washing out

the blood, and removing the body, which of course required to be

disposed of, so that the disappearance of Ruhler might cause no

suspicion. The terrors of conscience, and the apprehension of the

consequences of their crime, had too completely occupied their minds

for the moment. The next morning, however, they met again at the

woolspinner's house to arrange their plans. Suddenly a noise was heard

in the street,--it was the commotion caused by the news of the

discovery of the robbery at Madame Andrecht's. The culprits stood pale

and confounded. What was more probable than that an immediate search

in pursuit of the robbers, or of the stolen articles, would take place

into every house of this suspected and disreputable quarter. The

woolspinner's house was the next to that which had been robbed; the

flooring was at that moment wet with blood; the body of the murdered

corporal lay in the cellar. Immediate measures must be resorted to, to

stop the apprehended search, till time could be found for removing the

body.

The object, then, was to give to the authorities such hints as should

induce them to pass over the houses of the baker and the woolspinner.

The woolspinner's wife had the merit of devising the infernal project

which occurred to them. The Blue Dragoon was to be the victim. A

robbery had taken place. Why might he not have been the criminal? He

had often scaled the hedge--had often entered the house at night

during his courtship. But then a corroborating circumstance might be

required to ground the suspicion. It was supplied by the possession of

a handkerchief which he had accidentally dropt in her house, and which

she had not thought it necessary to restore to him. It might be placed

in any spot they thought fit, and the first links in the chain of

suspicion were clear.

The invention of the baker came to the aid of the woolspinner's wife.

One token was not enough; a second proof of the presence of the

dragoon in Madame Andrecht's house must be devised. The baker had, one

day, been concluding a bargain with a peasant before the house of the

dragoon. He required a bit of paper to make some calculation, and

asked the host for some, who handed him an old excise permit, telling

him to make his calculations on the back. This scrap of paper the

baker still had in his pocket-book. This would undoubtedly compromise

the dragoon. But then it bore the name and handwriting of the baker on

the back. This portion of it was accordingly burnt; the date and the

signature of the excise officer were enough for the diabolical purpose

it was intended to effect. It was rolled up into a match, and

deposited by the baker (who, as already said, had contrived to make

his way along with the police into the house) upon the floor, where he

pretended to find it, and deliver it to the authorities.

The machinations of these wretches were unconsciously assisted by

those of the carpenter and his confederates. The suspicion which the

handkerchief and the match had originated, the finding of the

pocket-book within the house of the dragoon appeared to confirm and

complete,--an accidental concurrence of two independent plots, both

resorted to from the principle of self-preservation, and having in

view the same infernal object.

But this object, so far as concerned the baker and the woolspinner,

had been too effectually attained. They had wished to excite suspicion

against Nicholas, only with the view of gaining time to remove the

corpse, and efface the traces of the murder. This had been

effected--their intrigue had served its purpose; and they could not

but feel some remorse at the idea that an innocent person should be

thereby brought to ruin. The strange intervention of chance--the

finding of the pocket-book, the accusation by the carpenter, filled

them with a secret terror; they trembled: their consciences again

awoke. The thought of the torture, which awaited the unfortunate

innkeeper, struck them with horror. It was not the ordinary fear of

guilty men, afraid of the disclosures of an accomplice--for the

dragoon knew nothing, he could say nothing to compromise them,--it was

a feeling implanted by a Divine power, which seemed irresistibly to

impel them to use their endeavours to avert his fate.

They met, they consulted as to their plans. A scheme occurred to them

which promised to serve a double purpose,--by which delay might be

obtained for Nicholas, while at the same time it might be made the

means of permanently ensuring their own safety. To resuscitate the

murdered Corporal Ruhler in another quarter, and to charge him with

the guilt of the robbery, might serve both ends. It gave a chance of

escape to Nicholas: it accounted for the disappearance of the

corporal. Hence the letter which represented him as alive, as the

perpetrator of the robbery, and as a deserter flying to another

country; which they thought would very naturally put a stop to all

further inquiry after him.

But their plan was too finely spun, and the very precautions to which

they had resorted, led, as sometimes happens, to discovery. If they

had been satisfied to allow the proposed letter to be copied out by

the woolspinner's wife, as she offered, to be taken by her to

Rotterdam, and put into the post, suspicion could hardly have been

awakened against them: the handwriting of the woman, who had seldom

occasion to use the pen, would have been unknown to the burgomaster or

the court. The deaf and dumb youth, to whom they resorted as their

copyist, betrayed them: step by step they were traced out,--and,

between fear and hope, a full confession was at last extorted from

them.

Sentence of death was pronounced against the parties who had been

concerned in the housebreaking as well as in the murder, and carried

into effect against all of them, with the exception of the

woolspinner's wife, who died during her imprisonment. The woolspinner

alone exhibited any signs of penitence.

LAURELS AND LAUREATES.

A young lady of Thessaly, celebrated for her beauty and modesty, was

admired by a dissolute young gentleman, a native of the erratic isle

of Delos. This roving blade was of high birth and consummate address,

yet the nymph was more than coy; she turned from him with aversion,

and when he would have pressed his suit, she took to her heels along

the banks of the Peneus. The audacious lover darted after her, as a

greyhound in pursuit of a hare; and the fugitive, perceiving that she

must lose the race, implored the gods to screen her. The breath of the

pursuer was fanning her "back hair;" his hands stretched forth to stop

her; but as he closed them, instead of the prize that he expected to

secure, he embraced an armful of green leaves. The hunter had lost his

game in a thicket of bay or female laurel. Inconsolable, he shed some

natural tears; but having a conceit in his misery, he twined a branch

of the laurel into a wreath, and placed it on his head in memorial of

his misadventure. A glance at himself in the nearest pool of the river

told him that the glossy ornament was becoming to his fine complexion;

and the youth, being a poet and pretty considerably a coxcomb, wore

one ever after; and it has been the custom ever since to adorn the

brows of all great poets, and of some small ones, with sprigs of

laurel.

"Tis sung in ancient minstrelsy

That Phœbus wont to wear

The leaves of any pleasant tree

Around his golden hair;

Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit

Of his imperious love,

At her own prayer transform'd, took root--

A laurel in the grove.

Then did the Penitent adorn

His brow with laurel green;

And mid his bright locks, never shorn,

No meaner leaf was seen;

_And poets sage through every age

About their temples wound

The bay._"

So sings our living laureate; and this authentic anecdote, familiar to

every schoolboy who studies ancient history in Ovid, shows that the

coronation of poets was customary long before the age of Homer; and

coeval, as it were, with poetry itself. The disappointed lover of

Daphne, the first poet, was also the first laureat, and placed the

crown on his head with his own hands, as many poets have done since,

with a frank Napoleon-like self-appreciation. Having afterwards

quarrelled with his father, and been expelled from home for sundry

extravagancies, he returned with his lyre and laurel into Thessaly,

the land of his first love--_primus amor Phœbi, Daphne Peneia_--and

for nine years served a prince of that country in the double capacity

of poet and shepherd. Thus, though the exact date is not ascertained,

the original tenure of the honourable office of poet-royal is pretty

clearly traced to Apollo himself.

But if we proceed from Apollo, our chapter on laureates will be longer

than the tail of a comet. We must apply our wise saws to comparatively

modern instances, hardly glancing for a moment even as far back as the

age of Augustus, to observe that, of his two laurelled favourites,

Virgil and Horace, the latter loftily maintains the dignity of the

poet's position, when, in his Ode to Lollius, he shows that the

alliance between poetic and regal or heroic power, was mutually

important from the earliest ages. Kings, wise and great, flourished

before Agamemnon, but are utterly forgotten:

"Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!

They had no poet, and they died:

In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!

They had no poet, and are dead."

Petrarch is, perhaps, the first eminent poet, among Christians, whose

genius is indisputably associated with the laurel crown, which was

conferred on him with all form, at Rome, by authority of the king,

senate, and people, _in especial token of his quality of poet_. But

the laurel was conspicuously the type of his fame in that character.

His mistress was a laurel in name, and a Daphne in nature, if we give

credence to his melodious complaints of her coldness. Many persons

have doubted the very existence of Laura as any thing but an

Apollonic laurel, or poetical abstraction of glory, almost too subtle

for analysis by metaphysics. We have no such doubt of her materiality;

for, over and above all other evidence, there are many passages in

those songs and sonnets, that tell of a love, in the poet at least,

which, though ever refined, was not all spiritual. In the same way,

Dante's Beatrice has been pronounced an incorporeal creation,--a

vision of theology, though in his _Vita Nuova_ he expressly declares

who she was, where and when she was born, her age and his own, when he

first met her, and the year and the day, and the very hour, when she

died. Milton read them both truly, and recognised in their writings

the language of the human heart, and the truth of human passion

undebased by a particle of grossness. Speaking of the laureate

fraternity of poets, and of his own early partiality for the elegiac

writers, he nobly says: "Above them all, I preferred the two famous

renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but in honour of them

to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts

without transgression." After that lofty encomium from such authority,

may we venture to observe that among the laureates of Italy there is

one still greater poet than the Recluse of Avignon? We do not say a

greater man, for the popular reputation of Petrarch, resting as it

does on his accomplishment of verse, is not perhaps founded on the

strongest of his claims to admiration. But Tasso, too, was a formally

laureated bard. And his chaplet was unwithered in the dungeon, to

which the cruellest Turk among the desecrators of Jerusalem would

hardly have condemned him, for merely presumptuous aspirations after a

bright ornament of his harem. Tasso's eulogium, in his grand epic, of

the Christian prince who afterwards became his jailer, is an immortal

reprobation of the unfeeling tyrant. The wrongs of genius are avenged

even by its praise, which, when thus proved to have been undeserved,

is satire undisguised. Petrarch and Tasso appear to be the only

distinguished laureates of Italy. The rest were mere versifiers, for

the most part fluent and insipid. But some Italian poets were

complimented with the laurel in Germany, where the poetical college,

founded at Vienna by Maximilian I., produced few native laureates

worthy of the honour. Yet "the Emperors of Germany," says D'Israeli,

who condemned the Abbé Resnel's memoir on the subject, "retained the

laureateship in all its splendour. The selected bard was called _Il

Poeta Cesareo_. Apostolo Zeno, as celebrated for his erudition as for

his poetic powers, was succeeded by that most enchanting poet

Metastasio,"--of whom, by-the-by, Sir James Mackintosh has also

written in enthusiastic commendation; not, however, for his felicity

as a poet, but for the deep and well-digested critical learning

displayed in his prose treatise on Aristotle's Art of Poetry. "The

French," continues Mr D'Israeli,--and we quote what he borrows from

Resnel, because, though they do not tell us much, scarcely any other

persons have hitherto told us any thing to the purpose on this

matter,--"the French never had a poet-laureate, though they had royal

poets, for none were ever solemnly crowned. The Spanish nation, always

desirous of titles of honour, seem to have known that of the laureate;

but little information concerning it can be gathered from their

authors." We fear there must have been something suggestive of the

hard, dry, see-saw of the _turpis asella_ in the tone of the Spanish

laureates; for Sancho Panza, in his tender consolation to his ass

Dapple, when they had both tumbled into the quarry, says, "_Yo prometo

de ponerte una corona de laurel en la cabeza que no parezcas sino un

laureado poeta, y de darte los piensos dobados._" "I promise to give

thee double feeds, and to place a crown of laurel on thy head, that

thou mayest look like a poet-laureate."

But our main business is with the laureates of England; and the origin

of their office is sufficiently obscure, and not the less worthy of

consideration for the antiquity that such obscurity implies. It has

certainly been associated with our monarchical institutions from very

early times; and, for that reason alone, if for no other, we should be

disposed, in this antimonarchical fever of the day, to respect the

loyalty of the office, however little respect may have been due to

some who have held it, and however higher than the office is every

true poet, "whose mind to him a kingdom is," and who possesses a

royalty of his own, wider than that of Charlemagne. We do not know

that the poets cited in the Saxon Chronicle were rhymers more inspired

by the mead of the court than of the cloister; but the supposition is

not improbable,--for we do know the fondness of Alfred for the

gleeman's craft, and that he, "lord of the harp and liberating spear,"

was himself a gleeman; nor are we unmindful that King Canute honoured

verse-men, and that he could even improvise an accordant rhyme, still

extant, to the holy chant of the monks of Ely, as his bargemen rowed

him down the Ouse, under the chapel wall. It is not apparent that

_trouvères_ followed William of Normandy to Sussex _officially_, or

celebrated his triumph over Harold,--for the story of Taliefer is

hardly a case in point, and we do not hear much about the northern

trouvères till somewhat later, though some writers will have it that

they are of older standing than the troubadours of the south of

France. We do not imagine that William Rufus patronised harmony more

intellectual than the blast of the hunting-horn. But so early at least

as the twelfth century, in the reign of Richard, "the heart of courage

leonine," as Wordsworth calls him, we have a king's versifier in the

person of Gulielmus, of whom little is known, except that he produced

a poem on the crusade of this romantic, poetical, bones-breaking

Richard,--a prince whose Gothic blood (for it must be remembered that

he was of the restored Saxon line) might seem to have been tinged with

orientalism by some unaccountable process; for, even before his

embarkation on his adventure with his red-cross knights, his character

exhibited a strange combination of the stout and somewhat obtuse

doggedness of the bandog, and the lordliness of the lion--a mixture of

Saxon homeliness and Saracenic magnificence. The strength of thews and

sinews, and the prowess of mere animal courage, (vulgar glories, for

the most part, looked at with civilised eyes,) wear an aspect of

redeeming generosity in Richard, that still recommends him to us as a

hero of romance, worthy of minstrel praise, in spite of his ferocious

temper, his demerits as a son, and his indomitable wrong-headedness as

a prince. The poem of Gulielmus is not extant, but it must have been

interesting if he possessed any genius. Richard's rough warfare with

the Soldan, his marriage with Berengaria, and his delivery from the

dungeon of the base Duke of Austria, were subjects as pregnant as any

of the adventures of Hercules, an idol of hero-worship whom he in some

respects resembles. In King John's reign, the poets seem to have been

against the king, and in favour of the opposing barons. Whether he

consoled himself with the stipendiary services of a court poet, we do

not discover. Throughout his long and troubled reign he seems to have

been pelted with lampoons.

In the year 1251, reign of Henry III., the King's versifier was

requited by an annual pension of 100 shillings--not such a very

niggardly stipend as it now sounds, if we compare the value of money

in those times with the price of commodities. In the two following

reigns we find a poet-royal of some repute in Robert Baston. He was a

Carmelite monk, and attained the dignity of prior of the convent of

that order at Scarborough. Bishop Bale (in his _Illustrûm Majoris

Britanniæ Scriptorum Summarium_) says that Baston was a laureated poet

and public orator at Oxford, which Wood denies. But Bale might have

had access to information which could no longer be authenticated in

Anthony's time; for Bale, though he lived to be Edward the Sixth's

Bishop of Assory, and a prebendary of the Cathedral of Canterbury,

where he died and was buried, had himself been a Carmelite friar.

"Great confusion," observes Warton, "has entered into the subject of

the institution of poets-laureate, on account of the degrees in

grammar, which included rhetoric and versification, anciently taken in

our universities, particularly at Oxford, on which occasion a wreath

of laurel was presented to the new graduate, who was afterwards

usually styled Poeta Laureatus. These scholastic laureations, however,

seem to have given rise to the appellation in question. With regard

to the poet-laureate of the Kings of England, he is undoubtedly the

same that is styled the king's versifier in the thirteenth century.

But when or how that title commenced, and whether this officer was

ever formally crowned with laurel at his first investiture, I will not

pretend to determine, after the researches of the learned Seldon have

proved unsuccessful. It seems probable that at length those only were

in general invited to this appointment who had received academical

sanction, and had merited a crown of laurel in the universities for

their abilities in Latin composition, particularly Latin

versification. Thus the king's laureate was nothing more than a

graduated rhetorician, employed in the king's service." Warton adds an

opinion, which seems well founded, "that it was not customary for the

royal laureate to write in English till the Reformation had begun to

diminish the veneration for the Latin tongue, or rather till the love

of novelty, and a better sense of things, had banished the pedantry of

monastic erudition, and taught us to cultivate our native language."

It is true, that neither before nor after the Conquest was there any

lack of rhymers in the vulgar tongue, whether Saxon or Norman, or

mixed; and they would be the popular poets, but not exactly the poets

in fashion at court. At all events, the fashion of writing _court_

poems in low Latin began early and continued long; and we suspect that

the Anglo-Saxon gleemen, whom the monkish historians call _joculatores

regis_, were for the most part mere merrymen, as their monkish

_sobriquet_ implies--jugglers, dancers, fiddlers, tumblers. Berdic,

the king's fool, is styled _Joculator Regis_ in Doomsday Book. Some of

these retainers, no doubt, could both compose ballads and sing them,

suiting the action to the word, and they might occasionally amuse the

court with their songs; but the authentic poet for state occasions was

the Latin verse-maker. We say this with all due love and regard for

our ballad-singers, old and modern, from King Alfred to Alfred

Tennyson; and remembering, too, that we have two good sets-offs

against Harry Hotspur's sneer at "metre ballad-mongers,"--one in Sir

Philip Sidney's declaration that the ballad of the Percy hunt in

Cheviotdale stirred his heart like the sound of a trumpet; and

another, in the fact that one of the most illustrious of modern

Percys, the Bishop of Dromore, owes his well-deserved popular

reputation to nothing else than his industry, talent, and good taste

in editing the _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and Old Heroic

Ballads_.

Robert Baston, from whom we have digressed, was not a ballad-monger,

but a Latin versifier _ex officio_. Edward I., in his expedition to

Scotland in 1304, took Baston with him, that he might be an

eye-witness of his triumph over this country, and celebrate it in

Latin verse. Hollinshed comments on this fact as a strong proof of

Edward's presumption and overweening confidence in himself; but the

censure is not strikingly pertinent, for at this period a poet was a

stated officer in the royal retinue, when the monarch went to war. The

haughty old king's discomfiture, after all his successes in this

favourite enterprise, was as mortifying, but not so comical as the

disastrous issue of the campaign to his poet. The jolly prior had not

done chanting one of his heroics in honour of Edward's siege of

Stirling, when he was pounced on by a foray of Scots, and carried away

into durance; nor was this the worst of the misadventure, for, with a

shrewdly balancing humour, they obliged him to pay his ransom in

verse, and only released him when he had recorded the praises of his

captors and their cause. He does not appear to have been much inspired

by the subject; for Hector Boece says that he made, "rusty verses" in

praise of the Scots; and rusty enough they were, if they all resembled

the initial line as it is quoted--

"De planta cudo metrum cum carmine nudo."

The poem must have stood in more awkward antagonism with "De

Strivilniensi Obsidione," which is extant in Fordun, than Waller's

panegyric on Cromwell does face to face with his eulogium on Charles

II. We doubt whether the monk had so witty an apology for his double

tongue as the courtier; but he had a better excuse, for he said,

"_Actus me invito, factus, non est meus actus_." There is both rhyme

and reason in that. The stubbornness of the Scots, which was at last a

choke-pear to Edward, seems to have stimulated the poet almost as much

as it exasperated the king. For, besides the siege of Stirling, we

find on the list of Baston's productions one entitled "De Altero

Scotorum Bello," and another "De Scotiæ guerris Variis." Baston

survived his master, the broken _Malleus Scotorum_, only three years.

It is uncertain whether he retained his office after the accession of

Edward the Second; but, if so, death had released him from duty before

that prince's invasion of this country in 1314. Otherwise he would

probably have had to pay another visit to the ominous neighbourhood of

Stirling Castle, at a risk, if he escaped a deadlier chance, of being

captured by the Bruce himself, and of having a caged poet's leisure to

meditate a threnodia for Bannockburn. Boece, in Bellenden's version,

asserts that this was actually the case,--that it was "Edward the

Second, who, by vain arrogance, as if the Scotch had been sicker in

his hands, brought with him ane Carmelite monk to put his victory in

versis; that the poet was taken in this field of Bannockburn, and

commandit by King Robert the Bruce to write as he saw, in sithement of

his ransom." There is also among the political songs published by the

Camden Society, a wretched transcript (from the Cotton. MSS.) of a

wretched piece of raving on this very battle, also attributed to

Baston,--(and announced, we suppose by an error of the press, as

written in the reign of Edward the Third.) But we are inclined to

believe that Baston died about four years before that great day for

Scotland. We do not, however, undertake to settle the point. We have

no certain accounts of Baston's successor.

It is asserted by writers not incautious, that Gower and Chaucer were

laureates; and we are unwilling to doubt it, though the authority is

far from conclusive. Chaucer, born about 1328, the second year of

Edward the Third's reign, died in 1400. It is certain that he was

liberally patronised, and gratified with lucrative appointments by

Edward. It is recorded, too, that he was employed on foreign missions

of trust; that on one occasion he was an envoy to Genoa, and that he

then visited Petrarch at Padua; and as the arguments for and against

the probability of this interview are pretty nearly balanced, we are

not bound to deny ourselves the pleasure of believing it. Froissart,

as well as Hollinshed and Barnes, bears testimony to Chaucer's having

been one of a mission to the court of France, in the last year of

Edward's reign; but it is not clear, nor even at all deducible from

the nature of the public employments, and the character of Edward,

that it was his poetical merit which promoted him to the royal

confidence in matters of business.

Gower, born, it is supposed, somewhat earlier than Chaucer, died two

years later, in 1402, and had been blind for the last two or three

years of his life. Bale makes Gower _equitem auratum et poetam

laureatum_; but Winstansley says he was neither laureated nor

hederated, but only rosated, having a chaplet of four roses about his

head on his monumental stone in St Mary Overy's Church, Southwark. His

"_Confessio Amantis_" is said to have been prompted by the command of

Richard the Second, who, chancing to meet him on the Thames, invited

him into his gilded barge,--

"While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm,"

enjoined him to "book something new." In the three next reigns of the

line of Lancaster, Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, and Henry the

Sixth, a period of sixty-two years, we hardly know what became of the

court poets, or whether there were any. Musicians were liberally

privileged as palace servants by Henry the Fourth, but his reign was

unfavourable to the minstrel art. Henry the Fifth was partial to

minstrelsy, and rewarded it generously; but we find no report of a

laureat poet. In Henry the Sixth's time, boys were pressed into the

minstrel service of the court; but it is not recorded that any one was

made a poet by virtue of royal kidnapping. They were instructed in

music for the solace of his majesty.

To Edward the Fourth, the first king of the line of York, John Kay, as

"his Majesty's humble Laureate," dedicated a History of Rhodes.

The wars of the Roses seem almost to have silenced the nightingales.

But no sooner was contention terminated by the union of Henry of

Lancaster with the heiress of York, than a rivalry sprang up for the

office of king's poet. In the year 1486, the next after the coronation

of Henry the Seventh, and shortly after his marriage, that king, by an

instrument _Pro Poeta Laureato_, of which a copy is preserved in

Rymer's Fœdera, granted to Andrew Bernard, poet-laureate, a salary

of fifteen marks, until he should obtain some equivalent appointment.

This was no very munificent grant. But Henry the Seventh was not

addicted to liberality out of his own exchequer. He afterwards found

means to reward him with ecclesiastical preferments; and his prodigal,

but still more selfish successor, gratified him in the same way.

Bernard, who was a native of Toulouse, and an Augustine monk, obtained

many preferments in England; and was besides not only poet-laureate,

but historiographer to the king, and preceptor in grammar to Prince

Arthur. The preceptorship, however honourable, was perhaps not worth

much on the score of emolument. All the pieces now to be found in his

character of laureate are in Latin. Among these are, "An Address to

Henry the Eighth, for the most Auspicious Beginning of the Tenth Year

of his Reign;" "A New-Year's Offering for the Year 1515;" and "Verses

wishing Prosperity to his Majesty's Thirteenth Year, 1522." He left

many prose pieces, written in his quality of historiographer to both

monarchs, particularly a Chronicle of the Life and Achievements of

Henry the Seventh to the taking of Perkin Warbeck. And here occurs a

little difficulty in the reconcilement of dates, when we are told that

Skelton also was poet-laureate to Henry the _Seventh_ and his son: for

it has been shown that Bernard was alive in 1522, if not later.

Skelton was laureated at Oxford about 1489, three years after the date

of the recorded grant to the _poet-laureate_, Andrew Bernard. We more

than half suspect that Skelton, though a graduated university

laureate, was never poet-laureate to either king at all, except as a

sort of volunteer, licensed by his own saucy consent. Puttenham

expressly says, that "Skelton usurped the name of poet-laureate, being

indeed but a rude railing rimer, and all his doings ridiculous." It is

stated that Skelton, having, a few years subsequent to his laureation

at Oxford, been permitted to wear his laurel publicly at Cambridge

also, was further privileged by Henry the Seventh to wear some

particular dress, or additional ornament to his dress. Henry the

Seventh was not much given to jesting, or we should infer that it was

a badge appropriate to the king's fool; for Skelton, though an able

man, was, like Leo the Tenth's arch-poet Querno, who was crowned

laureate for the joke's sake, ambitious of the fool's honours. He was

a buffoon even in the pulpit.

Skelton directed his ribaldry especially against the mendicant friars

and the formidable Wolsey. We can easily imagine how these audacities

were not intolerable to the "Defender of the Faith," even in the

plenitude of the cardinal's power; and how he might have tolerated his

assumption of the character of court-poet, so long as the spurious

laureate's sallies did not trench on the sovereign's personal dignity.

Skelton, like his quondam royal pupil, was already a reformer in his

way, and not long before his death, which occurred June 21, 1529, just

before the downfall of Wolsey, he used a strange argument against the

celibacy of the priesthood; he excused himself for having openly lived

with a concubine, because he considered her as his wife! Erasmus, the

caustic censor of the vices of the clergy, praised Skelton's learning

and wit, probably from sympathy with his application of them, bolder,

though far less dignified than his own, to the same objects of satire;

but "the glory of the priesthood and the shame," could hardly have

admitted the validity of such an apology from the Vicar of Dallyng, a

vowed celibate priest.

We must return for a moment to Bernard. This poet-laureate had a

notable subject to begin with in the union of the Two Roses. How he

treated it we have no means of judging, as the performance is not in

existence; and though it has perished, it would be unfair, perhaps, to

assume that his freshest effort on an event that might have quickened

the slowest fancy, was not superior to his later exercises, on

occasions of weaker interest, such as are preserved in the Cottonian

Library, and that of New College, Oxford. Of all the events in the

history of the British monarchy, there is one subject, and probably

one only, of those that could come within the range of a court-poet's

province, of equal national importance, and equally poetical quality

with the marriage of Henry the Seventh--that is, the marriage of his

daughter, Margaret, to James the Fourth of Scotland; and even those of

our "constant readers" who, to their loss, may know nothing of William

Dunbar but what they have read in former pages of this magazine, must

know that the court of Scotland, at the time of the celebration of

these nuptials, possessed a poet worthy of the subject, for they

cannot have forgotten his inspired vision on the Thistle and the Rose.

In the one case the wounds of England were closed after long wars of

disputed succession, as desolating as any intestine wars on record: in

the other, two nations, jealous neighbours, and till then implacable

enemies, formed an alliance that promised to be lasting, and which

finally effected more than it had promised, by the consolidation of

the two thrones into one. On the head of the Scottish great-grandson

of the English Margaret, the double crown was secure from the

casuistry of jurists. Neither Elizabeth of York, nor her daughter, was

a happy wife. Henry the Seventh proved cold and ungrateful as a

husband; James the Fourth faithless; but we have nothing to do here

with the domestic infelicity of those ill-used princesses, except as

it shows that the court-poets, who predicted so much happiness for

them, were not infallible _Vates_. Poets, on such occasions, are

prophets of hope only. And as to the struggles and disasters that

followed, the glowing vision of Dunbar was luckily as impassive to the

shadows of coming events (Flodden Field, and Fotheringay, and the

scaffold at Whitehall, and the rout on the Boyne water) as were the

quondam visions and religious meditations of Lamartine in the days of

Charles Dix to the shadows of the barricades, and the prestige of the

Hotel de Ville.

We do not find that the young successor of England's royal Blue-beard

had a poet-laureate. Queen Mary, though a learned and accomplished

lady, had no such an appendage to her state. Heywood was her favourite

poet; he had consoled her with honest praise in the days when it was

the fashion of courtiers to neglect her. On his presenting himself at

her levee, after her accession, "Mary asked him," says the chronicler

of queens, "what wind has blown you hither?" He answered, "Two special

ones--one of them to see your Majesty." "Our thanks for that," said

Mary; "but the other?" "That your Majesty might see me." He used to

stand by her side at supper, and amuse her with his jests--not a very

dignified employment for a poet--but he was a player, and being

accustomed to play many parts, did not decline that of Double to

Mary's female Fool, Jane. He appears, however, to have been her

life-long solace. He had ministered to her diversion in her childhood,

with a company of child-players, whom Shakspeare calls "little

eye-asses"--(callow hawks)--and in her long illness he was frequently

sent for, and, when she was able to listen to recitation, he repeated

his verses, or superintended performances for her amusement.

Malone insists that Queen Elizabeth, too, had no poet-laureate; yet

Spenser is by other writers as confidently preferred to that post, and

Daniel is said to have officially succeeded him. Spenser's "Gloriana"

and "Dearest Dread," though abundantly shrewd and sagacious, and

though somewhat of a scholar and a wit, and sufficiently vain of her

own poor rhymes, had no true perception or appreciation of the art

divine of poesy. The most eminent dramatic genius the world ever saw

was as moderately encouraged as any inferior playhouse droll might

have been. She could laugh at Falstaff and Dame Quickly, and stimulate

that humour in the author: and, to use her sister's words to Heywood,

"our thanks for that." Edmund Spenser, also, was less indebted to her

own taste, or even to her enormous appetite for flattery, than to Sir

Philip Sidney's enlightened friendship, and to his introduction to her

by Sir Walter Raleigh, for such favours as he received. These,

however, were not small; and neither the Fairy Queen herself,

(gigantic fairy!) nor her sage counsellor Cecil, is justly responsible

for the unhappiness of Spenser. His pension of £50 a-year was but a

portion of the emoluments he derived from court interest. That

pension, which he received till his death in 1598, was no doubt an

annuity assigned him as Queen's poet, though the title of laureate is

not given in his patent, nor in that of his two immediate successors,

Daniel and Ben Jonson. So far Malone is accurate.

Daniel's laudatory verse, whether he volunteered it or not, was

acceptable to King James, and rewarded by a palace appointment. He was

Gentleman Extraordinary, and one of the grooms to Queen Anne of

Denmark. He was on terms of social intimacy with Shakspeare, Marlow,

and Chapman, as well as with persons of higher social rank; and he had

the honour to be tutor to the famous Anne Clifford, Countess of

Pembroke, who caused a cenotaph to be erected to his memory at

Beckington, near Frome, in his native county. He died in 1619.

The masques and pageants of his successor, Ben Jonson, prove that he

held no sinecure from either of his royal masters; but in Charles the

First he at least served a prince who could respect genius, and

remember that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Jonson received, "in

consideration of services of wit and pen already done to us and our

father, and which we expect from him," £100 a-year and a tierce of

Spanish canary, his best-beloved Hippocrene, out of the royal cellars

at Whitehall.

On his decease, 1637, William Davenant was appointed poet-laureate,

_by patent_, through the influence of Henrietta Maria, though her

husband had intended the reversion for Thomas May. This man was so

disgusted that, forgetting many former obligations to Charles, who had

a high and just opinion of his talents, he soon after turned traitor,

and attached himself to the Roundheads. Davenant proved himself worthy

of the preference, not only by his poetry, but by his steadfast

gallant loyalty. He was son of an innkeeper at Oxford, but is said to

have rather sanctioned a vague rumour that attributed his paternity to

Shakspeare. At ten years of age he produced his first poem, a little

ode in three sextains, "In remembrance of Master William Shakspeare."

The first stanza has some feeling in it, the other two are puerile

conceits, clever enough for so young a boy. When his sovereign was in

trouble, he volunteered into the army, and was soon found eligible to

no mean promotion. He was raised to the rank of lieutenant-general of

ordnance, under the Duke of Newcastle, and was knighted for his

services at the siege of Gloucester. His "Gondibert," begun in exile

at Paris, was continued in prison at Cowes Castle, though he daily

expected his death-warrant. But he was removed to the Tower of London

to be tried by a high commission; and it is believed that his life was

saved by the generous intervention of Milton, whom he subsequently

repaid in kind, by softening the resentment of the restored government

against him. Davenant, though perhaps a man of irregular life, and

though, as a dramatist and playhouse manager, he proved any thing but

allegiant to Shakspeare, and was active in communicating a depraved

taste, was yet a man of brave, honest, and independent mind. It is

curious that he should not only have disappointed May of the laurel

when living, but that it should have been his chance to take his place

in Poet's Corner when dead. The Puritans had erected a pompous tomb to

May, which was savagely enough removed by the returned royalists. Near

the same spot, in Westminster Abbey, is the monument to Davenant.

The Usurpation was not without its poets of far loftier reach than

May, though he, too, was no dwarf. It would have been ridiculous in

Cromwell to appoint a poet-laureate. The thing was impossible, though

the flatteries of his kinsman, Waller, show that it was not the want

of a subservient royalist gentleman of station, as well of talent,

that made it so. Andrew Marvel, though he wrote such vigorous verse on

Cromwell's victories in Ireland, would hardly have accepted the

office, and what other Puritan would? But without the form, the

Protector of the commonwealth had the reality in his Latin secretary,

to whom Marvel was assistant. The lineal heir of the most ancient race

of kings might have been proud of such a poet. The greatness of Milton

might be a pledge to all ages of the greatness of Cromwell,

unchallenged even by those who most detest grim Oliver of Hungtindon

for "Darwent stream with blood of Scots imbrued," and "Worcester's

laureate wreath." Here it is the poet who confers on the conqueror a

laurel crown, of which the imperishable leaves, green as ever bard or

victor wore, mitigate, though they do not hide, the evil expression on

the casque-worn brow of the _senex armis impiger_, and give it a

dignity that might abate the stoutest loyalist's abhorrence, but for

one fatal remembrance, which forbids him to exclaim,

"_Nec sunt hi vultus regibus usque truces._"

Sir William Davenant, who recovered the laureateship at the

Restoration, and retained it till his death in 1668, was succeeded by

Dryden. Glorious John, although he had hastily flattered Richard

Cromwell's brief authority by an epicede on Oliver, was not rejected

by the merry monarch, who could laugh at poets' perjuries as lightly

as at those of lovers. During that disgraceful reign, the poet made it

no part of his vocation and privilege to check the profligate humours

brought into fashion by the court.

"Unhappy Dryden! in all Charles' days,

Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays."

At the revolution of 1688, the laureate was discrowned, as well as

King James; and he condescended to revenge himself by Macflecnoe on

his substitute Shadwell, as if he had not beforehand administered

sufficient chastisement to that miserable Og, in the bitter satire

with which he supplied Tate for the second part of Absolom and

Achitophel. One might pity Shadwell under the lash of such an enemy as

Dryden, if his writings either in verse or prose entitled him to a

grain of respect. Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset--himself an elegant

wit and indifferent versifier, but the descendant and representative

of a very illustrious poet, Sackville, the first Earl, author of the

noble "Induction to a Mirror for Magistrates"--vindicated his

recommendation of Shadwell to the poet-laureateship, "not because he

was a poet, but an honest man." We suppose he meant that he had not

oscillated between Popery and Reformation like Dryden, and that he was

more honest, also, in a political sense, and less liable to suspicion

as an adherent of the expelled monarch's heartless daughter, and her

Dutch husband, the hero of the Boyne and Glencoe. But, in another and

not unimportant sense, Shadwell was far from honest; for he was

notorious for the ribaldry of his conversation. It has been asserted,

while that fact was admitted, that, as an author before the public, he

was a promoter of morality and virtue. Nothing can be more untrue. Of

his many comedies, there is none which is not as rife in pollution as

any of the grossest plays of the time. But their boasted humour is

physic for the bane; for it is distilled "from the dull weeds that

grow by Lethe's side." His comedies are five-act farces of wearisome

vulgarity, and, though suffered in their day, were destined, as Pope

leniently expresses it in the Dunciad,

"Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,

Where things destroyed are swept to things unborn."

In "The Royal Shepherdess," however, a play in blank verse, altered by

Shadwell from Fountain of Devonshire, there are some fine lines, so

far above any thing known to be Shadwell's that we readily take him at

his word in his preface, where, modest for once, he invites the

reader, if he finds any thing good in the play, to set it down to Mr

Fountain. The following lines are a favourable specimen,

notwithstanding the _breeding barrenness_:--

"No more, no more must we scorn cottages;

Those are the rocks from whence our jewels come.

Gold breeds in barren hills; the brightest stars

Shine o'er the poorer regions of the north."

Still better, where a king, in a vicious attempt upon an innocent

girl, has compelled her consent to a meeting at night. The queen,

apprised of the design, personates the intended victim, and appeals to

his conscience with an effect that he thus describes:--

"She only whisper'd to me, as she promised,

Yet never heard I any voice so loud:

And though the words were gentler far than those

That holy priests do speak to dying saints,

Yet never thunder signified so much."

The songs in this piece are all by Shadwell, except, as he declares,

the last but one, which is Fountain's, and the only one not below

mediocrity. Shadwell had also the impudence to alter and corrupt

"Timon of Athens," and to produce the farrago on the stage as an

improvement on the original. In the dedication he says, "It has the

inimitable hand of Shakspeare in it; yet I can truly say, I have made

it into a play." This "tun of man and kilderkin of wit" was admitted

to a tomb in Westminster Abbey, an honour (?) said to have been denied

to the remains of a noble poet, the author of "Don Juan." Yet Shadwell

had also produced a "Don Juan." His tragedy of "The Libertine," the

same hero, is ten times more indecent than the most objectionable

parts of Byron's poem. But it is, indeed, also less noxious, for it

has not a single attractive grace of fancy or feeling. A print of

Shadwell, prefixed to Tonson's edition of his works, ludicrously bears

out Dryden's description of the outer man. He looks like an alehouse

Bacchus, or rather like one of those carnal cherubs whom the French

call _anges bouffis_--his cheeks bulging out as if they were stuffed

with apples from the forbidden tree. He died in December 1692, and was

succeeded by

Nahum Tate, the psalmodist. Every one knows what sort of poet he was,

and how the harp of Israel is but a Jew's harp in the hands of Tate

and Brady. Yet some passages in his second part of "Absolom and

Achitophel" are not such feeble mimicries of the tone of his friend,

Dryden, as might have been expected from so poor a performer. The

praise of Asaph, glorious John himself, is pleasing. It concludes with

these lines:--

"While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew,

While stars and fountains to their course are true,

While Judah's throne and Sion's rock stand fast,

The song of Asaph, and the fame, shall last."

At his death in 1715, a year after the accession of George the First,

the withering laurel recovered a little lustre on the brow of Nicholas

Rowe, the translator of Lucan, and the pathetic dramatist of "The Fair

Penitent," and "Jane Shore." His occasional verses were, of course,

very respectable; and his only signal failure was when he attempted

comedy. After the banter he incurred for his play of "The Biter," he

was so sensible that he was the biter bit, that he excluded it from

his works, and made no second venture of the kind. Yet the man who

could move an audience to tears, and who had so little command of

their sympathies when he tried his powers of wit on them, was any

thing but a lachrymist by temperament. When Spence observed that he

should have thought "the tragic Rowe too grave to write such things."

Pope answered, "He! why, he would laugh all the day long! He would do

nothing but laugh!" He survived the acquisition of the laurel only

three years, dying at the age of forty-five.

Laurence Eusden, "a parson much bemused in beer," stumbled into his

place, just in time to elaborate, _singultu laborare_, the Coronation

Ode for George the Second. A specimen or two of his loyal suspirations

may be as welcome as a hundred.

"Hail, mighty Monarch! whose desert alone

Would, without birthright, raise thee to a throne!

_Thy virtues shine peculiarly nice.

Ungloom'd with a confinity to vice._"

Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of the Court of George the Second," recently

made public, are an edifying exposition of the "peculiarly nice"

virtues here extolled.

"What strains shall equal to thy glories rise,

First to the world, and borderer on the skies?"

The conjuror who can make out the meaning of the last line may be able

to answer the question. In his joy for a George the Second, the

inspired bard dries up his tears for George the First:--

"How exquisitely great! who canst inspire

Such joy that Albion _mourns no more thy sire_!

A dull, fat, thoughtless heir unheeded springs

From a long _slothful_ line of _restive_ kings:

But when a stem, with fruitful branches crown'd,

Has flourish'd, in each various branch renown'd,

His great forerunners when the last outshone,

Who could a brighter hope, or even as bright a son?"

He ends with a kick at the Stuarts:

"Avaunt, degenerate _grafts_, or spurious breed!

'Tis a George only can a George succeed."

If Charles Edward had known that, he might have saved himself a good

deal of trouble.

Eusden died at his rectory in Lincolnshire in 1730. Colley Cibber wore

the laurel with unblushing front for twenty-seven years from that

date. His annual birth-day and new-year odes for all that time are

treasured in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. They are all so bad, that his

friends pretended that he made them so on purpose. Dr Johnson,

however, often asserted, from his personal knowledge of the man, that

he took great pains with his lyrics, and thought them far superior to

Pindar's. The Doctor was especially merry with one ultra-Pindaric

flight which occurs in the Cibberian "Ode for the New-Year 1750."

"Through ages past the muse preferr'd

Her high-sung hero to the skies;

Yet now reversed the rapture flies,

And Caesar's fame sublimes the bard.

_So on the towering eagle's wing

The lowly linnet soars to sing._

Had her Pindar of old

Known her Cæsar to sing,

More rapid his raptures had roll'd;

But never had Greece such a king!"

So proud was Cibber of that marvellous image of the linnet and eagle,

that he repeated it in the "Natal Ode for 1753." In his last "New-year

Ode," too, 1757, he again scolds Pindar for his sluggishness--

"Had the lyrist of old

Had our Cæsar to sing,

More rapid his numbers had roll'd;

But never had Greece such a king,

No, never had Greece such a king!"

Those effusions are truly incomparable. Not only are they all bad, but

not one of them in twenty-seven years contains a good line. Yet he

was, happily for himself, more impenetrable to the gibes of the wits

than a buffalo to the stings of mosquitoes. Of the numerous epigrams

twanged at him, here is one from the _London Magazine_ for 1737.

"ON SEEING TOBACCO-PIPES LIT WITH ONE OF THE LAUREATE'S ODES.

"While the soft song that warbles George's praise

From pipe to pipe the living flame conveys,

Critics who long have scorn'd must now admire,

For who can say his ode now wants its fire?"

Dr Johnson honoured him with another, equally complimentary to Cibber

and his Cæsar.

"Augustus still survives in Maro's strain,

And Spenser's verse prolongs Eliza's reign;

Great George's acts let tuneful Colley sing,

For nature form'd the poet for the king."

Yet Cibber, the hero of the Dunciad, was not a dunce, except in his

attempts at verse; even Pope, who calls him "a _pert_ and _lively_

dunce," epithets rather incongruous, admits the merit of his "Careless

Husband." His Apology for his own Life, too, is no mean performance;

some passages in it are both judicious and eloquent, particularly his

criticisms on Nokes and Betterton, and on acting in general. Though

the most wretched of poetasters, he was an abler prose writer than

half of his critics.

At his death, the laureateship was offered to Gray, with an exemption

from the duty of furnishing annual odes, but he refused the office, as

having been degraded by Cibber. It was then given, on the usual terms,

to William Whitehead, who won even the approbation of Gray for the

felicity with which he occasionally performed his task. What now

appears most noticeable in Whitehead's odes is his prolonged and

ludicrous perplexity about the American war. At the first outbreak he

is the indignant and scornful patriot, confident in the power of the

mother country, and threatening the rebels with condign punishment.

As they grow more and more obstinate, he becomes the pathetic

remonstrant with those unnatural children, and coaxes them to be good

boys. When any news of success to the British arms has arrived, he

mounts the high horse again, and gives the Yankees hard words, but not

without magnanimous hints that the gates of mercy are not quite closed

to repentance. Reverses come, and he consoles the king. Matters grow

worse, and he is at his wit's-end. At last the struggle is over; he

accommodates himself to the unpleasant necessity of the case, and

sings the blessings of peace and concord.

Laureate odes, good or bad, are always fair game for squibs. Whitehead

had his share of ridicule, but he had more courage than Gray, who was

so painfully afflicted by the parodies of Lloyd and Coleman, that he

almost resolved to forswear poetry. Whitehead retorted on his

assailants with easy good-humour, in "An Apology for all Laureates,

past, present, and to come," beginning,

"Ye silly dogs, whose half-year lays

Attend, like satellites, on Bays,

And still with added lumber load

Each birth-day and each new-year ode,

Why will ye strive to be severe?

In pity to yourselves forbear;

Nor let the sneering public see

What numbers write far worse than he."

and ending,

"To Laureates is no pity due,

Encumber'd with a thousand clogs?

I'm very sure they pity you,

Ye silliest of silly dogs."

The next laureate, Thomas Warton, the historian of English poetry, is

too well known and appreciated to require any lengthened notice here.

In 1747 and 1748 he held the appointment of _laureated_ poet, to which

he was inaugurated, according to the ancient custom, in the

common-room of Trinity College, Oxford. His duty was to celebrate a

lady chosen as lady patroness, and Warton performed his task crowned

with a wreath of laurel. In 1757, he was elected professor of poetry,

as his father had formerly been in the same university. On the demise

of Whitehead in 1785, the laureateship was conferred on him by command

of George the Third. He was quizzed as his predecessor had been, and,

like him, laughed at the jesters; and he gradually turned their scoffs

to approbation by his equanimity and the merit of his performances.

Warton had not only the wit to be diverted by probationary odes in

mockery of his own, which he valued at less than they were worth, but

he had temper to endure the malignant scurrility of Ritson, in

reference to more important labours, with no severer remark than that

he was a _black-lettered dog_. A portion of his later days was devoted

to a labour of love--an edition of the juvenile poems of Milton, with

copious notes. Though of sedentary college habits, and a free liver,

he enjoyed vigorous health to the age of 62: he then broke down. He

went to Bath with the gout, and returned, as he thought, in an

improved condition. The evening of May 20, 1790, he passed cheerfully

in the common-room, but, before midnight, he was stricken with

paralysis, and the next day he was a corpse.

Henry James Pye, who was of a family of which the founder is stated to

have come to England with the Conqueror, was likewise representative,

by the female line, of the patriot Hampden. In 1784, he was returned

to parliament as member for Berkshire. But the expense of the contest

ruined him, and he was obliged to sell his estate; and even the

slender salary of a laureate was not unacceptable when it fell in his

way. Besides his official odes, he produced numerous works, epic,

dramatic, and lyric, and also published several translations, and a

corrected edition of Francis's Horace. The reader will be content if

we pass all these with the remark that he was a respectable writer, a

good London police-magistrate, and an honourable gentleman in a less

equivocal sense than the parliamentary style. As factor of annual odes

for the court, he was, of course, scurvily used by the wags. The joke

on "Pindar, Pye, et parvus Pybus," was once in every body's mouth. He

died in 1813, and was succeeded by

Robert Southey, who held the office for thirty years; and this

prolonged tenure of it, still longer than Cibber's, by a man of

unimpeachable worth and distinguished genius, is a happy set-off

against the disgrace which frightened Gray, and made him refuse it.

The concession proposed to Gray, that he should write only when and

what he chose, was also virtually, though not formally, yielded to

Southey. "The performance of the annual odes," he says, "had been

suspended from the time of George the Third's illness in 1810, and

fell completely into disuse. Thus terminated a custom more honoured in

the breach than the observance." How is it that we have yet no

biography of Southey? It is rumoured that his only surviving son, the

Reverend Cuthbert Southey, has one in preparation. We hope that the

report is true, and that it will contain abundance of his father's

delightful letters, and be published soon. _Bis dat qui cito

dat_,--that is, not that a book should be got up in a hurry, but that,

after a delay of five years, the reasonable expectation of Robert

Southey's admirers and regretters should be now promptly gratified.

We began with the earliest of laureates and the latest,--Apollo and

the venerable Wordsworth,--and with them we will conclude. In a snug

nook, sheltered from the north and east winds by Helvellyn, and

Fairfield, Wordsworth has for many years cultivated his own laurels

with success, till he is absolutely imbowered in them. The original

slip, from which all this throng of greenery has sprung, is said to

have been a cutting from a scion of the bay-tree planted by Petrarch

at the tomb of Virgil, which tree was unquestionably derived from the

undying root of that which supplied leaves for the garland of Apollo,

and assuaged the divinity of his brow, when, as we reminded the reader

at our outset on this ramble, he hired himself as poet-laureate to

King Admetus, on a daily stipend of a hornful of milk.

THE HORSE-DEALER--A TALE OF DENMARK.

BY CHRISTIAN WINTHER.

The King of Sweden, Charles X., lay with his army before Copenhagen.

His generals, the young Prince of Sulzbach and Count Steenbock,

besieged the city, and his troops showed themselves worthy sons of the

famous Thirty Years' War. The system of cruelty and extortion that had

characterised their Polish and German campaigns was renewed in

Denmark, and with the greater fierceness that national antipathy

served at once as pretext and stimulus to the soldier's lust of blood

and plunder. And thus was it that upon the island of Funen scenes were

enacted, whose frightful record, handed down by history, now appears

scarcely credible. Men and women, priests and laymen, old and young,

the humble and the illustrious, were subjected to the grossest

ill-treatment, either to extort money, or as punishment for not

possessing it. Amongst the Danes themselves mutual fear and mistrust

existed; for individuals were not wanting who, through fear, or in

hope of profit, played openly or secretly into the hands of the enemy.

And, to add to the desolation the Swedes brought with them, the

inhabitants had scarcely yet recovered the ravages of a pestilence,

which had disappeared from their shores but a few years previously.

Whether it was the king's absence from the island, or a notion in the

Swedes' mind that they would soon have to leave the country, which

rendered the soldiery so unbridled in their excesses, certain it is,

that the scourge of war made itself more severely felt than ever

towards the end of the year 1659. The doubtful sort of succour

afforded by the Dutch fleet was chiefly confined to Zealand, and it

was small consolation to the people of Funen to see the proud ships of

the rich republic cruising in the Belt and Cattegat. The scanty

intelligence from the capital, which in summer some bold boatman

occasionally brought over, was not always to be relied upon, seldom or

never satisfactory, and ceased altogether when winter came, and dark

and stormy nights rendered the navigation between the islands

impracticable for small craft.

At a moderate distance from the town of Nyeborg, on the east coast of

Funen, stands the village of Vinding, one of whose richest

inhabitants, at the time of the Swedish occupation, was a certain Thor

Hansen. He had a son, called, of course, Hans Thorsen--for in that

country the names of the peasants are like a pair of gloves, which,

when turned inside out, change their places, so that the right becomes

the left and the left the right; and with this transposition names are

handed down from generation to generation, never becoming out of

fashion. In Thor Hansen's house dwelt a young girl, a distant relative

of his own; and although Christina's sole dowry was her pretty

cherry-cheeked countenance, and her comely healthy person, he had

preferred her to all others for his daughter-in-law. Many might marvel

at such a choice, especially those who know that the Danish peasant is

at least as proud of his hide of land and nook of garden as the noble

of his wide estates, or the wealthy merchant of his well-stored

warehouses, and that marriages, unsuitable in a pecuniary point of

view, are as rare in that country as in any other in the world. But on

this head Thor Hansen thought differently from his fellows. He saw

that Christina was a smart active girl, who, young though she was, had

kept his house after his wife's death with all care and industry, had

milked his cows, cooked his oatmeal, and spun his flax. As to the son

Hans, of nothing in the world was he more desirous than to get

Christina for his wife; and Christina, when father and son opened

their minds to her, could scarcely answer for joy. Thus all were

agreed, and the old man already thought of making over his land to his

son, and of settling down to pass the rest of his days in peace and

the chimney corner. The wedding-day was fixed, the fish and saffron

for the soup were purchased, when suddenly the Swede arrived. This

unexpected and unwelcome intrusion disturbed the plans of many. With

lamentation throughout the land, few thought of joy and merry-making;

and a wedding, essentially the most joyous of festivals, would have

been out of keeping with the universal misery. Partly influenced by a

feeling of this kind, and partly by other circumstances, old Thor

Hansen resolved to postpone the projected marriage, and the young

people silently acquiesced.