^ 
 
 v 
 
 7 
 
 ;■
 
 ONE HUNDRED 
 
 ROMANCES OF REAL LIFE; 
 
 SELECTED AND ANNOTATED 
 
 BY 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 Comprising itlejttniinble ii^istorical nntr Domestic ipafts, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 I ^ • ' 
 
 ^ •!• ,"."-. • • ^ 
 
 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WHITTAKER & CO., AVE-MARIA LANE. 
 
 184G.
 
 "" •) * « * ■ 
 
 • • ' ^ ■^ • 
 
 • • « • • 

 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Intelligent readers of all classes, who sympathize with their species, are 
 here presented with an extensive selection of those extraordinary real circum- 
 stances, often found in the history of individuals, which have been said to 
 show truth in a stronger light than fiction. They are abridged, enlarged, or 
 copied, from their respective authorities, as the case rendered expedient, with 
 ^uch notes or verbal alterations (facts being scrupulously adhered to) as 
 might serve at once to fit them better for perusal, and appropriate them to 
 this particular publication : and the collection is far the most abundant 
 that has been made. Mrs. Charlotte Smith published a hasty selection 
 from the " Causes Celebres " of Guyot de Pitaval, in three volumes, under 
 the title of " Romance of Real Life," which has been often sent for from the 
 circulating library under the supposition of its being a novel. The best of 
 the narratives which she has taken are to be found in the present pages ; and 
 they contain also what may be pronounced, perhaps, the only curious articles 
 of lasting interest (and very interesting they are), originally given to the 
 public in the singular anonymous publication entitled " The Lounger's 
 Common-place Book." 
 
 Crimes, virtues, humours, plots, agonies, heroical sacrifices, mysteries of the 
 most extraordinary description, though taking place in the most ordinary 
 walks of life, are the staple commodity of this book, — all true, and for the 
 most part well told ; and over the greater portion of them hangs the greatest 
 of all interests — domestic interest. 
 
 The selection originally appeared in the Editor's " London Journal ;" but as 
 he was the selector and commentator only, and not the writer of the narratives, 
 he may be allowed, without immodesty, to express his belief that in its 
 present shape it will go into a great many new quarters, and perhaps not be 
 unacceptable to some of the old. A work more fitted to be laid on the table, 
 ^^ whether of drawing-room or parlour, of hotel or country inn, or to accompany 
 the traveller in coach or post-chaise, it might not be easy to conceive : since 
 it unites, in an extreme degree, the advantages of quick and exciting perusal, 
 with lasting and useful interest. From the appearance of its first number it 
 was popular with its periodical readers ; but the shape (a folio) was incon- 
 venient for the purposes which it is now hoped it will realize. 
 
 29H^
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 3! 
 4, 
 
 5. 
 fi. 
 7. 
 S. 
 9. 
 
 in. 
 11. 
 
 12. 
 13. 
 
 1^. 
 
 15. 
 
 10. 
 17. 
 18. 
 19. 
 20. 
 21. 
 22. 
 23. 
 24. 
 25. 
 26. 
 27. 
 28. 
 29. 
 30. 
 31. 
 32. 
 
 :i3. 
 
 34. 
 35. 
 
 36. 
 37. 
 .38. 
 
 39. 
 40. 
 41. 
 
 42. 
 43. 
 44. 
 45. 
 46. 
 47. 
 48. 
 49. 
 50. 
 51. 
 
 Mr. Barnard and the Duke of Marlborough. 
 1 Stories of Madonna Pia, and of a Lady of 
 I Piedmont. 
 
 Tlie Tragedy of Guernsey. 
 I Two Stories of Reversion, Clerical and 
 ) Fiscal. 
 St. Andre the Surgeon. 
 Madame Villacerfe and M. Festeau. 
 A Prince against his Will. 
 Chidiock Tichbourne. 
 One of the Shortest and Sweetest of all 
 
 Stories. 
 Another of the same Cast. 
 The Black Assize. 
 A Youth in Civilized Life who lived in Trees 
 
 and Rocks. 
 The Bridal of Camiola Turinga. 
 The Fortunes of Coningsmark. 
 Lady Arabella Stuart. 
 Orator Henley. 
 
 George Psalmanazar, the Literary Impostor. 
 Adventures of Eustachio Cherubim. 
 Henrietta of Bourbon. 
 History of the late Mr. Combe. 
 A Gamester with a "Wife too good for Him. 
 Story of Mademoiselle de Tournon. 
 A Serious Joke seriously returned. 
 A Recluse in the thick of London. 
 School Friendship Remembered. 
 The Dutchman and his Horse. 
 Heroism of a Maid-Servant. 
 A Persevering Impostor. 
 Tragedy in the Family of Kyte. 
 Execution of Captain Dawson. 
 Cruelty towards a "Whig. 
 Cruelty towards a Jacobite. 
 Escape of the Earl of Nithsdale from the 
 
 Tower. 
 History of Arnold du Tilb. 
 Five Stories of Thievery. 
 The Life of a Young Jacobite saved by Mrs. 
 
 Garrick. 
 Story of Firmien da Costa. 
 Case of John AylifFe. 
 Awful Obedience; or, the Cup of Poison taken 
 
 Four Times. 
 Trial of Spencer Cowper. 
 The Conspiracy of Fiesco. 
 Adam Fleming and Helena Irving. 
 History of the Marchioness des Ganges. 
 Adventures of Riperda. 
 The First Female Accoucheur. 
 A Lesson to Vulgar Mistake. 
 Histor}' of Felix Peretti. 
 Mysterious Occurrence at the Mauritius. 
 Origin of Mallet's " Edwin and Emma." 
 
 52. Goethe's Adventure with his Dancing Master's 
 
 Daughters. 
 
 53. A Tragedy of the War in Spain. 
 
 54. Living under Ground. 
 
 55. Singular Outrage in a Duel. 
 
 56. A Private Gentleman obstinately resists being 
 
 made a King. 
 
 57. Honest Ultra-Devotion. 
 
 58. Her Imperial Highness Madame D'Auband. 
 
 59. The Tragedy of Ostentation : a Martyr to 
 
 Vanity. 
 
 60. A Human Wild Beast. 
 
 61. The Murderer who was no Murderer. 
 
 02. Remarkable Instance of Recovery from the 
 Grave. 
 
 63. Story of the Families of Calas and Siiven. 
 
 64. William and Catherine Shaw. 
 
 65. A Tale of old Italian Revenge. 
 
 66. Generous Children generously Helped. 
 07. Revenge and Assassination in a Church. 
 
 68. Marriage after Burial. 
 
 69. The Battle of the Brides. 
 
 70. The Apologist believed against his Will. 
 
 71. Beau Wilson : a Puzzle for Conjecture. 
 
 72. A Gentleman's Revenge. j 
 
 73. Sandy Wood ; or, Inveteracy in a Good Heart 
 
 74. A Modern Blue-Beard. | 
 
 75. Head Sense wanting Heart Wisdom. 
 70. The Shepherd Lord. 
 
 77. Sandv Wright and the Orphan. 
 
 78. Real History of the " Duchess of C— ." 
 
 79. A Man Imprisoned Forty Years without being 
 
 declared Guilty. 
 
 80. Traarical Death of a Tragical Writer. 
 SI. An Undeniable Apparition. 
 
 82. Fatal ^listake of Morbid Egotism for Love. 
 
 83. Life and Adventures of " Mull'd Sack." 
 
 84. Story of John Feddes. 
 
 85. A Modern Amazon. 
 
 86. The celebrated Case of Anglade. 
 
 87. Story of Renee Corbeau. 
 
 88. Earl Ferrers. 
 
 89. The Twins of Ravenna. 
 
 90. Tragi-( omedy of the Major-Domo. 
 
 91. Sharp-sightedness of a Blind Man. 
 
 92. Tragedy of Absurdity. 
 
 93. Brinvilliers, the Female Poisoner. 
 
 94. Singular Detection, and Sudden and Frightful 
 
 Catastrophe. 
 
 95. A Victim to the Bull-Fight. 
 
 96. The Mother accorded with and made Mi- 
 
 serable. 
 
 97. Story of Coucy. 
 
 98. A Love-Story realised. 
 
 99. The Duke of" Alva at a Breakfast. 
 100. Boissi's Attempt at Suicide.
 
 HUNDRED ROMANCES OF REAL LIFE. 
 
 I.— MR. BARNARD AND THE DUKE OF 
 MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 [Tins »iavrati\'e is from the Lounger's Common- 
 Place Rook. It is not one of the most romantic in 
 its results, nor in the raw-head-and-bloody-bone 
 nature of the circumstances ; but the extreme 
 every-day look of it, united with its real strange- 
 ness, give it an interest at once natural and pecu- 
 liar. Barnard's iirst two letters would have been 
 no disgrace to Junius.] 
 
 William Barnard was the son of a surveyor (some 
 say a coachmaker), in Westminster, of good cha- 
 racter, and apparently easy in his circumstances, 
 in whose life nothing peculiar happened till he was 
 charged with a crime, singular from the mode in 
 which it was executed, and remarkable because 
 there appeared no urgent motive for inducing him 
 to risk his life in so rash and unjustifiable an 
 enterprise. 
 
 In the year 1758, a letter was found under the 
 door of the office of Ordnance, directed in a hand 
 imitating print, " To His Grace the Duke of 
 Marlborough,"* who, at that time, was Master- 
 General, and much surprised at reading the foUow- 
 
 " November the 28th. 
 
 " My Lord, — As ceremony is an idle thing upon 
 most occasions, more especially to persons in my 
 state of mind, I shall proceed immediately to 
 acquaint you with the motive and end of addressing 
 tliis epistle to you, which is equally interesting to 
 us both. You are to know then, my present situa- 
 tion in life is such, that I would prefer annihilation 
 to a continuance in it. Desperate diseases require 
 desperate remedies, and you are the man 1 have 
 pitched upon either to make me, or to unmake 
 yourself. As I never had the honour to live among 
 the great, the tenor of my proposals will not be very 
 courtly ; but let that be an argument to enforce the 
 belief of what I am now going to write. 
 
 " It has employed my invention for some time to 
 find out a method to destroy another without 
 exjiosing my own life ; that I have accom])lished, 
 and defy the law. Now for the application of it. 
 I am desperate, and must be provided for ; you 
 have it in your power ; it is my business to make it 
 your inclinatioti to serve me, which you must 
 determine to comply with by procuring me a 
 genteel support for life, or your own will be at a 
 period before this session of parliament is over. 
 
 " I have more motives than one for singling you 
 out first on this occasion, and I give you this fair 
 warning, because the means I shall make use 
 
 • Tho Duke who died in 1817. He had, at the time of this 
 letter, just succeeded to tlie title. 
 
 of are too fatal to be eluded by the power of 
 physic. 
 
 " If you think this of any consequence, you will 
 not fail to meet the author on Sunday next, at ten 
 ill the morning, or on Monday (if the weather 
 should be rainy on Sunday), near the first tree 
 beyond the stile in Hyde Park, in the foot-walk 
 to Kensington. Secrecy and compliance may 
 preserve you from a double danger of this sort, as 
 there is a certain part of the world where your 
 death has more than been wished for on other 
 motives. 
 
 " I know the world too well to trust this secret 
 in any breast but my own. A few days determine 
 me your friend or enemy. Felton. 
 
 " You will apprehend that I mean you should 
 be alone ; and depend upon it, that a discovery of 
 any artifice in this afiair will be fatal to you. My 
 safety is ensured by my silence, for confession only 
 can condemn me." 
 
 The duke went to the spot at the time appointed, 
 having previously desired a friend to observe at a 
 distance what passed. 
 
 He waited near half an hour, and seeing no one 
 he could suspect to be the person, turned his horse 
 and rode towards Piccadilly ; but after proceeding 
 a few paces, he looked back, and saw a man lean- 
 ing over a bridge, which is within twenty yards of 
 the tree mentioned in the letter : he then rode 
 gently towards the person, and passed him once or 
 twice, expecting that he would speak ; but as he 
 still remained silent, his Grace bowed, and asked 
 him if he had not something to say to him ; but he 
 answered, " No, I don't know you." The duke, 
 after telling him who he was, said, "Now you 
 know who I am, I suppose you have something to 
 say to ine,'' 
 
 On the stranger's replying " I have not," his 
 Grace directly rode out of the park. 
 
 A few days after, a second letter, to the follow- 
 ing purport, was sent to the duke, in the same 
 handwriting, and conveyed under the door as 
 the former one. 
 
 " My Lord, — You receive this as an acknow- 
 ledgment cf ycmr punctuality as to the time and 
 place of meeting on Sunday last, though it was 
 owing to you that it answered no purpose. The 
 pageantry of being armed, and the ensign of your 
 order, were useless and too conspicuous : you 
 needed no attendant ; the place was not calculated 
 for mischief, nor was any intended. If you walk 
 in the west aisle of Westminster Abbey towards 
 eleven o'cloc^k on Sunday next, your sagacity will 
 point out the person, whom you will address by 
 asking his company, to fake a turn or two with you. 
 You will not fail, on inquiry, to be acquainted with
 
 iMR. BARNARD AND THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 his name and place of abode, according to which 
 directions you will please to send two or three 
 hundred pound bank notes the next day by the 
 penny post. Exert not your curiosity too early ; 
 it is in your power to make me grateful on certain 
 terms. I have friends who are faithful, but they 
 do not bark before they bite. — I am, &c. F." 
 
 The duke had repaired to Hyde Fark no other- 
 wise drest than ])ersons of quality generally are ; 
 the only part of the insignia of the order of the 
 garter being the star by his side ; and the pistol 
 holsters before were the common horse furniture 
 of a military officer high in command. He Avas 
 naturally alarmed on receiving the second letter, 
 and consulted his friend ; when after sending for 
 the late Sir John F'ielding, it was determined that 
 his Grace should go to Westminster Abbey ; two 
 or three constables being ordered to attend in 
 sight, as if walking to see the monuments, and 
 directed to take up any suspected person on the 
 duke making a signal. He had not been in the 
 Abbey more than five minutes, when the person 
 he had before spoken to in Hyde Park came in, 
 accompanied by a good-looking decent man, and 
 they both walked towards the choir and then 
 parted. The person whom the duke had before 
 seen, and who afterwards proved to be Mr. William 
 Barnard, loitered about, looking at the inscriptions, 
 and occasionally fixing his eyes on his Grace, who 
 stood for a few minutes pretty near him, to see if 
 he w'ould speak first ; but this not being the case, 
 he at last said to Mr. Barnard, " Have you any- 
 thing to say to me, Sirl"' to which he replied, 
 " No, my lord, I have not." "Surely you havef 
 replied the Duke ; — but he still said, " No, my lord." 
 Mr. Barnard then walked up and dovm on one 
 side of the aisle, and his Grace on the other, for 
 six or seven minutes, without any conversation 
 passing between them ; when the Duke of Marl- 
 borough quitted the Abbey at the great door. 
 Nothing particular occurred further at this time ; 
 only it was observed by one of the persons ap- 
 pointed to watch, that Mr. Barnard placed himself 
 behind one of the pillars as he went out, and looked 
 eagerly after him. 
 
 The duke, with a laudable caution, which did 
 him credit, was still unwilling to have him secured, 
 lest he might injure an innocent man. A third 
 letter was, however, received a few days afterwards, 
 which, on comparing the directions, was evidently 
 the production of the same person who had written 
 the tirst. It was as follows : 
 
 "MyLord, — I am fully convinced you had a com- 
 panion on Sunday. I interpret it as owing to the 
 weakness of human nature ; but such proceeding is 
 far from being ingenuous, and may produce bad 
 effects ; whilst it is impossible to answer the end 
 proposed. You will see me again soon, as it were 
 by accident, and may easily find where I go to. In 
 consequence of which, by being sent to, 1 shall wait 
 on your Grace, but expect to be quite alone, and to 
 converse in whispers. You will likewise give your 
 honour, on meeting, that no part of the conversa- 
 tion shall transpire. These, and the former terms 
 complied with, ensure your safety : my revenge, 
 in case of non-compliance, or any scheme to expose 
 me, will be slower, but not less sure ; and strong 
 suspicion, the utmost that can possibly ensue upon 
 it ; while the chances would be tenfold against 
 you. You will possibly be in doubt after the 
 meeting ; but it is quite necessary the outside 
 
 should be a masque to the in. The family of 
 the Bloods is not extinct, though they are not 
 in my scheme." 
 
 It was more than two months before the duke 
 heard anything further of this extraordinary cor- 
 respondent, when he was surprised by receiving 
 the underwritten letter by the penny-post, in a 
 mean hand, but not in imitation of print like the 
 other. 
 
 " To His Grace the Duke of Marlborough. 
 " May it please your Grace, — I have reason to 
 believe that the son of one Barnard, a surveyor, in 
 Abingdon Buildings, AVestminster, is acquainted 
 with some secrets that nearly concern your safety; 
 his father is now out of town, which will give you 
 an opportunity of questioning him more privately. 
 " It would be useless to your grace, as well as 
 dangerous to me, to appear more publicly in this 
 affair. 
 
 " Your sincere friend, — Anonymous." 
 •' He frequently goes to Story's-gate Coffee 
 House." 
 
 In the course of the week a messenger was sent 
 to the cofi'ee-house, who met Mr. Barnard there. 
 He appeared much surprised when told that the 
 Duke of Marlborough wished to speak with him, 
 and said, *' It is very odd, for the Duke addressed 
 himself to me sometime ago in Hyde Park, though 
 I never saw him before in my life!" A day or two 
 afterwards, according to appointment, he came to 
 Marlborough House. 
 
 As soon as he made his appearance the duke 
 immediately recognised the face of the same person 
 whom he had before seen at Hyde Park and at 
 Westminster Abbey. On asking him, as before, 
 " If he had anything to say f he replied, " I have 
 nothing to say." 
 
 The several letters and circumstances were then 
 recapitulated by his grace, particularly the last, 
 which mentioned Mr. Barnard's knowing some- 
 thing that nearly concerned his safety. To these 
 points he only replied, " I know nothing of the 
 matter." The duke then observed that the writer 
 of the letters in question appeared to be a man of 
 abilities and education ; and lamented that he 
 should be guilty of so mean an action. " It is 
 possible to be very poor and very learned," was 
 his remarkable answer. On the duke's saying 
 there must be something very odd in the man, 
 Barnard answered, " I imagine he must be mad." 
 " He seems surprised that I should have pistols," 
 his grace continued ; to which he made answer, 
 " I was surprised to see your grace with pistols, 
 and your star on." "Why were you surprised at 
 thati" " It was so cold a day, I wondered you 
 had not your great coat on," was his reply after a 
 little hesitation. On reading that part of the letter 
 to him, which mentioned his father's being out of 
 town, he remarked, " It is very odd ; my father 
 was then out of town." This last circumstance 
 struck the duke more particularly, as the letter 
 had no date. Before they parted, his Grace con- 
 cluded with saying, " If you are innocent, it 
 becomes ijou, much more than me, to find out the 
 author of these letters, as it is an attempt to blast 
 your character." Barnard then smiled, and took 
 his leave. 
 
 On the strength of these circumstances, it was 
 soon after thought proper to take him into custody. 
 He was indicted, tried on the Black Act, at the 
 Session House in the Old Bailey, in May 1758,
 
 MADONNA PIA, AND LADY OF PIEDMONT. 
 
 and after a long and patient investigation of the 
 circumstances, equally honourable to the candour 
 and humanity of the duke and to the impartiality 
 of the judges and jury, acquitted. It a])pear- 
 ed, in favour of the prisoner, corroborated by 
 respectable evidence, that on the day he met the 
 duke in Hyde Park he had been sent by his 
 father on business to Kensington. As to his being 
 in the Abbey, a Mr. Greenwood, a person of 
 credit, who, as is before observed, was seen with 
 him theref proved that contrary to Mr. Barnard's 
 wish he had, with some difficulty, persuaded him 
 to walk with him from Abingdon Buildings to the 
 Park that morning : that they were going thither 
 without passing through the abbey, but Greenwood 
 recollecting a new monument he had not seen, 
 insisted on his going that way. 
 
 Many persons of fortune and reputation appear- 
 ed ; some of whom had dined with him at Ken- 
 sington on the day abovementioned. These, 
 with many others, had repeatedly heard Mr. 
 Barnard speak with wonder of having twice met 
 the Duke of Marlborough, and the circumstance 
 of his Grace speaking to him being very singular. 
 
 They all united in the most ample testimonies 
 of his regularity, sobriety, and pecuniary credit, 
 and his being in the habit of daily receiving con- 
 siderable sums. 
 
 Our authority for the above curious story informs 
 us that certain circumstances afterwards occurred, 
 particularly a transaction with an East India 
 director, which rendered the guilt of Barnard 
 highly probable. The circumstances are puzzling ; 
 but we believe him to have been the man, particu- 
 larly as he was so brief in his replies, and showed 
 no anxiety to bring the offender to light. A clever 
 man, such as he evidently was, could easily have 
 contrived to make Greenwood appear to have 
 originated the wish to go into the abbey, and even 
 to have made him do so ; and as to the incon- 
 sistency of the rest of his conduct, there is no end 
 to such inconsistencies in men as at present 
 educated. Barnard might even have been con- 
 scious of a touch of the madness which he attri- 
 buted to the anonymous person, and which his 
 questions and his strange smile not a little resem- 
 ble. At the same time it is, perhaps, not unlikely 
 that he had accomplices; that either of them was 
 prepared to come forward, as the case might 
 require ; and yet that neither would stir more in 
 it, if unsuccessful, than their knowledge of each 
 other's secrets would render advisable. 
 
 II., m.—STORIES OF MADONNA PIA, 
 AND OF A LADY OF PIEDMONT. 
 
 [ The following story, says Mr. Hazlitt, in his 
 ' Notes of a Journey through France and Italy,' is 
 related by M. Beyle in his charming little work 
 entitled De V Amour, as a companion to the famous 
 one in Dante ; and I shall give the whole passage 
 in his words, as placing the Italian character (in 
 former as well as latter times) in a striking point 
 of view. 
 
 I allude (he says) to those touching lines of 
 Dante : — 
 
 Deh ! quando tu sarai tornatc .il mondo, 
 Hicoiilati di me, che son !a Pia ; 
 SicMina mi le ; disfecerai Maremma : 
 Salsi colui, che iiiannellata pria, 
 Disposando, m' avea con la sua gemma. 
 
 I'urgaturw, Canto v. 
 
 Dante, the great Italian poet, in his imaginary 
 progress through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise', 
 meets with a variety of his countrymen and coun- 
 trywomen who accost him, or speak to others, 
 and in brief but intense words, relate, or refer to 
 their story. In Purgatory he sees a female spirit, 
 who says, " I pray thee, when thou returnest to 
 earth, that thou wilt rememberme — wilt remember 
 Pia. Sienna was the place of my birth, the Marshes 
 of my death. He knows it who had put upon my 
 hand the spousal ring."] 
 
 The woman who speaks with so much reserve 
 (continues M. Beyle) had in secret undergone the 
 fate of Desdemona, and had it in her power, by a 
 single word, to have revealed her husband's crime 
 to the friends whom she had left upon earth. 
 
 Nello della Pietra obtained in marriage the hand 
 of Madonna Pia, sole heiress of the Ptolomei, the 
 richest and most noble family of Sienna. Her 
 beauty, which was the admiration of all Tuscany, 
 gave rise to a jealousy in the breast of her husband, 
 that, envenomed by wrong reports and suspicions 
 continually reviving, led to a frightful catastrophe. 
 It is not easy to determine at this day if his 
 wife was altogether innocent ; but Dante has 
 represented her as such. Her husband carried her 
 with him into the marshes of Volterra, celebrated 
 then, as now, for the pestiferous effects of the air. 
 Never would he tell his unhappy wife the reason 
 of her banishment into so dangerous a place. His 
 pride did not deign to pronounce either complaint 
 or accusation. He lived with her alone, in a 
 deserted tower, of which I have been to see the 
 ruins on the sea-shore ; here he never broke his 
 disdainful silence, never replied to the questions 
 of his youthful bride, never listened to her 
 entreaties. He waited, unmoved by her, for the 
 air to produce its fatal eti'ects. The vapours of 
 this unwholesome swamp were not long in tarnish- 
 ing features, the most beautiful, they say, that in 
 that age had appeared upon earth. In a few months 
 she died. Some chroniclers of these remote 
 times report that Nello employed the dagger to 
 hasten her end : she died in the marshes in some 
 horrible manner ; but the mode of her death 
 remained a mystery, even to her contemporaries. 
 Nello della Pietra survived, to pass the rest of his 
 days in a silence which was never broken. 
 
 Nothing can be conceived more noble or more 
 delicate than the manner in which the ill-fated 
 Pia addresses herself to Dante. She desires to be 
 recalled to the memory of the friends whom she 
 had quitted so young : at the same time, in telling 
 her name, and alluding to her husband, she does 
 not allow herself tlie smallest complaint against a 
 cruelly unexampled, but thenceforth irreparable ; 
 and merely intimates that he knows the history of 
 her death. 
 
 This constancy in vengeance and in suffering is 
 to be met with, I believe, only among the people 
 of the South. In Piedmont I found myself the 
 involuntary witness of a fact almost similar ; but 
 I was at the time ignorant of the details. I v\'as 
 ordered, with five-and-twenty dragoons, into the 
 woods that border the Sesia, to prevent the con- 
 traband traffic. On my arrival in the evening 
 at this wild and solitary place, I distinguished 
 among the trees the ruins of an old castle ; I went 
 to it : to my great surprise it was inhabited. I 
 there found a nobleman of the country of a very 
 unpromising aspect ; a man six feet in height and 
 
 B 2
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF GUERNSEY. 
 
 forty years of age : he allowed me a couple of 
 apartments with a very ill grace. Here I enter- 
 tained myself by getting up some pieces of music 
 with my quarter- master : after the cxpiiation of a 
 week we observed that our host kept guard over 
 a woman whom we called Camilla in jest : we 
 were far from suspecting the dreadful truth. She 
 died at the enil of six weeks. I had the melan- 
 choly curiosity to see her in her coffin ; I bribed a 
 monk who had charge of it, and, towards midnight, 
 under pretext of sjjrinkling the holy Avater, he 
 conducted me into the chapel. I there saw one 
 of those fine faces which are beautiful even in the 
 bosom of death : she had a large aquiline nose, of 
 which I shall never forget the beautiful and 
 exjiressive outline. I quitted this mournful spot ; 
 but, five years after, a detachment of my regiment 
 accompanying the Emperor to his coronation as 
 King of Italy, I had the whole story recounted to 
 me. I learned that the jealous husband, the 
 
 Count of , had one morning found, hanging 
 
 to !iis wife's bedside, an English watch belonging 
 to a young man in the little town where they 
 lived. The same day he took her to the ruined 
 castle in the midst of the forests of the Sesia. 
 Like Nello della Pietra, he uttered not a single 
 word. If she made him any request, he presented 
 to her, sternly, and in silence, the English watch, 
 which he had always about him. In this manner 
 he passed nearly three years with her. She at 
 length fell a victim to despair, in the flower of her 
 age. Her husband attempted to dispatch the 
 owner of the watch with a stiletto, failed, fled to 
 Genoa, embarked there, and no tidings have 
 been heard of him since. His property was 
 confiscated. 
 
 " This storj','' observes Mr. Hazlitt, " is interest- 
 ing and well told. One such incident, or one 
 page in Dante or in Spenser, is worth all the route 
 between this and Paris ; and all the sights in all 
 the post-roads in Europe. Oh, Sienna! If I felt 
 charmed with thy narrow, tenantless streets, or 
 looked delighted through thy arched gateway over 
 tlie subjected plain, it was that some recollections 
 of Madonna Pia hung upon the beatings of my 
 spirit, and converted a barren waste into the 
 regions of romance." 
 
 TV.— THE TRAGEDY OF GUERNSEY. 
 
 [The tragical historj^ here given has not so fixed 
 and intense an air with it as the two last, but it is 
 so very dramatic, that if P'ate could be supposed 
 to have an eye to such results, we could fancy the 
 circumstances to have taken place, purely in order 
 that they might give a lesson from the stage. In 
 truth, they have been dramatised more than once, 
 and, we believe, more than once told otherwise ; 
 but the following is the best account of the story 
 we have met with. It is (with little variation) by 
 the same author as furnished us with the case of 
 Mr. Barnard and the Duke of Marlborough.] 
 
 John Andukvv G uidieu, a respectable and wealthy 
 inhabitant of Jersey in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century, had, for several years, paid his 
 addresses to an accomplished and beautiful young 
 woman, a native of the island of Guernsey ; and 
 having surmounted the usual difficulties and delays 
 of love, which always increase the value of the 
 object in pursuit, the happy day for leading his 
 
 mistress to the altar at length was fixed. After 
 giving the necessary orders for the reception of his 
 intended wife, Gordier, at the time appointed, in 
 full liealth and high spirits, sailed for Guernsey. 
 Tiie im])atience of a lover on such a voyage need 
 not be described ; hours were years, and a narrow 
 channel between the islands ten thousand leagues. 
 The Kind of promise at length appears, he leaj)S on 
 the beach, and without waiting for refreshment or 
 his servant, whom he left with his baggage, sets 
 out alone, and on foot, for the house he had so 
 often visited, which was only a few miles from the 
 port. The servant, who soon followed, was sur- 
 prised to find his master not arrived : repeated mes- 
 sengers were sent to search and enquire, in vain. 
 Having waited in anxious expectation till mid- 
 night, the apprehensions of the lady and her 
 family were proportionate to the urgency of their 
 feelings, and the circumstance of the case. 
 
 The next morning, at break of day, the appear- 
 ance of a near relation of the missing man was 
 not calculated to diminish their fears. With 
 evident marks of distress, fatigue, and dejection, 
 he came to inform them that he had passed the 
 whole of the night in minutely examining, and in 
 every direction, the environs of the road by which 
 Gordier generally passed. After days of dreadful 
 suspense, and nights of unavailing anxiety, the 
 corpse of the unfortunate lover was at length 
 discovered in a cavity among the rocks, disfigured 
 with many wounds ; but no circumstance occurred 
 on which to ground suspicion, or even to hazard 
 conjecture against the perpetrator of so foul a 
 murder. The regret of both families for a good 
 young man thus cut off in the meridian of life and 
 expectation by cruel assassins, was increased by 
 the mystery and mode of his death. The grief of 
 the young lady not being of that species which 
 relieves itself by show and exclamation, was, for 
 that very reason, the more poignant and heartfelt : 
 she was never seen to shed a tear, but doubled the 
 pity for her fate by an affecting patience. Her 
 virtues and her beauty having attracted general 
 admiration, the family, after a few years, was 
 prevailed on to permit Mr. Galliard, a merchant 
 and native of the island, to become her suitor, 
 hoping that a second lover might gradually with- 
 draw her attention from brooding in hopeless 
 silence over the catastrophe of her first. In sub- 
 mission to the wishes of her parents, but with 
 repeated and energetic declarations that she never 
 would marry, Galliard was occasionally admitted ; 
 but the unhappy lady, probably from thinking it 
 notvery delicate or feeling in a relation of her mur- 
 dered lover to address her, found it difficult to 
 suppress a certain antipathy, which she felt when- 
 ever he approached. It was possible also, that, 
 although hardly known to herself, she might have 
 entertained a worse suspicion. At all events, the 
 singular but well-authenticated circumstance of 
 her antipathy was often remarked, long before the 
 secret was revealed ; it was a more than mental 
 aversion, and was said to bear a near resemblance 
 to that tremulous horror and shivering, which 
 seizes certain persons of keen sensibility and deli- 
 cate feelings at the sight of some venomous crea- 
 ture, abhorrent to their own nature and likeness. 
 But such was the ardour of passion, or such the 
 fascinating magic of her charms, repulse only 
 increased desire, and Galliard persisted in his 
 unwelcome visits. Sometimes he endeavoured to
 
 REVERSION, CLERICAL AND FISCAL. 
 
 prevail on the unfortunate young woman to 
 accept a present from his hands. Her friends 
 remarked that he was particularly urgent to 
 present her with a beautiful trinket, of expensive 
 workmanship and valuable materails, which she 
 pointedly refused, adding, that it would be worse 
 than improper in her to encourage attentions and 
 receive favours from a man who excited in her 
 mind sensations far stronger than indifference, and 
 whose offejs no motive of any kind could prevail 
 on her to accept. 
 
 But Galliard, by the earnestness of his addresses, 
 by his assiduities, and by exciting pity, the com- 
 mon resource of the artful, had won over the 
 mother of the lady to second his wishes. In her 
 dee're to forward his suit, she had taken an oppor- 
 tunity, during the night, to fix the trinket in ques- 
 tion on to her daughter's watch-chain, and forbad 
 her, on pain of her displeasure, to remove this 
 token of unaccepted affection. 
 
 The health of the lovely mourner suffered in the 
 conflict ; and the mother of the murdered man, 
 who had ever regarded her intended daughter-in- 
 law with tenderness and affection, crossed the sea 
 which divided Jersey from Guernsey, to visit her. 
 The sight of one so nearly related to her first, her 
 only love naturally called forth ten thousand me- 
 lancholy ideas in her mind. She seemed to tike 
 pleasure in recounting to the old lady many little 
 incidents which lovers only consider as importatit. 
 Mrs. Gordier was also fond of inquiring into and 
 listening to every minute particular which related 
 to the last interviews of her son with his mistress. 
 
 It was on one of these occasions that their con- 
 versation reverted, as usual, to the melancholy 
 topic ; and the sad retrospect so powerfully affected 
 the young lady, whose health was already much 
 impaired, that she sunk in convulsions on the 
 floor. During the alarm of the unhappy family, 
 who were conveying her to bed, their terror was 
 considerably increased by observing that the ejes 
 of Mrs. Gordier were fearfully caught by the glit- 
 tering appendage to the lady's watch ; that well- 
 known token of her son's affection, which, with a 
 loud voice and altered countenance, she declared 
 he had purchased as a gift for his mistress, previously 
 to his quitting Guernsey. "With a dreadful look, 
 in which horror, indignation, wonder, and sus- 
 picion were mingled, she repeated the extraor- 
 dinary circumstance, as well as the agitated state 
 of her mind would permit, to the unhappy young 
 lady, during the interval of a short recovery. 
 
 "The moment the poor sufferer understood that 
 the jewel she had hitherto so much despised was 
 originally in the possession of Gordier, the intel- 
 ligence seemed to pour a flood of new horror on 
 her mind ; she made a last effort to press the ap- 
 pendage to her heart ; her eyes, for a moment, 
 exhibited the wild stare of madness, stung as she 
 was to its highest pitch by the horrible conviction ; 
 and crying out, " Oh, murderous villain 1" she ex- 
 pired in the arras of the by-standers. 
 
 It is hardly necessary further to unfold the cir- 
 cumstances of this mysterious assassination : Gor- 
 dier, in his way from the port to his mistress's 
 house, had been clearly waylaid by Galliard, 
 murdered and plundered of the trinket, in the 
 hope that after his death he might succeed in the 
 possession of a jewel far more precious. 
 
 Galliard, being charged with the crime, boldly 
 denied it, but with evident confusion and equivo- 
 
 cation ; and while the injured family were sending 
 for the officers of justice, lie confirmed all their 
 suspicions by suicide, and by a violent-tempered 
 letter of confession. 
 
 v., VI.— TWO STORIES OF REVERSION, 
 CLERICAL AND FISCAL. 
 
 [We add the following by way of farces after 
 our tragedy.] 
 
 He who has been half his life (quoth our autho- 
 rity) an attendant at levees, on the faith of an 
 election promise, a watering-place squeeze of the 
 hand, or a race-ground oath ; or he who, vege- 
 tating on a fellowship, with vows long-plighted to 
 some much-loved fair, is waiting, or watching, or 
 wishing for, the death of a hale rector, at fifty- 
 four ; may, perhaps, be interested or amused by 
 the following little narrative, the merry catas- 
 trophe of which took place at the time recorded. — 
 The incumbent of a valuable living in a western 
 county had for some years awakened the hopes 
 and excited the fears of the members of a certain 
 college, in whom the next presentation was vested ; 
 the old gentleman having already outlived two of 
 his proposed successors. The tranquil pleasures 
 of the common-room had very lately been inter- 
 rupted or animated by a well-authenticated account 
 of the worthy clergyman's being seized with a 
 violent and dangerous disease, sufficient, without 
 medical aid, to hurry him to his grave. The 
 senior fellow, who, on the strength of his contin- 
 gency, had only the day before declined an advan- 
 tageous offer, was congratulated on the fairness of 
 his prospects, and the after-dinner conversation 
 I)assed off without that uninteresting nonchalance 
 for which it was generally remarkable. 
 
 The pears, the port wine, and the chestnuts 
 being quickly dispatched, the gentleman alluded to 
 hurried to his room ; he ascended the stairs, 
 tripped along the gallery, and stirred his almost 
 extinguished fire with unusual alacrity ; then draw- 
 ing from his portfolio a letter to his mistress, 
 which, for want of knowing exactly what to say, 
 had been for several weeks unfinished, he filled 
 the unoccupied space with renewed protestations 
 of undiminished love ; and he spoke with raptures 
 (raptures rather assumed than actually felt, after a 
 sixteen years' courtship) of the near approach of 
 that time when a competent independence would 
 put it into bis power to taste that first of earthly 
 blessings, nuptial love, without the alloy of un- 
 certain support. He concluded a letter, more 
 agreeable to the lady than any she had ever received 
 from him, with delineating his future plans, and 
 suggesting a few alterations in the parsonage- 
 house, which, though not a modern building, 
 was substantial, and in excellent re])air ; thanks 
 to the conscientious and scruptilous care of his 
 predecessor, in a particular, to which, he observed, 
 so many of the clergy were culpably inattentive. — 
 The letter was sent to the post, and after a third 
 rubber at the warden's (who observed that he never 
 saw Mr. * * * so facetious), a poached egg, and a 
 rummer of hot punch, the happy man retired to 
 bed in the calm tranquillity of long-delayed hope, 
 treading on the threshold of immediate gratifica- 
 tion. 
 
 Patiently at first, and then impatiently, waited 
 he several posts, without receiving further intelli- 
 gence, and filled up the interval as well as he could
 
 REVERSION, CLERICAL AND FISCAL. 
 
 in settlings his accounts as bursar,* getting in the 
 few bills he owed, and revisini; his books ; which, 
 as the distance was considerable, he resolved to 
 weal before he left the university. Considering 
 himself now as a married man, he thought it a 
 piece of necessary attention to his wife to supply 
 the place of the volumes he disposed of by some 
 of the miscellaneous productions of modern litera- 
 ture, more immediately calculated for female 
 perusal. 
 
 At the end of three weeks, a space of time as 
 long as any man of common feelings could be 
 expected to abstain from inquiry ; after being re- 
 peatedly assured by his college associates that the 
 incumbent must be dead, but that the letter an- 
 nouncing it had miscarried, and being positively 
 certain of it himself, he took pen in hand, but not 
 knowing any person in the neighbourhood of the 
 living, which lie hoped so soon to take possession 
 of, he was for some time at a loss to whom he 
 should venture to write on so important a subject. 
 In the restlessness of anxious expectation, and 
 irritated by the stimulants of love and money — in 
 a desperate and indecorous moment, he addressed 
 a letter officially to the clerk of the parish, not 
 knowing his name. This epistle commenced with 
 taking it for granted that his principal was dead ; 
 but informing him, that the college had received 
 no intelligence of it, a circumstance which they 
 imputed to the miscarriage of a letter ; but they 
 begged to know, and if possible by return of post, 
 the day and hour on which he departed : if, con- 
 trary to all expectation and probability, he should 
 be still alive, the clerk was in that case desired to 
 send without delay a particular and minute ac- 
 count of the state of his health, the nature of his 
 late complaint, its apparent effects upon his con- 
 stitution, and any other circumstance he might 
 thhik at all connected with the life of the in- 
 cumbent. 
 
 On receiving the letter, the ecclesiastic subaltern 
 immediately carried it to the rector's, who, to the 
 infinite satisfaction of his parishioners, had re- 
 covered from a most dangerous disease, and was 
 at the moment entertaining a circle of friends at 
 his hospitable board, who celebrated his recovery 
 in bumpers. 
 
 After carrying his eye over it in a cursory way, 
 he smiled, read it to the company, and, with their 
 permission, replied to it himself, in the following 
 manner : — 
 
 " S e, November 1, 1736. 
 
 " Sir, — My clerk being a very mean scribe, at 
 his request I now answer the several queries in 
 your letter directed to him. 
 
 " My disorder was an acute fever, under which 
 I laboured for a month, attended with a delirium 
 during ten days of the time, and originally con- 
 tracted, as I have good reason for thinkiiig, by my 
 walking four miles in the middle of a very hot day 
 in July. 
 
 " From this complaint, I am perfectly recovered 
 by the blessing of God, and the prescriptions of 
 my son, a doctor of physic; and I have officiated 
 both in the church and at funerals in the church- 
 yard, which is about three hundred yards from my 
 house. The report of my relapse was probably 
 occasioned by my having a slight complaint about 
 three weeks ago ; but which did not confine me. 
 " As to the present state of my health, my ap- 
 • Treasurer of the college. 
 
 petite, digestion, and sleep are good, and in some 
 respects, better than before my illness, particularly 
 the steadiness of my hands. I never use sjjectacles, 
 and I thank God I can read the smallest print by 
 candlelight ; nor have I ever had reason to think 
 that the seeds of tlie gout, the rheumatism, or any 
 chronic disease, are in my constitution. 
 
 " Altiiongh I entered on my eighty-first year the 
 second of last March, the greatest inconvenience 
 I feel from old age is a little defect in my hearing 
 and memory. These are mercies, which, as they 
 render the remaining dregs of life tolerably cotn- 
 fortable, I desire with all humility and gratitude to 
 acknowledge ; and I heartily pray that they may 
 descend, with all other blessings, to my successor, 
 whenever it shall please God to call me. I am, 
 sir, your unknown humble servant, 
 
 " R W .'• 
 
 " P. S. — My clerk's name is Robert D- 
 
 your letter cost him fourpence to the foot-post 
 who brings it from S e." 
 
 Such an epistle, from so good and excellent a 
 character, and under such circumstances, could 
 not fail producing unpleasant sensations in the 
 breast of the receiver, who was not without many 
 good qualities, and, except on this one occasion 
 (for which love and port must be his excuse), did 
 not appear to be deficient in feeling and propriety 
 of conduct. 
 
 The purpose of this article will be fully and 
 effectually answered, if fellows of colleges and ex- 
 pectants of fat livings, valuable sinecures, and 
 rich reversions, may happily be taught to check the 
 indecorous ardour of eager hope ; lest they meet 
 with the rebuff given by an old Nottinghamshire 
 vicar, whose health was more robust, and manners 
 less courteous, than those of the Dorsetshire clergy- 
 man. 
 
 This testy old gentleman, after recovering from 
 a short illness, was exaspei'ated by insidious, often- 
 repeated, and selfish inquiries after his health ; and 
 in the heat of irritation ordered a placard, M'ith 
 the following words, to be affixed to the chapel- 
 door of the college to which the vicarage be- 
 longed : — 
 
 " To the Fellows of * * * * College. 
 " Gentlemen, — In answer to the very civil and 
 very intelligible, inquiries which you have of late 
 so assiduously made into the state of my health, I 
 have the pleasure to inform you that I never was 
 better in my life ; and as I have made up my mind 
 on the folly of dying to please other people, I am 
 resolved to live as long as I am able for my own 
 sake. To prevent your being at any unnecessary 
 trouble and expense in future on the subject, I 
 have directed my apothecary to give you a line, in 
 case there should be any probability of a vacancy ; 
 and am your humble servant. 
 
 •^ :i'fi if i^ 
 
 A laughable story was circulated during the ad- 
 ministration of the old Duke of Newcastle,* and 
 retailed to the public in various forms. This no- 
 bleman, with many good points, and described by 
 a popular contemporary poet as almost eaten up 
 by his zeal for the House of Hanover, was re- 
 markable for being profuse of his promises on all 
 
 * Henry, ninth Earl of Lincoln, anil second Duke of New- 
 castle, some; time prime minister, — a (li^^lity politician.
 
 REVERSION, CLERICAL AND FISCAL. 
 
 occasions, and valued himself particularly on being 
 able to anticipate the words or the wants of the 
 various persons who attended his levees, before 
 they uttered a syllable. This weakness sometimes 
 led him into ridiculous mistakes and absurd em- 
 barrassments ; but it was his passion to lavish pro- 
 mises, which gave occasion for the anecdote about 
 to be related. 
 
 At the election for a certain borough in Corn- 
 wall, where the ministerial and opposition interests 
 were almost equally poised, a single vote was of 
 the highest importance : this object the duke, by cer- 
 tain well-applied arguments, by the force of urgent 
 perseverance and personal application, at length 
 attained, and the gentleman recommended by the 
 treasury gained his election. 
 
 In the warmth of gratitude for so signal a tri- 
 umph, and in a quarter where the minister had 
 generally experienced defe;<t and disappointment, 
 his grace poured forth acknowledgments and pro- 
 mises, without ceasing, on the fortunate possessor of 
 the casting vote ; called him his best and dearest 
 friend ; protested that he should consider himself 
 as for ever indebted to him ; that he could never 
 do enough for him ; that he would serve him by 
 night and by day. 
 
 The Cornish voter, in the main an honest fellow, 
 *' as things went," and who would have thought 
 himself already sufficiently paid but for such a 
 torrent of acknowledgments, thanked the duke for 
 his kindness, and told him, " That the supervisor 
 of excise was old and infirm, and if he would 
 have the goodness to recommend his son-in-law to 
 the commissioner, in case of the old man's death, 
 he should think himself and his family bound to 
 render government every assistance in his power, 
 on any future occasion."' 
 
 " My dear friend, why do you ask for such a 
 trifling employment 1" exclaimed his grace, " your 
 relation shall have it at a word speaking, the mo- 
 ment it is vacaat." " But how shall I get admitted 
 to you, my lord ; for in London I understand it is 
 a very difficult ihing to get a sight of you great folks, 
 though you are so kind and complaisant to us in the 
 country 1" " The instant the man dies," replied the 
 premier (used to and prepared for the freedoms of a 
 contested election), " the moment he dies, set out 
 post-haste for London ; drive directly to my house, 
 by night or by day, sleeping or waking, dead or 
 alive, — thunder at the door ; I will leave word 
 with my porter to show you upstairs directly, and 
 the employment shall be disposed of according to 
 your wishes, without fail." 
 
 The parties separated ; the duke drove to a 
 I friend's house in the neighbourhood, where he was 
 visiting, without a thought of seeing his new ac- 
 quaintance till that day seven years ; but the me- 
 mory of a Cornish elector, not being loaded with 
 such a variety of objects, was more attentive. The 
 supervisor died a few months afterwards, and the 
 ministerial partisan, relying on the word of a peer, 
 was conveyed to London by the mail, and ascended 
 the steps of a large house, now divided into three, 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the corner of Great 
 Queen-street.* 
 
 The reader should be informed that precisely at 
 the moment when the expectations of a con- 
 siderable party of a borough in Cornwall were 
 roused by the death of a 8ui)ervisor, no less a per- 
 
 • The soiUli-fast corner. Tin' house is slill stivnding. 
 is t'.ic one witli the passage under tlie side ol' it. 
 
 It 
 
 son than the king of Spain was expected hourly to 
 depart : an event in which all Europe, and par- 
 ticularly Great Britain, was concerned. 
 
 The Duke of Newcastle, on the very night that 
 the proprietor of the decisive vote was at his door, 
 had sat up, anxiously expecting despatches from 
 Madrid : wearied by official business and agitated 
 spirits he retired to rest, having previously given 
 particular instruction to his porter not to go to 
 bed, as he expected every minute a messenger with 
 advices of the greatest importance, and desired he 
 might be shown upstairs the moment of his arrival. 
 
 His grace was sound asleep, for with a thousand 
 singularities and absurdities, of which the rascals 
 about him did not forget to take advantage, his 
 worst enemies could not deny him the merit of 
 good design, that best solace in a solitary hour ; 
 the porter settled for the night in his chair, had 
 already commenced a sonorous nap, when the 
 vigorous arm of the Cornish voter roused him 
 effectually from his slumbers. 
 
 To his first question, " Is the duke at home V 
 the porter replied, " Yes, and in bed ; but he left 
 particular orders, that come when you will you 
 are to go up to him directly." " God for ever 
 bless him ! a worthy and honest gentleman," cried 
 our applier for the vacant post, smiling and nod- 
 ding with approbation, at a prime minister's so 
 accurately keeping his promise ; " How punctual 
 his grace is ; I knew he would not deceive me ; 
 let me hear no more of lords and dukes not keep- 
 ing their words : I believe, verily, they are as 
 honest, and mean as well as other folks, but I 
 can't always say the same of those who are about 
 them." Repeating these words as he ascended 
 
 the stairs, the burgess of was ushered 
 
 into the duke's bedchamber. 
 
 " Is he deadl" exclaimed his grace, rubbing his 
 eyes, and scarcely awaked from dreaming of the 
 king of Spain, " Is he deadl" " Yes, my lord," 
 replied the eager expectant, delighted to find that 
 the election promise, with all its circumstances, 
 was so fresh in the minister's memory. " When 
 did he dief " The day before yesterday, exactly 
 at half-past one o'clock, after being confined three 
 weeks to his bed, and taking a power of doctor's 
 stuff, and I hope your grace will be as good as 
 your word, and let my son-in-law succeed him." 
 
 The duke, by this time, perfectly awake, was 
 staggered at the impossibility of receiving intelli- 
 gence from Madrid in so short a space of time, and 
 he was perplexed at the absurdity of a king's 
 messenger applying for his son-in-law to succeed 
 the king of Spain. " Is the man drunk or mad 1 
 Where are your despatches'?" exclaimed his grace, 
 hastily drawing back his curtain, when instead of 
 a royal courier his eager eye recognised at the 
 bedside the well-known countenance of his friend 
 in Cornwall, making low bows with hat in hand, 
 and hoping " My lord would not forget the gra- 
 cious promise he was so good as to make in favour 
 
 of his son-in-law at the last election of " 
 
 Vexed at so untimely a disturbance, and disap- 
 pointed of news from Spain, he frowned for a few 
 minutes, but chagrin soon gave way to mirth at so 
 singular and ridiculous a combination of opposite 
 circumstances, and yielding to the irritation he 
 sank on the bed in a violent fit of laughter, which, 
 like the electrical fluid, was communicated in a 
 moment to the attendants.
 
 ST. ANDRE THE SURGEON. 
 
 VII.— ST. ANDRE THE SURGEON. 
 
 Nathaniel St. Andri' was a. native of Switzerland, 
 from which country he emigrated early in life, and 
 secured the friendship of a wealthy j)atron, who 
 furnished him with the means of procuring a 
 medical education. He afterwards became a public 
 lecturer on anatomy and a surgeon of eminence 
 in London, a favourite of King George the First, 
 tlie contidential friend of Lord Peterborough, and 
 was employed by Bolingbrokc and ro])e. But the 
 fairness of such professional prospects was sud- 
 denly clouded, and his character stamped with an 
 indelible impression of ridicule or guilt, by his 
 listening to, and encouraging the impudent impost- 
 ure of Mary Tofts, a woman who declared, and 
 endeavoured to make the public believe, that she 
 had been actually delivered of rabbits ; a delusion 
 ill which "Whiston, probably seduced by the credit 
 of St. Andre, was also involved. 
 
 This eccentric divine, on other occasions suffi- 
 ciently scrupulous, wrote a pamphlet to prove that 
 the monstrous conception literally fulfilled what had 
 been foretold by the prophet Esdras. 
 
 To hiiigli were want of sentiment or j^race. 
 But to be grave exceeds all power of face. 
 
 It is not so easy to account for the conduct of 
 St. Andre, a man confessedly of strong sense and 
 (juick discernment. Of three opinions which pre- 
 vailed at the time — that he was disposed to try an 
 experiment on national credulity ; that he was cor- 
 rupted by money ; or that he was a man whose 
 ruling passions were excitement and the love of 
 making a sensation, no matter at what expense, 
 the author of this notice strongly inclines to the 
 last. 
 
 Professional dexterity, or his skill as a performer 
 on the viol di gamba, introduced St. Andre to Lady 
 Betty Molyneux ; he attended her husband in his 
 last illness ; and a marriage indecorously hasty be- 
 tween the widow and the surgeon, with other cir- 
 cumstances never satisfactorily explained, involved 
 them both in the odium of being instrumental in 
 hastening the death of Mr. Molyneux, from whom 
 the Swiss (a base villain, if the charge was true) 
 had received many favours. Their guilt or their 
 innocence, which at a certain period strongly agi- 
 tated the public mind, must now be determined by 
 a more awful and unerring tribunal. Combined 
 with other unpropitious circumstances, this shock- 
 ing imputation drove St. Andre into obscurity. 
 Lady Betty was dismissed from court by Queen 
 Caroline; and an action for defamation, in which a 
 verdict and damages were given in favour of the 
 newly-married couple, was not sufficient to restore 
 their reputation. 
 
 Chance, inclination, perverseness, necessity, or 
 guilt, conspired to keep St. Andre in hot water 
 for a good part of his life. In the year 1725, be- 
 fore he had been debased by credulity, or shunned 
 as being suspected of flagrant crime, and in the 
 routine of a lucrative practice, he was roused from 
 his bed at midnight by a stranger thundering at 
 his door, who urgently desired him to visit, without 
 delay, a person who was described as desperately 
 wounded. In the heat of zeal, or the perturba- 
 tion of broken sleep, St. Andre neglected that 
 necessary precaution for every medical practitioner 
 on such occasions, the taking, on all midnight 
 calls from persons he does not know, his own ser- 
 vant with him. After following' his unknown guide 
 
 in the nocturnal gloom, through many an unfre- 
 quented court, remote street, and obscure alley, 
 after being conducted and reconducted through 
 passages, galleries, and staircases, heated, hurried, 
 and confused, he at last found himself in a retired 
 chamber, the door of which being instantly bolted, 
 the affrighted surgeon was threatened with imme- 
 diate death if he did not directly swallow tlie 
 contents of a bowl (of course poisonous) pre- 
 sented to him by two ruffians, with instruments 
 of death in their hands. Having paused for a 
 short time on the horrible alternative, he drank the 
 terrible dose, and with considerable precautions to 
 prevent discovery, was replaced blindfolded at his 
 own door. The condition of a man who had been 
 compelled to take what he considered as poison, 
 need not be described. Without supposing that 
 the drench contained one deleterious particle, the 
 mere idea was sufficient to communicate arsenic, 
 hellebore, and sublimate to his disturbed imagina- 
 tion. Of this extraordinary transaction, an account 
 sufficiently expressive of the terror of St. Andre 
 was published in the ' London Gazette,' and a 
 reward of 200^. offered by government to any per- 
 son who would give information that might lead 
 to discovery and conviction ; but no discovery was 
 made. 
 
 One is sometimes tempted to consider this sin- 
 gular narrative as the fabrication of a restless 
 mind, fertile in invention ; the fable of a man, de- 
 termined at every risk to present himself as fre- 
 quently as possible to the public eye, and become 
 the subject of general notice and common con- 
 versation : such characters occur in every age. A 
 companion of St. Andre, who (in the hope of a 
 legacy which never was bequeathed) endured much 
 of his sarcastic, blunt, and satirical sallies, was 
 heard to declare that he had good reason for be- 
 lieving that the circumstances related by his friend 
 were correct. He added, as indeed the event 
 proved, that there was clearly no poison in the 
 mixture, though made sufficiently nauseous ; that 
 the whole was a cruel but harmless effort of inge- 
 nious revenge, and meant to torment the surgeon, 
 who had supplanted a friend in the affections of a 
 favourite mistress. 
 
 Whatever were the contents of the bowl, he sur- 
 vived its effects, as well as the exhausting con- 
 sequences of the anxiety he suffered, and the an- 
 tidotes he swallowed. Finding the metropolis, on 
 many accounts, unpleasant, he retired from public 
 obloquy or private contempt to a provincial town, 
 where he occupied his leisure hours, and dissipated 
 his superfluous cash, in building and planting; but 
 discovered more of whim and caprice than goodness 
 of taste or correctness of design. Life however 
 was strong in him somehow or other, for he lived 
 to be upwards of ninety. 
 
 VIII.— MADAME VILLACERFE AND 
 MONSIEUR FESTEAU. 
 
 [This story has been related a long time ago by 
 one of our classical authors ; but it is worth re- 
 peating, partly because it is told with real earnest- 
 ness and in his own style by the present writer, 
 and partly because he obtained his particulars from 
 a connexion with one of the parties. The catas- 
 trophe is one of the most affecting in the world. 
 Nothing can be conceived more frightful than the 
 situat" m of the lover, both before and after the
 
 MAD. VILLACERFE AND MONS. FESTEAU. 
 
 9 
 
 death of his mistress. One almost wishes that she 
 had been less amiable and generous, or affected to 
 be so ; and thus have given him less occasion to 
 adore her memory and despair over his mistake.] 
 
 Madame Villacerfe was a French lady of noble 
 family, dignified character, and unblemished life, 
 whose remarkable and tragic death was distin- 
 guished by an evenness of temper and greatness 
 of mind not usual in her sex, and equal to the 
 most renowned heroes of antiquity. The short 
 history of this excellent woman is, I believe, ge- 
 nerally known, and will probably be recognised by 
 many of my readers ; but she is so striking an 
 example of philosophic suffering, Christian for- 
 titude, generous forbearance, and angelic love, 
 without tl:e least possible alloy of selfishness or 
 sensuiiiit}, that the affecting circumstance cannot, 
 in Tiiy opinion, be dwelt on too long or repeated 
 too often. 
 
 An early and mutual affection had taken place 
 between this lady and Monsieur Festeau, a sur- 
 geon of eminence in Paris, but from the insur- 
 mountable obstacles which in those days (a. d. 
 1700) so strictly guarded superior rank from inter- 
 mingling with plebeian blood, all further inter- 
 course was prevented than animated civilities when 
 opportunities offered, and soft but secret wishes. 
 The lover would have perished rather than by a 
 rash proceeding degrade the object of his tenderest 
 affections in the eyes of her family and the world ; 
 and his mistress, taught by love, the omnipotent 
 leveller of all distinctions, though she felt too 
 powerfully the merit of her admirer, who in the 
 scale of unprejudiced reason far outweighed a 
 thousand fashionable pretenders to frivolous ac- 
 complishments and superficial attainments, re- 
 solved 
 
 To quit the obiect of no common choice. 
 In mild submission to stern duty's voice. 
 The much-lov'ii man with all his claims resign. 
 And sacrifice delight at duty's shrine. 
 
 After some years passed in what may be called a 
 defeat rather than a struggle of the passions, after 
 a glorious victory of duty and honour, which surely 
 affords a durable and exalted pleasure far beyond 
 the gratification of wild wishes and misguided ap- 
 petites, Madame Villacerfe, from an indisposition 
 which confined her to her chamber, was, by the 
 prescription of her physician, ordered to be bled. 
 Festeau, as surgeon to the family, was sent for, 
 and his countenance, as he entered the room, 
 strongly exhibited the state of his mind. After 
 gently touching her pulse, and a few professional 
 questions in a low hesitating voice, he prepared 
 for the operation by tucking up that part of a 
 loose dress which covered her arm — an interesting 
 business to a man of fine feelings, who had long 
 laboured under the most ardent attachment to his 
 lovely patient, whose illness diffused an irresistible 
 softness over her features and lighted up the 
 embers of an affection suppressed but never ex- 
 tinguished. Pressing the vein, in order to render 
 it more prominent, he was observed to be seized 
 with a sudden tremor and to change his colour. 
 This circumstance was mentioned to the lady, not 
 without a fear that it might prevent his bleeding 
 her with his usual dexterity. On her observing 
 with a smile that she confided entirely in Monsieur 
 Festeau, and was sure he had no inclination to do 
 her an injury, he appeared to recover himself, and 
 smiling, or forcing a smile, proceeded to his work. 
 
 which was no sooner performed than he cried out — 
 " I am the most unfortunate man alive ! 1 have 
 opened an artery instead of a vein !" 
 
 It is not easy to describe his distraction or her 
 composure. In less than three days the state of 
 her arm, in consequence of the accident, rendered 
 amputation necessary, when so far from using her 
 iinhappy surgeon with the peevish resentment of a 
 bare and little mind, she tenderly requested him 
 not to be absent from any consultation on the 
 treatment of her case ; ordered her will to be 
 made ; and after her arm was taken off, symptoms 
 appearing which convinced Festeau and his asso- 
 ciates that less than four-and-twenty hours would 
 terminate the existence of one who was an orna- 
 ment to her sex, the voice, the looks, the stifled 
 anguish of her lover, as well as of her own feel- 
 ings, convinced her of the approaches of death — 
 an opinion which her earnest and solemn entreaties 
 — entreaties on her death-bed, not to be disre- 
 garded, obliged her friends to confirm. A few 
 hours before the awful moment of dissolution, that 
 period which none can escape, and the fear of which 
 bold bad men only affect to despise, she addressed 
 the disconsolate surgeon in the following words : — 
 
 "You give me inexpressible concern for the 
 sorrow in which I see you overwhelmed, notwith- 
 standing your kind efforts to conceal it. I am 
 removing, to all intents and purposes I am re- 
 moved, from the interests of human life : it is 
 therefore highly incumbent in me to think and act 
 like one wholly unconcerned in it. I feel not the 
 least resentment or displeasure on the present 
 occasion. I do not consider you as one by whose 
 error [ hare lost my life ; I regard you rather as a 
 benefactor who have hastened my entrance into a 
 blessed immortality. But the world may look 
 upon the accident, which on your account alone I 
 can call unfortunate, and mention it to your dis- 
 advantage ; I have therefore provided in my will 
 against anything you may have to dread from the 
 ill-will, the prejudices, or the selfish re2)resenta- 
 tions of mankind." 
 
 This pattern for christians, this example for 
 heroes, soon after expired. A judicial sentence 
 devoting his fortune to confiscation and his body 
 to exquisite tortures could not have produced 
 keener sensations of misery and horror than Fes- 
 teau felt during her address, which was an emana- 
 tion of celestial benignity, an anticipating revela- 
 tion, a divine ray from the spirit of that God who 
 inspired and loved her, and in whose presence she 
 was shortly to triumph and adore. 
 
 But when he contemplated her exalted goodness 
 and unparalleled magnanimity in suffering pain 
 and mortal agonies, infiicted by an unhappy man 
 who, of all others, loved and doated on her most ; 
 when he saw her dying look, and heard that groan 
 which is repeated no more, sick of the world, dis- 
 pirited with human life and its vain pursuits, angry 
 beyond forgiveness with himself, he sunk into the 
 settled gloom and long melancholy of despair. 
 
 This is one of the many instances in which a 
 little forethought and a small share of prudence 
 would have prevented such serious e\ il and irre- 
 trievable calamity. I have said in a former article 
 that love, thougfi not curable by herbs, may be 
 prevented by caution ; and as it was impossible 
 that Madame Villacerfe's relations could be entire 
 strangers to the partiality of Monsieur Festeau, 
 they should industriously have prevented all inter-
 
 10 
 
 A PRINCE AGAINST HIS WILL. 
 
 course between the young people. The agitated 
 frame and deranged ajipearance of lier lover, ob- 
 served previous to tlie catastrophe by a gentleman 
 nearly related to the lady, from wlioni I tell the 
 story, pointed him out as the most improper man 
 alive for medical or surgical assistance, which re- 
 quires coolness, dexterity, and a steady hand and 
 collected mind. 
 
 IX.— A PRINCE AGAINST HIS WILL. 
 
 [We again give a farce after our tragedy. The 
 hero is not a farcical man himself : he is very 
 much of a gentleman, and was an unwilling con- 
 tributor to the entertainment, the obstinate co- 
 medy of which became ultimately as ludicrous and 
 amusing to himself as it is to his readers. The 
 anecdote is taken from the journey of the Hon. 
 Keppel Craven in the Neapolitan territory.] 
 There are several monasteries in Brindisi : in the 
 church belonging to one of these, called Santa 
 Maria degli Angeli, I was directed to visit and 
 admire a very fine piece of carving in ivory. After 
 I had bestowed my tribute of praise on this piece 
 of workmanship and on the pulpit, which is gilt 
 and richly decorated in very good taste, I was 
 requested by a priest to favour the lady abbess 
 and some of her sisterhood with my presence at 
 the grate, which divides the church from the con- 
 vent. I complied, and after a short conversation, 
 in the course of which joy at seeing me. respect 
 towards my person, and gratitude to my family, 
 were declared in the most extraordinary terms, I 
 was entreated to go round to the interior gate and 
 accept of some refreshments. I found from my 
 host and the Sotto Intendenis of the town, who 
 were my companions, that I could not decline 
 accepting this civility. In my way to the gate, the 
 unexpected cordiality of this reception was ex- 
 plained to me by the information that this convent 
 derived its foundation from the illustrious house 
 of Bavaria, and that as the heir-apparent of the 
 kingdom had lately been expected at Brindisi to 
 embark for Greece, it was probable that the abbess 
 had taken the first stranger she had ever seen in 
 her life for the royal personage to whose progeni- 
 tors the whole community owed such unqualified 
 reverence and gratitude. On my rejoining the 
 good sisters in the outward part of the monastery, 
 into which they invited me to enter, my first care 
 was to undeceive, and to apologise for having 
 accepted of honours due to rank so much superior 
 to my own. Though evidently much disappointed, 
 their kindness did not abate, and the coffee and 
 cakes which they had prepared were distributed to 
 us with great civility by the young pensionaries 
 who received their education in this monastery, 
 and whose beauty and unaffected manners were 
 equally attractive. Having understood that I had 
 the honour of being acquainted with the prince 
 whom they had so anxiously expected, they loaded 
 me with inquiries relative to him, and appeared 
 much satisfied by the manner in which I answered 
 them. After this I took my leave, as it was almost 
 dark. 
 
 Having on the following morning completed my 
 tour of the town, and an examination of all it con- 
 tained worthy of inspection, I determined to set 
 off for Mesagne, only eight miles distant, after din- 
 ner, to avoid the heat. During the repast, the 
 same priest who had accosted me in the church the 
 
 preceding day made his appearance with a second 
 invitation to call upon tlic abbess and the nuns 
 before I set off, and accept of some refreshments. 
 I endeavoured to decline the proposal, thinking it 
 might be the means of retarding my departure ; 
 but I was assured it would mortify, if not insult, 
 the sisterhood, and as their habitation lay in my 
 way out of the city, I might order my horses to 
 the convent door, and not suffer above ten minutes' 
 delay by my compliance. This 1 accordingly pro- 
 mised, and proceeded to the monastery, attended 
 by the gentleman in whose house I had been 
 lodged, and the Sotto Intendente, who had dined 
 with us. We found the outward gate open, and 
 had scarcely passed the threshold when the abbess 
 and the elder portion of the community rushed 
 from the inner court, and led, I may almost say 
 dragged, me into the cloister, calling upon my 
 astonished companion to follow, as it was a day 
 of exultation for the monastery, and all rules and 
 regulations should be dispensed with. It was 
 evident that the splendour of royalty once again 
 shone on my brow, and that notwithstanding my 
 wish to preserve the strictest incognito, the dis- 
 tinctions and honours due to the blood of Otho of 
 Wittelsbach must, in this instance at least, be ren- 
 dered to his descendant in spite of his assumed 
 humility. This determination showed itself in a 
 variety of forms with such prolonged perseverance, 
 that the ludicrous effects which it at first produced 
 were soon succeeded by more serious sensations of 
 impatience and annoyance. Before I could utter 
 my first protest against the torrent of tedious dis- 
 tinction which I saw impending over my devoted 
 head, I was surrounded on all sides by the pen- 
 sionaries, who to the number of thirty presented 
 me with flowers, and squabbled for precedence in 
 the honour of kissing my princely hands. This 
 was by no means the least distressing ceremony I 
 was to undergo, and for an instant I felt the wish 
 of exerting the prerogatives of royalty, either by 
 prohibiting the exercise of this custom, or rendering 
 it more congenial by altering the application of it. 
 I seized the first opportunity of requesting my 
 companion to interfere in behalf of my veracity, 
 when I assured them that I was only an English 
 traveller, which my letters of recommendation, 
 describing my name and condition, could testify. 
 The smile of good-humoured incredulity played on 
 the lips of my auditors, who replied that they 
 would not dispute my loords, but should not be 
 deterred by them from giving way to the joy which 
 ought to signalise a day which must ever be re- 
 corded in the annals of their establishment. They 
 added that it would be useless for me to contend 
 against the ocular proofs they had obtained of my 
 quality and birth ; and when they enumerated 
 among them the air of dignity which I in vain 
 endeavoured to conceal, the visible emotion I ex- 
 perienced on beholding the arms and escutcheons 
 of my ancestors in the church, and my constantly 
 speaking Italian though I affirmed that I was Eng- 
 lish, I own that I was struck dumb by the con- 
 tending inclination to laugh or be serious. My 
 host, who was brother to the lady abbess, begged 
 I would exert my complaisance so far as not to 
 resist their wishes, as it would be put to a shorter 
 trial by compliance than opposition, and I there- 
 fore yielded, after a second solemn protestation 
 against the distinctions thus forced upon me. 
 These consisted in a minute examination of the
 
 A PRINCE AGAINST HIS WILL. 
 
 11 
 
 whole monastery, beginning with the beltVj', to 
 which I was conducted by the pious sisterhood 
 singing a Latin hymn of exultation. I had scarcely 
 put my head into it when a sudden explosion, for 
 I can give it no other term, took place of all the 
 bells, set in motion by the pensionaries who had 
 preceded us ; after which I was successively led to 
 the kitchen, the refectory, the dormitory, abbess's 
 apartment, the garden, and lastly the sacristy, 
 where I w*s desirous to rest. 1 looked round to 
 implore the aid and compassion of my force, when 
 I found myself sitting in a huge crimson velvet 
 chair, richly gilt, and surmounted with a royal 
 crown. Here I again manifested some symptoms 
 of rebellion, but found it necessary to stifle them 
 when the opening of several large cases informed 
 mc that a display of all the relics Avas going to 
 take place. These were numerous, and, as I was 
 informed, chiefly the gifts of my great grandfather 
 when the convent was endowed, though several 
 had been since sent by my less distant progenitors. 
 Bones and skulls of saints, whose names were as 
 new to me as they would be were they enumerated 
 to the readers, passed in rotation before my eyes : 
 these were generally preserved in purple velvet 
 bags embroidered with pearls ; and the diiferent 
 vessels and ornaments used in the rites of the 
 Catholic church were of the most costly materials 
 and exquisite workmanship, all of which by turns 
 were offered as presents to me. 
 
 Among the relics which were named to me I 
 remember some fragments of the veil and shift of 
 the Virgin Mary, a thumb of St. Athauasius, a 
 tooth of the prophet Jeremiah, and some of the 
 coals which were used to roast St. Lorenzo. Many 
 of these memorials were offered me to kiss, and 
 the last-mentioned articles were accompanied by 
 the observation that they had been the means of 
 converting a sceptic by sticking to and blistering 
 his lips. I own I felt a sort of momentary hesita- 
 tion as they were presented to me, and withdrew 
 them with a degree of promptitude hardly com- 
 patible with a belief in their verity. 
 
 By this time all the stronger emotions I at first 
 had felt had vanished, and a sullen impatience had 
 succeeded, which was not removed by the presence 
 of the vicar, an infirm old personage, who, I 
 believe, had been called from his death-bed to give 
 additional solemnity to the scene, and who joined 
 the holy sisters in the chorus of praises which they 
 lavished on my family and the titles they bestowed 
 on me, among which that of majesty was of the 
 most frequent occurrence. After this devotional 
 exhibition, I was crammed with coffee, rosolio, 
 brandy, and cakes, and my pockets were stuffed 
 full of oranges and lemons, among which I after- 
 wards discovered, to my great consternation, a 
 pair of cotton stockings and two of woollen gloves. 
 After a trial of an hour's duration I was allowed 
 to depart, amidst the blessings of the community : 
 but another ordeal awaited my patience in a visit 
 to a convent of Benedictine nuns, who were under 
 the special protection of the vicar, and who would, 
 as he assured me, die of jealousy and mortification 
 if I denied them the same honour which I had 
 conferred on those of the Madonna degli Angeli. 
 Luckily the order was poor ; and as I had not the 
 same claims on their gratitude and reverence, I 
 escaped with fewer ceremonies and the loss of 
 much less time. There was nothing remarkable 
 in this monastery except the columns which sur- 
 
 round the cloisters : they were amongst the small- 
 est and of a more fantastic construction than any I 
 had ever beheld, and evidently of a very early 
 date. 
 
 On leaving this building I found my horses in 
 the street, where they had been waiting a consi- 
 derable time ; and while taking leave of my com- 
 panions, I began to breathe at the prospect of 
 emancipation from all the painful honours to which 
 I had fallen a victim, and to anticipate the plea- 
 sures of a cool evening ride, when my annoyances 
 were renewed by a speech of the commandant's, 
 who, with a solemnity of tone and audibility of 
 voice calculated to produce the deepest impression 
 on a crowd of about five hundred persons assem- 
 bled round my horses, informed me that he had 
 hitherto spared my feelings and controlled his own 
 by avoiding to intrude upon the privacy which 1 
 was desirous of assuming ; but at the moment of 
 parting he felt justified in giving vent to a public 
 declaration of the sentiments of respect and vene- 
 ration which he entertained for my family, and 
 those of gratitude he should ever cherish for the 
 truly dignified condescension with which I had 
 treated him. I was speechless, and scarcely col- 
 lected enough to listen to the conclusion of his 
 harangue, which informed me that he had com- 
 municated a telegraphic account of my arrival to 
 the commandant of the district, and would now 
 transmit a similar notification of my departure to 
 the commander-in-chief, to whom he trusted I 
 would express my satisfaction of his conduct. The 
 last words concluded with a genuflexion and a kiss 
 respectfully imprinted on my hand, while I hastily 
 mounted my horse and hurried from this scene of 
 ludicrous torment, which, however, it was decreed 
 should not terminate here ; for on looking about 
 me as I quitted the town-gate, I beheld my host 
 and the Sotto Intendente on horseback on each side 
 of me, and found that this singular infatuation had 
 extended its power over their minds, and that they 
 were determined to accompany me as far as Me- 
 sagne, and thereby leave no honour unperformed 
 which they could bestow on my exalted rank. 
 
 On reaching the open plain I resolved to make 
 one more effort to liberate my person from the 
 continuation of this novel kind of persecution, 
 which might, for aught I knew, extend itself over 
 the remainder of my journey ; and after another 
 solemn protestation against the name and title thus 
 forcibly imposed upon me, I conjured my two 
 satellites by all that was merciful to give up their 
 project of attending me, representing that the day 
 was far advanced, that we could with difficulty 
 reach Mesagne before dark, and that their return 
 might consequently be attended with great incon- 
 venience, if not danger. My host, who I then 
 perceived had too liberally participated in the 
 homage offered me by his sister in the seducing 
 semblance of rosolio and licjucurs, was obstinately 
 bent on non-compliance, and merely answered my 
 earnest remonstrance by a repetition of the words, 
 Altezza, e inutile. I concluded therefore that all 
 ap[)eal to him would be fruitless, and confined my 
 renewal of them to his companion, whose involun- 
 tary distortions of countenance, and occasional con- 
 tortion of body, induced me to suspect that the 
 motion of a horse was very uneasy, if not unusual 
 to him. On my observing that he looked pale 
 since we had begun our ride, he owned that he 
 had not been on horseback for several years ; that
 
 12 
 
 CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE. 
 
 he was besides in no very robust state of hoaltli, 
 and tliat the paces of the animal he mounted were 
 somewhat rouirh ; but added that he know his duty 
 too well to allow such trilling inconvenience to 
 deter him from fulKUini; it to its utmost extent, and 
 that he therefore should not attend to my injunc- 
 tions of returninij;, unless they were delivered in 
 the form of a peremptory command, wiiich issuing 
 from the lips of royalty he would not presume to 
 disobey. For once then I resolved to assume the 
 dictatorial tone of i>rincely authority, and with as 
 grave a countenance as I could put on ordered 
 him to return to Brindisi. He pulled off his hat, 
 kissed my hand, and after expressing his thanks 
 for my considerate condescension, united to many 
 pious wishes for my prosperous journey, he allowed 
 me to continue it, and turned his horse the other 
 way, while 1 urged mine on at a brisk trot in 
 hopes of reaching Mesagne before night. 
 
 X.— CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE. 
 
 [We are indebted to the third volume of Mr. 
 IVIsraeli's Curiosities of Literature for this most 
 aflecting narrative, the deep impression of which 
 upon us after our first perusal many years ago 
 has never been effaced ; and we find the stamp 
 go sharply again, yet not without sweetness. 
 Blessings on the heart and soul and immortal 
 memory of that beloved woman — far superior to 
 all ordinary strength or fancied callousness, for no 
 such commonplace would or could have supported 
 it — who attended the dying, tortured man in his 
 " agony and bloody sweat " — words that we dare 
 venture to apply even to a nature so far inferior 
 and so mistaken in its heroism, — and who held his 
 burning head and saw him make the sign of the 
 cross ; and blessings on the sweetness of humanity 
 surviving in these miserable and deluded yet noble 
 spirits, the Chidiock Titchbournes, and on the 
 letter written by Chidiock to poor " Sweet-cheek " 
 his wife (what a gentle flower of a word to remem- 
 ber and comfort himself with in his last anguish), 
 and on all the mingled greatness and tenderness 
 which, as Mr. D'Israeli truly observes, marks the 
 age of the men of Shakspeare. We hear nothing 
 more of poor " Sweet-cheek," a name that seems 
 to paint her nature, and fortunately promises for 
 her patience. She had need of it, thus losing a 
 young and noble husband. 
 
 Mr. D'Israeli did quite right to retain the hor- 
 rors of the story, horrid though they are : the 
 beauty is greater thaa the horror ; the gold is 
 proved by the fire.] 
 
 Midst intestine struggles, or perhaps when they 
 have ceased, and our hearts are calm (says our 
 author), we perceive the eternal force of nature 
 acting on humanity. Then the heroic virtues and 
 private sufferings of persons engaged in an oppo- 
 site cause, and acting on diff'erent principles from 
 our own, appeal to our sympathy and even excite 
 our admiration. A philosopher, born a Roman 
 Catholic, assuredly could commemorate many a 
 pathetic history of some heroic Huguenot; while 
 we, with the same feeling in our heart, discover a 
 romantic and chivalrous band of Catholics. 
 
 Chidiock Titchbourne is a name which appears 
 in the conspiracy of Anthony Babington against 
 Elizabeth, and the history of this accomplished 
 young man may enter into the romance of real 
 
 life. Having discovered two interesting domestic 
 documents relative to him, I am desirous of pre- 
 serving a name and a character which have such 
 claims on our sympathy. 
 
 Tiiere is an interesting historical novel entitled 
 'The Jesuit,' whose story is founded on this con- 
 spiracy, remarkable for being the production of a 
 lady, without, if I recollect rightly, a single adven- 
 ture of love. Of the fourteen chapters implicated 
 in this conspiracy, few were of the stamp of men 
 ordinarily engaged in dark assassinations. Hume 
 has told the story with his usual grace : the fuller 
 narrative may be found in Camden ; but the tale 
 may yet receive from the character of Chidiock 
 Titchbourne a more interesting close. 
 
 Some youths, worthy of ranking with the heroes 
 rather than with the traitors of England, had been 
 practised on by the subtilty of Ballard, a disguised 
 Jesuit of great intrepi<lity and talents, whom Cam- 
 den calls " a silken priest in a soldier's habit ;" for 
 this versatile intriguer changed into all shapes and 
 took up all names : yet with all the arts of a poli- 
 cal Jesuit he found himself entrapped in the nets 
 of that more crafty one, the minister AValsingham. 
 Ballard had opened himself to Babington, a Ca- 
 tholic, a youth of large fortune, the graces of whose 
 person were only inferior to those of his mind. 
 
 In his travels his generous temper had been 
 touched by some confidential friends of the Scot- 
 tish jMary ; and the youth, susceptible of ambition, 
 had been recommended to that queen, and an in- 
 tercourse of letters took place, which seemed as 
 deeply tinctured with love as with loyalty. The 
 intimates of Babington were youths of congenial 
 tempers and studies ; and in their exalted imagina- 
 tions they could only view in the imprisoned Mary 
 of Scotland a sovereign, a saint, and a woman. 
 But friendship the most tender, if not the most 
 sublime ever recorded, prevailed among this band 
 of self-devoted victims, and the Damon and Pythias 
 of antiquity were here out-numbered. 
 
 But these conspirators were surely more adapted 
 for lovers than for politicians. The most romantic 
 incidents are interwoven in this dark conspiracy. 
 Some of the letters to Mary were conveyed by a 
 secret messenger i-eally in the pay of Walsingham ; 
 others were lodged in a concealed place, covered 
 by a loosened stone, in the wall of the queen's 
 prison. All were transcribed by Walsingham be- 
 fore they reached Mary. Even the spies of that 
 singular statesman were the companions or the 
 servants of the arch conspirator Ballard, for the 
 minister seems only to have humoured his taste in 
 assisting him through this extravagant plot. Yet, 
 as if a plot of so loose a texture was not quite 
 perilous, the extraordinary incident of a picture 
 representing the secret conspirators in person was 
 probably considered as the highest stroke of politi- 
 cal intrigue. The accomplished Babington had 
 pourtrayed the conspirators, himself standing in the 
 midst of them, that the imprisoned queen might 
 thus have some kind of personal acquaintance with 
 them. There was at least as much of chivalry as 
 of machiavelism in this conspiracy. This very 
 picture before it was delivered to Mary tlie subtile 
 Walsingham had copied, to exhibit to Elizabeth 
 the faces of her secret enemies. Houbtaken, in 
 his portrait of Walsingham, has introduced in the 
 vignette the incident of this picture being shown 
 to Elizabeth — a circumstance happily characteristic 
 of the genius of this crafty and vigilant statesman.
 
 CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE. 
 
 Camden tells us that Babington had first in- 
 scribed beneath the picture this verse : 
 
 Hi milii sunt comites, quos ipsa pericula ducunt. 
 " These are my companions, whom the same dani^ers lead." 
 
 But as this verse Avas considered by some of less 
 heated fancies as much too open and intelligible, 
 they put one more ambiguous : 
 
 Quorum heec alio properantibus ? 
 " What aie these things to men hastening to another purpose ?" 
 
 This extraordinary collection of personages must 
 have occasioned many alarms to Elizabeth at the 
 approach of any stranger, till the conspiracy was 
 suffered to be sufficiently matured to be ended. 
 Once she perceived in her walks a conspirator, 
 and on that occasion erected her " lion port," re- 
 primanding her captain of the guards loud enough 
 to inert the conspirator's ear, that " he had not a 
 man in his company who wore a sword." " Am 
 not I fairly guarded 1" exclaimed Elizabeth. 
 
 It is in the progress of the trial that the history 
 and the feelings of these wondrous youths appear. 
 In those times, when the government of the coun- 
 try yet felt itself unsettled, and mercy did not sit 
 in the jadgment-seat, even one of the judges could 
 not retrain from being affected at the presence of 
 so gallant a band as the prisoners at the bar : 
 "Oh, Ballard, Ballard!" the judge exclaimed, 
 "what hast thou done 1 A sort (a company) of 
 brave youths, otherwise endued with good gifts, 
 by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter 
 destruction and confusion."' The Jesuit himself 
 commands our respect, although we refuse him our 
 esteem : for he felt some compunction at the tra- 
 gical executions which were to follow, and " wished 
 all the blame might rest on him, could the shedding 
 of his blood be the saving of Babingtons life !" 
 
 AVhen this romantic band of friends were called 
 on for their defence, the most pathetic instances 
 of domestic affection appeared. One had engaged 
 in this plot solely to try to save his friend, for he 
 had no hopes of it, nor any wish for its success : he 
 had observed to his friend that the haughty and 
 ambitious mind of Anthony Babington would be 
 the destruction of himself and his friends ; never- 
 theless he was willing to die with them. Another, 
 to withdraw if possible one of those noble youths 
 from the conspiracy, although he had broken up 
 housekeeping, said, to employ his own language, 
 " I called back my servants again together, and 
 began to keep house again more freshly than ever 
 I did, only because I was weary to see TomSalus- 
 bury's struggling, and willing to keep him about 
 home." Having attempted to secrete his friend, 
 this gentleman observed, " I am condemned be- 
 cause I suffered Salusbury to escape, w.hen I knew 
 he was one of the conspirators. My case is hard 
 and lamentable : either to betray my friend, whom 
 I love as myself, and to discover Tom Salusbury, 
 the best man in my country, of whom I only made 
 choice, or else to lireak my allegiance to my sove- 
 reign, and to undo myself and my posterity for 
 ever." Whatever the political casuist may deter- 
 mine on this case, the social being carries his own 
 manual in the heart. The principle of the greatest 
 of republics was to suffer nothing to exist iti com- 
 petition with its own ambition, but the Roman 
 liistory is a history without fathers and brothers. 
 Another of the conspirators rci)lied, " For flying 
 away with my friend, 1 fulfilled the part of a 
 friend." When the judge observed that to per- 
 
 form his friendship he had broken his allegiance to 
 his sovereign, he bowed his head and confessed, 
 " Therein I have offended." Another, asked why 
 he had fled into the woods, where he was disco- 
 vered among some of the conspirators, proudly (or 
 tenderly) replied, " For company." 
 
 "When the sentence of condemnation had passed, 
 then broke forth among this noble band that spirit 
 of honour which surely had never been witnessed 
 at the bar among so many criminals. Their great 
 minds seemed to have reconciled them to the most 
 barbarous of deaths ; but as their estates as traitors 
 might be forfeited to the queen, their sole anxiety 
 was nowfortheir families and their creditors. One 
 in the most pathetic terms, recommends to her ma- 
 jesty's protection a beloved wife ; another, a desti- 
 tute sister : but not among the least urgent of their 
 supplications was one that their creditors might 
 not be injured by their untimely end. The state- 
 ment of their affairs is curious and simple. " If 
 mercy be not to be had," exclaimed one, " I be- 
 seech you, my good lords, this : I owe some sums 
 of money, but not very much, and I have more 
 owing to me." Another prayed for a pardon: the 
 judge complimented him that he was one who 
 might have done good service to his country, but 
 declares he cannot obtain it. " Then," said the 
 prisoner, " I beseech that six angels which such 
 an one hath of mine may be delivered to my bro- 
 ther to pay my debts." " How much are thy 
 debts V' demanded the judge. He answered, 
 " The same six angels will discharge it." 
 
 That nothing might be wanting to complete the 
 catastrophe of their sad story, our sympathy must 
 accompany them to their tragical end and to their 
 last words. These heroic yet affectionate youths 
 had a trial there intolerable to their social feelings. 
 The terrific process of executing criminals was the 
 remains of feudal barbarism, and has only been 
 abolished very recently. I must not refrain from 
 painting this scene of blood ; the duty of an his- 
 torian must be severer than his taste, and I record 
 in the note a scene of this nature.* The present 
 
 * Let not the delicate female start from the revolting scene, 
 nor censure the writer, since that writer is a woman, sup- 
 pressing her own agony as she supported on her lap tlie head 
 of the miserable suH'erer. This account was drawn up by 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a Catholic lady, who amidst the 
 horrid execution could sliU her own feelings in the attemjit 
 to soften tliose of tlie victim : she was a heroine with a tender 
 lieart. 
 
 The subject was one of the executed .Tesuits, Hugh Green, 
 who often went by the name of Ferdinand Brooks, accordiu" 
 to the custom of tliese people, who disguised themselves by 
 doulile names- He sullered in 1642, and this narr.itive is 
 taken from the curious and scarce folios of Dodd, a Catholic 
 Church History of England. 
 
 "The hangman, either through unskilfulness or for want 
 of a suflicient presence of mind, bad so ill performed his lirst 
 duty of hanging him, that when he w.as cut down he was per- 
 fectly sensible, and aide to sit upright upon tlie groimd view- 
 ing tile crowd that stood about him. The person who under- 
 took to <|uarter him was one liaret'oot, a liarber, who bein" 
 very timorous when he found he was to attack a livin" man, 
 it was nearly half an hour before the sulTerer w.is rendered 
 entirely insensible ot pain. The mob pulled at the rope and 
 threw the Jesuit on his back ; when the barber iramedi:itely 
 fell to work, rii))ied up his belly, and laid the Haps of skin 
 on both sides, the poor gentleman being so piesent to himself 
 as to make the sign of tlie cross with one hiind. During this 
 operation, Mrs. lOlizabelb Willoughby, the writer of this, 
 kneeled at the Jesuit's head, and held it fast beneath her 
 hands. His face was covered with a thick sweat ; the blood 
 issued from his mouth, ears, and eyes ; and his forehead 
 l)urnt with so niurh heat that she assures us she could scarcer 
 endure her hand upon it The barl)er was still under a gri'at 
 con.stirnation." Lut 1 stop my pen amid these circumstantial 
 horrors.
 
 u 
 
 CHIDIOCK TITCHBOURNE. 
 
 one was full of horrors. Ballard was first exe- 
 cuted, and snatched alive from the gallows to be 
 embowelled. Babington looked on with an un- 
 daunted countenance, steadily gazing on that vari- 
 ety of tortures which he himself was in a moment 
 to pass through ; the others averted their faces, 
 fervently praying. "When the executioner began 
 his tremendous office on Babington, the spirit of 
 this haughty man cried out amidst the agony, 
 " Pajce mihi, Domine Jesu .' — Spare me. Lord Je- 
 sus !" There were two days of execution : it was 
 on the first that the noblest of these youths suf- 
 fered ; and the pity which such criminals had ex- 
 cited among the spectators evidently weakened the 
 sense of their jjolitical crime ; the solemnity, not 
 the barbarity, of the punishment affects the popu- 
 lace with right feelings. Elizabeth, an enlightened 
 politician, commanded that on the second day the 
 odious part of the sentence against traitors should 
 not commence till after their death. 
 
 One of those generosi adolescmituli (youths of 
 generous blood) was Chidiock Titchbourue, of 
 Southampton, the most intimate friend of Ba- 
 bington. He had refused to connect himself with 
 the assassination of Elizabeth ; but his reluctant 
 consent was inferred from his silence. His ad- 
 dress to the populace breathes all the carelessness 
 of life, in one who knew all its value. Proud of 
 his ancient descent from a family which had ex- 
 isted before the Conquest till now without a stain, 
 he paints the thoughtless happiness of his days 
 with his beloved friend, when any object rather 
 than matters of state engaged their pursuits ; the 
 hours of misery were only first known the day he 
 entered into the conspiracy. How feelingly he 
 passes into the domestic scene, amidst his wife, 
 his child, and his sisters, and even his servants ! 
 Well might he cry, more in tenderness than re- 
 proach, " Friendship hath brought me to this \" 
 
 " Countrymen, and my dear friends, you expect 
 1 should speak something. I am a bad orator, and 
 my text is worse. It were in vain to enter into 
 the discourse of the whole matter for which I am 
 brought hither, for that it hath been revealed here- 
 tofore ; let me be a warning to all young gentle- 
 men, especially generosis adolcscentulis. I had a 
 friend, and a dear friend, of whom I made no 
 small account, whose friendship hath brought me 
 to this : he told me the whole matter, I cannot 
 deny, as they had laid it down to be done ; but I 
 always thought it impious, and denied to be a 
 dealer in it, but the regard of my friend caused me 
 to be a man in whom the old proverb was verified. 
 I was silent, and so consented. Before this 
 chanced, we lived together in most flourishing es- 
 tate. Of whom went report in the Strand, Fleet- 
 street, and elsewhere about London, but of Ba- 
 bington and Titchbournc 1 No threshold was of 
 force to brave our entry. Thus we lived, and 
 wanted nothing we could wish for, and God 
 knows what less in my head than matters of state. 
 Now give me leave to declare the miseries I sus- 
 tained after I was accquainted with the action, 
 wherein I may justly compare my state to that of 
 Adam's, who could not abstain one forbidden 
 thing to enjoy all other things the world could 
 afford : the terror of conscience awaited me. After 
 I considered the dangers whereinto I was fallen, I 
 went to Sir John Peters, in Essex, and appointed 
 my horses should meet me at London, intending 
 to go down into the country. I came to London, 
 
 and then heard that all was betrayed ; whereupon, 
 like Adam, we fled into the wood to hide our- 
 selves. My dear countrymen, my sorrows may be 
 your joy, yet mix your smiles with tears, and pity 
 my case. I am descended from a house, from two 
 hundred years before the Conquest, never stained 
 till this my misfortune. I have a wife and one 
 child — my wife Agnes, my dear wife, and there's 
 my grief, and six sisters left in my hand. My 
 poor servants, I know, their master being taken, 
 were dispersed, for all which I do most heartily 
 grieve. I expected some favour, though I de- 
 served nothing less, that the remainder of my 
 years might have recompensed my former guilt ; 
 which seeing I have missed, let me now meditate 
 on the joys I hope to enjoy." 
 
 Titchbourue had addressed a letter to his " dear 
 wife Agnes " the night before he suffered, which I 
 discovered among the Harleian MSS.* It over- 
 flows with the most natural feeling, and contains 
 some touches of expression, all sweetness and ten- 
 derness, which mark the Shaksperian era. The 
 same MS. has also preserved another precious 
 gem, in a small poem, composed at the same time, 
 which indicates his genius, fertile in imagery, and 
 fraught with the melancholy philosophy of a fine 
 and wounded spirit. The unhappy close of the 
 life of such a noble youth, with all the prodigality 
 of his feelings, and the cultivation of his intellect, 
 may still excite that sympathy in the generosis 
 adolescentuUs, which Chidiock Titchbourne would 
 have felt for them. 
 
 A letter written by Chidiock Titchbourne the night 
 before he sufiered death, mito his wife, dated 
 anno 15S6. 
 
 " To the most loving wife alive. I commend 
 me unto her, and desire God to bless her with all 
 happiness. Let her pray for her dead husband, 
 and be of good comforte, for I hope in Jesus Christ 
 this morning to see the face of my Maker and Re- 
 deemer in the most joyful throne of his glorious 
 kingdome. Commend me to all my friends, and 
 desire them to pray for me, and in all charitie to 
 pardon me if I have offended them. Commend 
 me to my six sisters, poore desolate soules ; advise 
 them to serve God, for without him no goodness 
 is to be expected. Were it possible my little 
 sister Babb, the darling of my race, might be bred 
 by her, God would rewarde her ; but I do her 
 wrong, I confesse, that hath by my desolate neg- 
 ligence too little for herselfe, to add a further 
 charge unto her. Deere wife, forgive me, that 
 have by these means so much impoverished her 
 fortunes ; patience and pardon, good wife, I crave: 
 make of these our necessities a virtue, and lay no 
 further burthen on my neck than hath already 
 been. There be certain debts that I owe, and be- 
 cause I knowe not the order of the lawe, piteous 
 it hath taken from me all, forfeited by my course 
 of offence to her majestic. I cannot advise thee 
 to benefit me herein, but if there fall out where- 
 withal, let them be discharged for God's sake. I 
 will not that you trouble yourselfe with the per- 
 formance of these matters, my own heart, but 
 make it known to my uncles, and desire them, for 
 the honour of God and ease of their souls, to take 
 care of them as they may, and especially care of 
 my sisters bringing up ; the burden is now laid on 
 them. Now, sweet-cheek, what is left to bestow 
 • Harl MSS. 36. 50.
 
 THE BLACK ASSIZE. 
 
 15 
 
 oil thee, a small joynture, a small recompense for 
 thy deservinge, these legacies following to be thine 
 owne. God of his infinite goodness give thee 
 grace ahvaies to remain his true and faithful ser- 
 vant, that through the merits of his bitter and 
 blessed passion thou maist become in good time of 
 his kingdom with all the blessed women in heaven. 
 May the Holy Ghost comfort thee with all neces- 
 saries for the wealth of thy soul in the world to 
 come, where, until it shall please Almighty God I 
 meete thee, farewell, lovinge wife, farewell the 
 dearest to me on all the earth, farewell ! 
 
 " By the hand from the heart of thy 
 
 most faithful lovinge husband, 
 
 " Chidiock Titchebourne." 
 
 Ye.ses made by Chidiock Titchebourne of himself 
 u. the lower, the night before he suffered death, 
 who was executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields for 
 treason, 1586. 
 
 '• My prime of youth is but a frost of cares, 
 My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, 
 
 My crop of corn is but a field of tares. 
 
 And all my goods is but vain hope of gain. 
 
 The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun, 
 
 And now I live, and now my life is done '. 
 
 " My spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung. 
 The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green : 
 
 My youth is past, and yet 1 am but young, 
 I saw the world, and yet I was not seen ; 
 
 My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun. 
 
 And now I live, and now my life is done ! 
 
 " I sought for death, and found it in the wombe, 
 I lookt for life, and yet it was a shade : 
 
 I trode the ground, and knew it was my tomb. 
 And now I die, and now I am but made. 
 
 The glass is full, and yet my glass is run, 
 
 And now I live, and now my life is done 1" 
 
 XL— ONE OF THE SHORTEST AND 
 SWEETEST OF ALL STORIES. 
 
 Mr. Walsh, a gentleman of large fortune, who 
 died about fifty years back, bequeathed an estate 
 of four thousand a year to his niece, Mrs. Benn ; 
 but from negligence, resentment, or some other 
 cause, neither explained or understood, left his 
 next male heir and near relation unprovided for. 
 
 With an addition so important, and at a period 
 which calculates to a nicety gratifications and ex- 
 penses to keep pace with, or exceed the most 
 enormous rent-roll, the majority of mankind would 
 have sat down passively contented ; or if any 
 solicitude interrupted their brilliant dreams, it 
 would have been anxiety to determine in what 
 species of luxurious superfluity the new acquisition 
 should be expended. But Mrs. Benn, a very epi- 
 cure in the theory of real and substantial luxury, 
 declared that her present income was adequate to 
 all her wishes and all her wants, and reserving 
 only a little Berkshire villa, endeared to her by 
 early habits, and in which she had passed some of 
 the happiest hours of her life, presented, and by 
 legal conveyance made over, this considerable be- 
 quest to her neglected cousin, a free and gratuitous 
 gift, neither demanded nor expected, vast in its 
 amount, and worth, at its lowest valuation, a hun- 
 dred THOUSAND POUNDS. 
 
 XII.— ANOTHER OF THE SAME CAST. 
 
 The law of divorce decreed by the French National 
 Convention had passed but a short time, when there 
 applied to take the benefit of it a young couple, 
 who had been generally considered by their neigh- 
 bours as patterns of connubial felicity. The young 
 woman was beautiful, rich, and married to a lover 
 without fortune, but a few days after the divorce 
 had taken place they were again united in wed- 
 lock : a transaction which, exciting considerable 
 surprise, was thus explained. 
 
 Their first union having been what is called a 
 love-match, the lady's guardians, actuated by laud- 
 able prudence, had the whole fortune settled on 
 the wife, absolutely independent of her husband, 
 whose moments in the giddy raptures of the honey- 
 moon rolled on with facility and pleasure. But 
 when time and reflection had sobered his senses, 
 he complained that his hands, by the illiberal dis- 
 tribution of his wife's fortune, were tied up from 
 engaging m agricultural, professional, or commer- 
 cial pursuits, so admirably calculated for giving a 
 zest to all enjoyment, by occupying those inter- 
 vals of life which are otherwise so apt to stupify 
 our faculties in the listlessness of leisure, or the 
 gloom of inactivity. For such evils this excellent 
 wife saw and provided a remedy. By dissolving 
 their first marriage she became the uncontrolled 
 mistress of her fortune, and gave an effectual proof 
 of her liberality and affection, if not of prudence, 
 by making her husband, on their second marriage, 
 the unfettered master of all she had. The happy 
 husband was thus enabled by love, the great arbiter 
 of destinies, to whom we are indebted for supreme 
 happiness or harassing inquietude, to devote a por- 
 tion of his fortune to elegant or useful occupation. 
 
 XIIL— THE BLACK ASSIZE. 
 
 The Black Assize at Oxford, during the reign of 
 Elizabeth, was so called from the circumstance of 
 judges, jurymen, nobility, gentry, and the majority 
 of the persons present, to the amount of near three 
 hundred, sickening and dying within forty-eight 
 hours after they left the court. 
 
 Of the manner in which these unfortunate indi- 
 viduals were seized, the nature, progress, treat- 
 ment, and technical description of their disease, it 
 is not (says the author of the ' Lounger's Common- 
 Place Book') in my power to speak, though to a 
 medical reader they would afford a subject of 
 curious and useful investigation. 
 
 Tliis destructive pestilence, which readers, who 
 do not on every occasion hunt out for mysterious 
 causes, would naturally attribute to malignant con- 
 tagion, exasperated by the unwholesome atmo- 
 sphere of a crowded court, during three hot days 
 in July, Avas said to be occasioned by noxious 
 effluvia issuing from the ground, but is attributed 
 by Lord Verulam to some infectious disease 
 brought out of the prison : as Sir Robert Bell, the 
 presiding judge and chief baron of the Exchequer, 
 frecjuently remarked a noisome and offensive smell, 
 and demanded from whence it proceeded, but 
 could obtain no satisfactory answer. This awful 
 and tremendous visitation is accounted for in a 
 singular way by a learned but credulous writer, 
 strongly tinctured with the party virulence and 
 superstition of that period. " At this, the Black 
 Assize, Rowland Jenks, a Popish recusant, was
 
 l; 
 
 A YOUTH IN CIVILIZED LIFE. 
 
 anaigned, anil finally, after a long trial, con- 
 demned to die, for words seditiously and treason- 
 ably spoken against the queen's majesty. 
 
 «' While the chief baron pronounced in due 
 form, and with accustomed solemnity, sentence of 
 the law on this otl'ender, a pestilent vapour sud- 
 denly arose, so almost as to smother the court. 
 Various were the conjectures concerning so rude 
 and filthy an annoyance, but all were distant fnmi 
 the mark. I am, however, enabled to assign the 
 true cause on indisputable evidence. A rare and 
 valuable MS. came accidentally in my possession, 
 collected by an ancient gentleman now at York, 
 and an industrious gatherer together of strange 
 facts, who lived in Oxford at the time of this mar- 
 vellous calamity. 
 
 " This curious observer asserts, that the afore- 
 said Rowland Jenks being sometimes permitted, 
 by favour of the sheriff, who teas suspected of lean- 
 ing tou-ards Anti-Christ, to walk at times abroad, 
 accompanied by an under gaoler, on a certain 
 occasion, by fair words and well-timed presents, 
 prevailed with his keeper to call with him at an 
 apothecary's, to whom he produced a recipe for 
 compounding certain drugs, desiring to have it 
 done with all convenient speed. This person, on 
 viewing the paper, replied that the ingredients 
 were costly in price, powerful in effect, and tedious 
 in preparation ; that previous to such mischievous 
 materials going forth, he must be well assured that 
 they would not be applied to any unlawful pur- 
 pose. The prisoner made answer, that rats and 
 other vermin had gnawed and otherwise defiled 
 the few books he had been indulged with since his 
 imprisonment, and that the recipe in question was 
 for the purpose of destroying these animals. The 
 apothecary desired to retire a few minutes for con- 
 sideration, during which he copied the formula, 
 and speedily coming back returned it, saying that 
 he would not, on any account, be concerned in 
 handling such dangerous weapons. 
 
 " Each particular article of this strange com- 
 mixture might have been imparted to the public, 
 but they were of a nature so horribly deleterious 
 that I feared their falling into the hands of wicked 
 and designing men ; yet it seems that Jenks did 
 in some way or other get his poisonous mess pre- 
 pared, and against the day of trial had made, in- 
 fused, or interwoven it into, or with a cotton wick, 
 which on being lighted would burn like a candle. 
 
 " The moment sentence was passed, and he 
 knew that death was unavoidable, having provided 
 himself with a tinder-box and steel, he lighted that 
 infernal thread, which was to determine the fate 
 of so many. The dismal effects which ensued are 
 upon record, and too well known to need repeat- 
 ing. Indeed, whoever by chance or by design 
 shall be made acquainted wuth the materials it was 
 composed of, which I wish may for ever be blotted 
 out and forgotten, will easily believe its virulent 
 and venomous effects." 
 
 This singular account is evidently penned by a 
 lover of the marvellous : it will not bear the touch- 
 stone of criticism or common sense ; and endea- 
 vours to go out of the road to account for that, 
 which, as has been well observed, might easily, 
 and frequently does take place, as the common 
 effect of pestilential infection. It may also be 
 asked, how could the supposed perpetrator of the 
 mischief prevent his suffocating vapour from acting 
 with equal fatality to himself, his fellow-prisoners, 
 
 on women and on children, numbers of whom 
 were in court, but none at all injured in life, 
 health, or limb. It is also very improbable that a 
 prisoner at the bar, who had just received sentence 
 of death, who was of course an object of general 
 observation, and, from the spirit of the times, of 
 religious detestation, that he should be able, with- 
 out attracting notice and hindrance, to strike a 
 light and set fire to his wick. Every person pre- 
 sent must have perceived from whence the noxious 
 fume arose ; nor would it have been necessary for 
 the chief baron repeatedly to ask, as he did, se- 
 veral hours before Jenks was put on his trial, 
 from whence the very disagreeable smell pro- 
 ceeded. The Popish recusant, perhaps, might 
 have performed the part assigned to him with 
 greater ease had he been furnished with phos- 
 phorous matches, that invention of modern science, 
 which in the last century would have been ac- 
 counted little less than magic or witchcraft : an 
 invention by which the philosopher ami the che- 
 mist have wonderfully forwarded the purposes of 
 nocturnal plunderers and domestic assassins. 
 
 The cause of the pestilential affection remains 
 buried in obscurity. 
 
 XIV.— A YOUTH, IN CIVILIZED LIFE, 
 WHO LIVED IN TREES AND ROCKS. 
 
 [The personal strangeness of appearance pro- 
 duced by the life which the subject of the follow- 
 ing account was obliged to lead, together with the 
 interesting countenance which it had left him, and 
 the rapidity with which he used to glide from his 
 wild home into his proper one, appears to us to 
 render the narrative affecting.] 
 
 All this portion of the country (says Mr. Keppel 
 Craven, in his ' Tour through the Southern Pro- 
 vinces of Naples,' speaking of the neighbourhood 
 of Castellamare) bears a bad name, as offering 
 secure retreats to felons or homicides, who, either 
 suspected of misdeeds or actually convicted of 
 crimes, seek their safety in temporary concealment 
 within its mountainous recesses. This state of 
 existence is sometimes so prolonged as to become 
 not only supportable, but scarcely irksome to the 
 inclinations and feelings. An individual of my 
 acquaintance who inhabited Castellamare, formed, 
 in the course of his frequent excursions in its ro- 
 mantic environs, an acquaintance of some intimacy 
 with a rich inhabitant of Lettere, and was in the 
 habit of frequently dining with him and his nu- 
 merous family. He usually went by invitation, 
 or at least after giving notice of his intended visit ; 
 but one day finding himself at the hour of dinner 
 in the vicinity of the house, he ventured to request 
 that hospitality which he had so frequently before 
 experienced. He was admitted with some sjmp- 
 toms of embarrassment, attributable, as he thought, 
 to the consciousness of being inadequately pro- 
 vided with the means of receiving him, but per- 
 ceived an addition to the family in the person of a 
 young man, who was with some hesitation intro- 
 duced as a son, and whose peculiar person, and 
 dejected yet prepossessing countenance, so excited 
 his interest and curiosity, that his sisters, confiding 
 in the regard of the visitor, bade the stranger tell 
 him his history. 
 
 Salvator, that was his name, had, from his early 
 infancy, been in the habits of intimacy with a
 
 THE BRIDAL OF CAMIOLA. TURINGA. 
 
 17 
 
 youth of the same village, who, following the bent 
 of an evil disposition through the path of poverty 
 and vice, had so far advanced in the career of ini- 
 quity as to have become, at the age of twenty-four, 
 associated with all descriptions of petty depre- 
 dators, which can in no language be so well ex- 
 pressed as by the Italian word niahiventi (evil 
 livers). Salvador, educated as carefully as the 
 affluence and affection of his parents would allow, 
 had vainly endeavoured to reclaim his friend 
 Aniello from his wicked courses, and in the hope 
 of ultimately succeeding had continued to keep 
 up an intercourse of good fellowship with him, 
 and more than once had assisted him with money. 
 One day the latter informed Salvador of a scheme 
 formed by him and his companions of robbing a 
 rich proprietor, who resided in a solitary house 
 adjoiuiiig some vineyards belonging to Salvador's 
 father, and his assistance was required to allow 
 this iniquitous band to conceal themselves in one 
 of the buildings used only in the vintage season, 
 where they might remain in ambush until night 
 should enable them to execute their villainous pur- 
 pose. Salvador not only refused to become acces- 
 sory to such a crime, but put the intended object 
 of it on his guard against the machinations of the 
 banditti, without, however, naming Aniello, for 
 whom he still retained a feeling of compassion, if 
 not of regard. 
 
 His friend, as may be supposed, from that day 
 became his inveterate foe, and vowed to watch 
 every opportunity of being revenged. Some time 
 elapsed, however, before such an occasion pre- 
 sented itself; but one morning that Salvador had 
 arisen with the sun, for the purpose of shooting 
 quails among the ripe grapes, his unrelenting 
 enemy, who had watched and followed him, at- 
 tempted to satisfy his cowardly vengeance by 
 firing two pistol shots at him from a place of con- 
 cealment. Discovered, upbraided, and pursued by 
 the other, he suddenly turned upon him, and en- 
 deavoured, by an exertion of bodily strength, to 
 wrest from him his fowling-piece. The contest 
 was prolonged and obstinate, ending finally in the 
 fall of the aggressor, who received his death- 
 wound from the hand which had so often relieved 
 his wants. The survivor, under the influence of 
 terror and confusion at the commission of a crime 
 so foreign to his nature, fled precipitately to his 
 paternal roof, where he only rested time enough to 
 relate his misfortune, being persuaded by his 
 alarmed parents to seek safety in concealment. 
 Some labourers, who had indistinctly seen the 
 conclusion of the affray at a distance, ran to the 
 spot, and reached it in time to learn the name of 
 the homicide from the vindictive ruffian, whose 
 discharged pistols, former gifts of Salvador, and 
 still bearing his initials, served, together with the 
 evidence of the gun which he had hastily flung 
 down, to corroborate the facts deposed by the wit- 
 nesses : the local police was made acquainted with 
 them, and proceeded to the house of the culprit, 
 who had already fled, and thereby justified the 
 accusation brought against him. A sentence was 
 pronounced, and for a considerable time he never 
 ventured to revisit the house of his parents ; but 
 as these were as respected as he was beloved, no 
 vigorous researches were instituted, and having 
 never withdrawn himself to any jrreat distance, 
 he by degrees ventured to return occasionally, for 
 a few minutes, to the presence of his family : and 
 
 in the course of time paid them a daily visit, re- 
 gulated by a signal given by his sisters from the 
 back windows of the house, which looked to the 
 steep range of almost inaccessible rocks, covered 
 with wood, that rise above Lettere. In their fast- 
 nesses he had now dwelt more than two years, and 
 he described in impressive language the singular 
 existence thus imposed upon him, and to which he 
 had become in a manner as much habituated, as to 
 the exercise of descending and remounting these 
 rugged steeps with a velocity and agility almost 
 incredible. 
 
 The individual, who frequently afterwards saw 
 him, described his descent as something to all ap- 
 pearance supernatural. He was, during the day- 
 time, always lurking among the caves, or perched 
 upon the trees, within hearing of the shrill whistle 
 that gave him the summons to approach ; and when 
 it was uttered, a few minutes sufficed to bring him 
 down from the highest precipice. He gave an ac- 
 count of the methodical way in which he divided 
 the few and unvaried occupations that broke the 
 monotony of his solitary hours. The changes of 
 the weather or the wind were hailed by him as an 
 interesting incident in his life. The trees, plants, 
 and flowers, growing within the circumscribed 
 precincts of his retreat, had become the objects of 
 his care, and he watched the changes brought upon 
 them with anxious solicitude. Ihe few animated 
 beings, whose movements broke upon the stillness 
 of his solitude, he looked upon as so many ac- 
 quaintances or visitors. A variety of birds had 
 accustomed themselves to assemble round him at a 
 certain hour, to receive the remnants of the food 
 which he carried up from his father's house. He 
 could enumerate every dift'erent sort of butterfly 
 or insect which could be found near his retreat, 
 and had seen the same fox pass at the same hour 
 of each day during the two years of his seclusion. 
 In these pursuits, if so they can be termed, and 
 the perusal of some books, which he always brought 
 away from the house to the mountain, his time 
 had passed, he said, quickly and not painfully. 
 He generally took a daily meal at home, but never 
 spent the night there, considering his rocky her- 
 mitage as more secure. This, from its particular 
 position, was inaccessible from the upper masses 
 of the mountains, and presented no approach from 
 below, except through a strip of enclosed vineyard, 
 through the back of the family dwelling. 
 
 XV.— THE BRIDAL OF CAMIOLA 
 TURINGA. 
 
 [The following story is from the pages of the 
 ' Life of Joanna, Queen of Naples,' an interesting 
 work published some years ago, which deserves to 
 be better known, particularly by all who feel 
 anxious to think as well of their fellow-creatures 
 as possible. It struck us when we read it, both 
 the first and second time (for we have given it two 
 thorough perusals), as furnishing an ample vin- 
 dication of the character of an excellent woman, 
 who, by one of those freaks of fortune that some- 
 times occur in history, has been hitherto set down 
 as a j)roverbial instance of cruel and inordinate 
 passions. Camiola's story has been dramatised by 
 Massinger.] 
 
 The magnanimity of a lady of Messina, called 
 Camiola Turinga, who flourished in the childhood 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF COXINGSMARK. 
 
 of Joanna (says our author), has procured her a 
 place among the illustrious women of Roccaccio ; 
 and though he has recorded no daring deed of 
 heroism, her history would have furnished an 
 afl'ecting tale to his ' Decameron,' had he con- 
 trasted her lofty spirit, not less feminine, though 
 more noble, with the passive meekness of Griselda. 
 
 Towards the close of the reign of King Robert, 
 Orlando of Arragon rashly encountering the Neapo- 
 litan Heet was made captive and iiiijjrisoned in 
 one of the castles of Naples. His brother, Peter, 
 King of Sicily, refused to ransom him, as he had 
 occasioned the loss of the Sicilian armament by 
 his temerity in engaging the Neapolitans, contrary 
 to his express command. 
 
 The young and handsome prince, unfriended, and 
 almost "forgotten, remained long in prison, and 
 would have been doomed for life to pine away 
 in hopeless captivity had not his wretched fate 
 excited the pity of Camiola Turinga, a wealthy 
 lady of Messina, distinguished for every feminine 
 grace and virtue. Desirous of procuring his 
 liberty without compromising his fair fame, and 
 perhaps actuated by sentiments still more power- 
 ful than compassion, she sent a trusty messenger 
 to his dungeon at Naples, to offer to pay his 
 ransom, on condition of his marrying her on his 
 return to Messina. Orlando overjoyed at his 
 unexpected good fortune, willingly sent her a 
 contract of marriage : hut she had no sooner pur- 
 chased his liberty, than he denied all knowledge 
 of her, and treated her with scorn. 
 
 The slighted maiden carried her cause before 
 the royal tribunal, and Peter of Arragon, convinced 
 of the necessity of governing the Sicilians with 
 justice, as his empire depended solely on the 
 affections of the people, adjudged Orlando to 
 Camiola, as he was, in fact, according to the 
 custom of the times and the laws of war, a slave 
 whom she had purchased with her treasure. In 
 consequence of this decree a day was appointed 
 for their marriage, and Orlando accompanied by a 
 splendid retinue repaired to the house of Camiola, 
 whom he found decked out in the customai-y 
 magnificence of silks and jewels. But Camiola, 
 instead of proffering the vows of love and obedience 
 which the haughty prince expected to hear, told 
 him she scorned to degrade herself by a union 
 with one who had debased his royal birth and his 
 knighthood by so foul a breach of faith, and that 
 she could now only bestow on him, not her hand, 
 of which he had proved himself unworthy, but 
 the ransom she had paid, which she esteemed a 
 gift worthy a man of mean and sordid soul : her- 
 self and her remaining riches she vowed to dedicate 
 to heaven. 
 
 No entreaties availed to change her resolution, 
 and Orlando, shunned by his peers as a dishonoured 
 man, too late regretted the bride he had lost, and 
 falling into a profound melancholy died in obscu- 
 rity and neglect. 
 
 XVI.— THE FORTUNES OF CONINGS- 
 MARK. 
 
 Charles John Coningsmark was a Swedish 
 Count, supposed, on strong circumstantial evi- 
 dence, to have procured three assassins to murder 
 Mr. Thynne, a gentleman of good family and 
 large fortune, in the reign of Charles II. This 
 
 atrocious deed, to which Coningsmark was 
 stimulated by the hope of obtaining the hand of 
 the Countess of Ogle, a beautiful young woman 
 to whom Mr. Thynne had been contracted, was 
 perpetrated in Pall Mall, near the bottom of 
 St. Alban's-street, as the unfortunate man was 
 returning from the house of his mother-in-law. 
 Lady Northumberland, who lived in St. James's- 
 street. At the hour of eight on a Sunday evening, 
 in a crowded thoroughfare, in the heart of a great 
 metropolis, almost within sight of a royal palace, 
 and notwithstanding a running footman with a 
 blazing flambeau preceded the equipage, the 
 villains having stopped and surrounded the coach, 
 Charles Boratzi, a native of Poland, discharged 
 a blunderbuss, loaded with bullets, at Mr. Thynne, 
 which penetrating and dreadfully lacerating his 
 body, he languished in great agonies a few hours 
 and died. So flagrant, and in England so unusual 
 an enormity as waylaying a man in order to mur- 
 der him, naturally raised the indignation of the 
 public, and excited the vigilance of the police. 
 
 The count was seized a few days after near 
 Gravesend, in disguise, and attempting to procure 
 a passage in an outward-bound ship. His three 
 desperadoes were also soon after taken into custody, 
 and with Coningsmark tried at the Old Bailey, 
 before the Chief Justices Pemberton and North, the 
 Chief Baron Montague, the Recorder, and others. 
 
 Three of the assassins after a long trial were 
 clearly convicted of murder, as well by their own 
 confession as by depositions previously taken by 
 the coroner, and other strong evidence ; but strange 
 to tell, the original proposer and promoter of all 
 the mischief, the infamous Coningsmark. by far 
 the most criminal, was acquitted ; while the three 
 wretched men whom he had corrupted and em- 
 ployed were executed, under circumstances of 
 general hatred and indignation. 
 
 The contriver of an act at which the heart 
 revolts, thus escaping punishment, was a national 
 disappointment, and naturally exasperated the 
 friends and family of the deceased. A writer of 
 that period, without producing any corroborating 
 proofs, throws out a rash charge of corruption 
 against the presiding judge (Pemberton) and the 
 jury. Of the latter, many of whom were foreigners, 
 but most of them respectable men (says the author 
 to whom we have been indebted for so many of 
 these romances, and whom the reader may now 
 recognise by his style), I am not prepared to speak ; 
 but as to the judge, we must not admit L'ghtly an 
 accusation which would brand with everlasting 
 infamy, a man who had devoted his whole life to 
 a profession in which eminence and promotion 
 are not very easily attained, but which, by toil and 
 perseverance, assisted by lucky incidents, he had 
 procured : nor is it probable that any douceur a 
 profligate foreign adventurer could present would 
 have seduced an eminent judge, of moderate enjoy- 
 ments, to forget his duty and risk his independence, 
 his fame, and his life. I rather impute the guilty 
 count's acquittal to the fraudulent conduct of an 
 interpreter employed to explain the evidence to 
 the foreign part of the jury : he had been long 
 connected with the count's family in some subor- 
 dinate situation, appeared during the whole trial 
 to interest himself strongly in his behalf, and was 
 several times checked by the counsel on the part 
 of the crown, for coming forward too officiously 
 when not called upon ; and was told that he acted
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 19 
 
 the part of an advocate rather than an interpreter. 
 The Chief Justice Pemberton, I confess, appears 
 to have had a bias in favour of the prisoner ; I 
 hope and believe not a corrupt one. It was also 
 remarked that the three condemned were not 
 asked, as is usual in such cases, what they had to 
 say in their defence, why sentence should not be 
 pronounced against them. I have perused the 
 trial with some attention, and confess that there 
 is not the shadow of a doubt on my mind of the 
 count's guilt. In such infernal transactions posi- 
 tive evidence can very rarely be procured, as they 
 are generally carried on in darkness and mystery ; 
 but Coningsmark's previous and frequent inter- 
 course with the murderers ; his purchasing clothes 
 for one, and weapons for another ; the virulent 
 manner in which he had long spoken of Mr. 
 Thynnc, and a singular question he directed a 
 pers.ii i'> ask of the Swedish envoy concerning 
 the legality of marrying lady Ogle, in case of Mr. 
 Thynne's falling in a rencontre with Iiim ; his 
 perpetually changing lodgings, and going by a 
 feigned name when he came to London to direct 
 the nefarious business ; and lastly, his attempting 
 to escape in disguise, and telling the people of the 
 house he lodged in that he was going to Windsor, 
 when he actually went to Gravesend ; were proofs, 
 circumstantial, it is true, but sufficiently strong 
 to convince most persons of his guilt. It is impos- 
 sible to peruse the trial without remarking the 
 great lenity, inclination to mercy, and scrupulous 
 attention in every minute particular paid to these 
 abominable culprits. It appears to have been 
 carried to rather a dangerous extreme with respect 
 to them ; and I am of opinion, enabled the count, 
 who was treated with too much respect and delicacy, 
 to make impressions on the jury which ultimately 
 tended to his acquittal. 
 
 But all the pains he took, all the guilt he 
 incurred, and the innocent blood he had shed, 
 could not accomplish the purpose he wished. 
 Abhorring his crime, and detesting the perpe- 
 trator of it, Lady Ogle would never admit him into 
 her presence, and was afterwards married to the 
 Duke of Somerset, who, although she was a virgin 
 widow, was, in fact, her third husband ; the lady 
 having been betrothed in her infancy to Henry, 
 Earl of Ogle, only son of Cavendish, Duke of 
 Newcastle, who died in his childhood. After 
 escaping punishment for a crime he had com- 
 mitted, the count, in the midst of a career of 
 unbridled profligacy, and with the conscience of a 
 murderer, was jmt to death for a crime of which 
 he was innocent. 
 
 Wandering, restless, and self-tormented, over 
 various parts of Europe, he visited the court of 
 (I believe at that time) the Duke of Hanover, 
 whose Bon, the Prince of Zell, was afterwards 
 George I., King of England. In the indiscri- 
 minate ardour of vicious passion, and taking 
 advantages of domestic discord, he presumed to 
 cast unhallowed looks on the Princess of Zell, who 
 had for some time lived in a comfortless state of 
 estranged nuptial affection ; the prince indulging 
 a culpaVjle latitude in female intercourse, whilst 
 his wife lived almost in a state of seclusion in her 
 own apartments. 
 
 But one of the frail court favourites, a most 
 artful creature, afterwards created Duchess of 
 Munster, having lately displeased this unfaithful 
 husband, and being fearful of a reconciliation with 
 
 his wife, saw with pleasure, and privately encou- 
 raged the insolent pretensions of the count ; 
 assuring him that a man of his personal accom- 
 plishments and merit could not fail succeeding, 
 after a little perseverance, with a lady so very 
 ill-used. 
 
 Having at the same time excited the jealousy 
 of the prince, by apt emissaries and distant sug- 
 gestions, concerning the marked attentions and 
 known character of Coningsmark (for, generally 
 speaking, husbands, however negligent, are not 
 fond of being made ridiculous) this abominable 
 woman, by means of a bribe, prevailed on a valet 
 of Count Werenhausen, AV ho attended the princess, 
 to go to the count's lodging, and inform him that 
 the Princess of Zell wished to speak with him 
 immediately on an affair of importance. The 
 man of gallantry, flattering himself that the lady's 
 reserve had at length relaxed, hurried to what 
 he considered as an appointment ; while the 
 insidious contriver of the meditated mischief, 
 repairing without delay to the prince, and affect- 
 ing a concern for the honour of his house, told 
 him she could no longer be a silent observer of 
 the flagitious conduct of his wife ; that if any 
 doubt remained of her infidelity, his highness had 
 now an opportunity of being an eye witness of his 
 own dishonour ; that the favoured lover, at the 
 moment she spoke, was with the princess in her 
 bed-chamber, — the conspirers against this unfor- 
 tunate lady having chosen an hour when they 
 knew she would be in that place, and the valet 
 being previously instructed to which room he was 
 to conduct the count. 
 
 The irritated husband, constitutionally and un- 
 governably passionate, rushed furiously, sword in 
 hand, to the apartment, and meeting the count at 
 the door, just returning from the princess, who had 
 assured him she had never sent ; he, without 
 uttering a word, plunged his weapon into the 
 bosom of the assassin ; and after bitterly reproach- 
 ing his wife, and refusing to listen to any explana- 
 tion, imprisoned the unhappy woman for the re- 
 mainder of her life in a solitary castle. 
 
 [VVe have heard the catastrophe of the above 
 story related differently — Coningsmark being said 
 to have been thrown down a trap door, like the 
 more innocent subject in the romance of Kenil- 
 worth. Other circumstances have also given rise 
 to different conjectures ; but all the relaters are 
 agreed in loading the character of the Swedish 
 count with obloquy. Thynne is the man who 
 has the extraordinary monument in Westminster 
 Abbey, where the assassination is actually sculp- 
 tured, coach, wig, and all ; as if to be murdered 
 was a sort of honour.] 
 
 L 
 
 XVII.— LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 [Lady Arabella Stuart, a singular and affecting 
 instance of the sacriiicc of a human being to state- 
 policy, was the grcat-great-grand-daughter of Henry 
 YIL, by the marriage of his daughter Margaret 
 with the Scottish house of the Darnleys, Earls of 
 Lennox. By this descent she stood next in blood 
 royal and right of inheritance to her cousin James 
 I., son of Mary Queen of Scots, wife of Lord 
 Darnloy, in case that prince had no issue ; and 
 hence arose the misfortunes interestingly detailed 
 by Mr. D'Israeli in the fourth volume of his ' Curi- 
 osities of Literature.' 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 " The Lady Arabella," for by that name (says 
 Mr. D'lsraeli), she is usually noticed by her con- 
 temporaries, rather than by her maiden name of 
 Stuart, or by iier married one of Seymour, as she 
 latterly subscribed herself, was, by her affinity 
 witli James I. and our Elizabeth, placed near tlie 
 throne ; too near, it seems, for her happiness and 
 quiet ! In their common descent from Margaret, 
 tiie eldest dau.rhter to Henry VII., she was cousin 
 to the Scottish monarch, but born an English- 
 woman, which gave her some advantage in a claim 
 to the throne of England. " Her double relation to 
 royalty," says Mr. Lodge, "was equally obnoxious 
 to the jealousy of Elizabeth and the timidity of 
 James, and they secretly dreaded the supposed 
 danger of her having a legitimate offspring." Yet 
 James himself, then unmarried, proposed for the 
 husband of the Lady Arabella one of her cousins. 
 Lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created Duke of 
 Lennox, and designed for his heir. The first thing 
 we hear of " The Lady Arabella," concerns a 
 marriage : marriages were the incidents of her life ; 
 and the fatal event which terminated it was a mar- 
 ri;\ge. Such was the secret spring on which her 
 character and her misfortunes revolved. 
 
 This proposed match was desirable to all parties ; 
 but there was one greater than them all, who 
 forbad the banns. Elizabeth interfered, she impri- 
 soned tlie Lady Arabella, and would not deliver 
 her up to the king, of whom she spoke with 
 asperity, and even with contempt.* The greatest 
 infirmity of Elizabeth was her mysterious conduct 
 respecting the succession to the English throne : 
 her jealousy of power, her strange unhappiness in 
 the dread of personal neglect, made her averse to 
 see a successor in her court, or even to hear of a 
 distant one : in a successor she could only view a 
 competitor. Camden tells us that she frequently 
 observed that " most men neglected the setting 
 sun ;" and this melancholy presentiment of per- 
 sonal neglect this political coquette not only lived 
 to experience, but even this circumstance of keep- 
 ing the succession unsettled miserably disturbed 
 the queen on her death-bed. Her ministers, it 
 aj)pears, harassed her when she w"as lying speech- 
 less ; a remarkable circumstance, whicli has hitherto 
 escaped the knowledge of her numerous historians, 
 and which I shall take the opportunity of disclosing 
 in this work. 
 
 Elizabeth leaving a point so important always 
 problematical, raised up the very evil she so 
 greatly dreaded ; it multiplied the aspirants, while 
 every party humoured itself by selecting its own 
 claimant, and none more busily than the conti- 
 nental powers. One of the most curious is the 
 project of the Pope, who, intending to put aside 
 James I., on account of his religion, formed a 
 chimerical scheme of uniting Arabella with a 
 prince of the house of Savoy: the pretext, for 
 without a pretext no politician moves, was their 
 descent from a bastard of our Edward IV.; the 
 Duke of Parma was, however, married ; but the 
 pope, in his infallibity, turned his brother, the 
 
 • A circumstance which we discover by a Spanish memo- 
 rial, wheu our James I. was netjociating with the cal)inet of 
 Mailri<l. He complaius of Eliz;il)eth's treatment of him; 
 that tlie queen refused to give him liis father's estates in 
 En^'land, nor would deliver up his uncle's daughter, Arabella, 
 to be married to the Dul^e of Lennox, at which time the (jueen 
 u!') pcdabrds muy asprras ii d- muclio 'iesprtn/tia cmfra et dii/iu 
 Rfy de fiicm in ; she used harsh words, expressing much con- 
 tempt of the king. — (f'inwuucCt Mem. i. 4. 
 
 cardinal, into the duke's substitute, by secularizing 
 the churchman. In that case the cardinal would 
 then become king of England in right of this lady ! 
 provided he obtained the crown !* 
 
 We might conjecture frcmi tiiis circumstance 
 that Arabella was a Catholic, and so Mr. Butler 
 has recently told us ; but I know of no otiier 
 authority than Dodd, the Catholic historian, who 
 has inscribed her name among his party. Parsons, 
 the wily Jesuit, was so doubtful how the lady, 
 when young, stood disposed to Catholicism, that 
 he describes " her religion to be as tender, green, 
 and flexible, as is her age and sex, and to be 
 wrought hereafter, and to be settled according to 
 future events and times." Yet, in 1611, when 
 she was finally sent into confinement, one well- 
 inf )rmed of court affairs writes, " that the Lady 
 Arabella hath tiot been found incliyiable to 
 popery. "\ 
 
 Even Henry IV. of France was not unfriendly 
 to this papistical project of placing an Italian 
 cardinal on the English throne. It had always 
 been the state interest of the French cabinet to 
 favour any scheme which might preserve the realms 
 of England and Scotland as separate kingdoms. 
 The manuscript correspondence of Charles IX. 
 with his ambassador at the court of London, which 
 I have seen, tends solely to this great purpose, 
 and perhaps it was her French and Spanish allies 
 which finally hastened the political martyrdom of 
 the Scottish Mary. 
 
 Thus we have discovered two chimerical hus- 
 bands of the Lady Arabella. The pretensions of 
 this lady to the throne had evidently become an 
 object with speculating politicians ; and perhaps 
 it was to withdraw herself from the embarrass- 
 ments into which she was thrown, that, according 
 to De Thou, she intended to marry a son of the 
 Earl of Northumberland ; but to the jealous terrors 
 of Elizabeth an English earl was not an object of 
 less magnitude than a Scotch duke. This is the 
 third shadowy husband. 
 
 "When James I. ascended the English throne 
 there existed an anti-Scottish party. Hardly had 
 the northern monarch entered into the " Land of 
 Promise," when his southern throne was shaken 
 by a foolish plot, which one writer calls " a state 
 riddle :" it involved Ilaleigh, and unexpectedly 
 the Lady Arabella. The Scottish monarch was to 
 be got rid of, and Arabella was to be crowned. 
 Some of these silly conspirators having written to 
 her, requesting letters to be addressed to the King 
 of Spain, she laughed at the letter she received, 
 and sent it to the king. Thus, for a second time, 
 was Arabella to have been queen of England. 
 This occurred in 1603, but was followed by no 
 harsh measures from James I. 
 
 In the following year, 1604, I have discovered 
 that for the third time the lady was offered a 
 crown '. " A great ambassador is coming from the 
 king of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my 
 Lady Arabella in marriage for his master. So may 
 your princess of the blood grow a great queen, and 
 then we shall be safe from the danger of mis-super- 
 
 * See a very curious letter, CCXCIX. of Cardinal de 
 Oasat, vol. V. The Catholic interest expected to facilitate 
 tlie conciuest of England by joining their armies with those 
 of " Aralielle," and the commentator writes that the English 
 lady had a party, consisting of all those English who had 
 been the judges or the avowed enemies of Mary of Scotland, 
 the mother of .lames I. 
 
 t Winwood s Memoiials, iii. 281. 
 
 J
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 21 
 
 scribing letters."* This last passage seems to allude 
 to something. What is meant of the danger of 
 superscribing letters 1 
 
 If this royal offer were made, it was certainly 
 forbidden. Can we imagine the refusal to have 
 come from the lady, who we shall see seven years 
 afterwards complained that the king had neglected 
 her in not providing her with a suitable match % 
 It was this very time that one of those butterflies, 
 who quivar on the fair flowers of a court, writes 
 that " My Lady Arabella spends her time in 
 lecture (reading), &c., and she will not hear of 
 marriage. Indirectly there were speeches used in 
 the recommendation of Count Maurice, who pre- 
 tended to be Duke of Gueldres. I dare not 
 atiompt her."f Here we find another princely 
 match pvDposed. Thus far, to the Lady Arabella, 
 crowns and husbands were like a fiiiry banquet 
 seen at moonlight, opening on her sight, impal])a- 
 ble, and vanishing at the moment of approach. 
 
 Arabella, from certain circumstances, was de- 
 pendant on the king's bounty, which flowed very 
 unequally: often reduced to great personal dis- 
 tress, we find by her letters that " she prayed for 
 present money, though it should not be annually.'" 
 I have discovered that James at length granted her 
 a pension. The royal favours, however, were pro- 
 bably limited to her good behaviour. J 
 
 From 1G04 to 1008 is a period which forms a 
 blank leaf in the story of Arabella. In this last 
 year this unfortunate lady had again fallen out of 
 favour, and as usual, the cause was mysterious, 
 and not known even to the writer. Chamberlain, 
 in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, mentions, '* The 
 Lady Arabella's business, whatsover it was, is 
 ended, and she restored to her formal places and 
 graces. The king gave her a cupboard of plate, 
 better than 200/., for a new year's gift, and 1000 
 marks to pay her debts, besides some yearly addi- 
 tion to her maintenance, want being thought the 
 chiefest cause of her discontentment, though she 
 be not altogether free from suspicion of being 
 collapsed."^ Another mysterious expression which 
 would seem to allude either to politics or religion ; 
 but the fact appears by another writer to have been 
 a discovery of a new project of marriage, without 
 the king's consent. This person of her choice is 
 not named ; and it was to divert her mind from 
 the too constant object of her thoughts that James, 
 after a severe reprimand, had invited her to par- 
 take of the festivities of the court, in that season 
 of revelry and reconciliation. 
 
 We now approach that event of the Lady 
 Arabella's life which reads like a romantic fiction ; 
 the catastrophe, too, is formed by the Aristotelian 
 
 • This manuscriiit letter from William, Earl of Pembroke, 
 to (iillierl, Karl of Slirew»lmry, is dated from Hampton Court, 
 Oct. 3, lGO-1. Sluaue MSS., 4161. 
 
 + I>odf,'e"s Illustrations of British Plistorj', iii. 286. It is 
 curious to observe tliat this letter, by W. Fowler, is dated 
 oil the s:ime day as tlie manuscript letter I liave just (iuole<l, 
 and is directed to the same Karl of Shrewsbury ; so tliat the 
 Earl must have received in one day, accounts of two diflerent 
 projects of marriage for his nii^ce ! Tliis sliows liow much 
 Arabella enga^'ed the desifins of foreigners and n.atives. Will 
 Fowler was a rhyming and lantiistical secretary to tlie queen 
 of James I. 
 
 t Two letters of Arabella, on distress of money, are 
 pTestTved l)y Ballard. Tlie discovery of a i>ension 1 made 
 in Sir Julius Caesar's manuscript, where one is mentioned 
 of 1,6()0/., to the Lady Araliella. .Sloane MSS., 41(;o. Mr. 
 Lodge has shown that the king once granted her the duty 
 on oats. 
 
 § Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 117, 119. 
 
 canon ; for its misery, its jiathos, and its terror, 
 even romantic fiction has not exceeded 1 
 
 It is probable that the king, from some political 
 motive, had decided that the Lady Arabella should 
 lead a single life ; but such wise purposes frequently 
 meet with cross ones ; and it happened that no 
 woman was ever more solicited to the conjugal 
 state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. 
 Every noble youth who sighed for distinction 
 ambitioned the notice of the Lady Arabella ; and 
 she was so frequently contriving a marriage for 
 herself, that a courtier of that day writing to 
 another, observes, " these affectations of marriage 
 in her do give some advantage to the world, of 
 impairing the reputation of her constant and vir- 
 tuous disposition.""* 
 
 The revels of Christmas had hardly closed 
 when the Lady Arabella forgot that she had been 
 forgiven, and again relapsed into her old infirmity. 
 She renewed a connexion which had commenced 
 in childhood with Mr. William Seymour, the 
 second son of Lord Beauchamp, and grandson to 
 the Earl of Hertford. His character has been 
 finely described by Clarendon : he loved his studies 
 and his repose ; but when the civil wars broke out 
 he closed his volumes and drew his sword, and 
 was both an active and a skilful general. Charles 
 I. created him Marquis of Hertford, and governor 
 of the prince : he lived to the Restoration, and 
 Charles II. restored him to the dukedom of 
 Somerset. 
 
 This treaty of marriage was detected in February 
 1009, and the parties summoned before the privy 
 council. Seymour was particularly censured for 
 daring to ally himself with the royal blood, although 
 that blood was running in his own veins. In a 
 manuscript letter which I have discovered, Sej'inour 
 addressed the lords of the privy council. The 
 style is humble, the plea to excuse his intended 
 marriage is, that being but " a younger brother, 
 and sensible of mine own good, unknown to the 
 world, of mean estate, not born to challenge any- 
 thing by my birthright, and therefore my fortunes 
 to be raised by mine own endeavour, — and as she is 
 a lady of great honour and virtue, and, as I thought, 
 of great means, I did plainly and honestly endea- 
 vour lawfully to gain her in marriage." There is 
 nothing romantic in this apology, in which Seymour 
 describes himself as a fortune-hunter ! which, how- 
 ever, was probably done to cover his undoubted 
 affection for Arabella, whom he had early known. 
 He says, that " he conceived that this noble lady 
 might, without offence, make the choice of any 
 subject within this kingdom; which conceit was 
 begotten in me upon a general report, after her 
 ladyship's last being called be/ore your loi-dships,\ 
 — that it might be." He tells the story of this 
 ancient wooing — " I boldly intruded myself into 
 her ladyship's chamber in tlie court, on Candlein.as 
 day last, at which time I imparted my desire unto 
 her, which was entertained ; but with this caution 
 on either part, that both of us resolved not to pro- 
 ceed to any final conclusion without his mnjesty's 
 most gracious favour first obtained. And this was 
 our first meeting! After that we had a second 
 meeting, at Mr. Brigg's house in Fleet-street, and 
 then a third at Mr. Baynton's, at both vi liich we 
 
 • Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 1)9. 
 
 + This evidently alludes to the gentleman who.se name 
 appears not, which oceasione.l Arabella to incur the king's 
 displeasure before (Christmas; the Lady Arabella, it is quite 
 clear, was resolvedly bent on marrying herself.
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 had the like conference and resolution as before." 
 He assures their loidsliips that both of thciu had 
 never intended marriage without his majesty's 
 approbation.* 
 
 But love lauijhs at privy-councils and the grave 
 j)roniises made by two frightened lovers. The 
 parties were secretly married, which was discovered 
 about July in the following year. They were then 
 separately confined, the lady at the house of Sir 
 Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Seymour in the 
 Tower, for " liis contempt in marrying a laily of 
 the royal family without the king's leave.'' 
 
 Tins, tlieir iirst confinement, was not rigorous ; 
 the lady walked in her garden, and the lover was 
 prisoner at large in the Tower. The writer in the 
 ' Biographia Britannica' observes, " tliat some 
 intercourse they had by letters, which, after a 
 time was discovered." In this history of love 
 there might be precious documents, and in the 
 library at Long-leat, these love-epistles, or per- 
 haps this volume, may yet lie unread in a corner. t 
 Araliella's epistolary talent was not vulgar : Dr. 
 Montford, in a manuscript letter, describes one of 
 those effusions which Arabella addressed to the 
 king. " This letter was penned by her in the best 
 terms, as she can do right well. It was often read 
 without offence, nay it was even commended by 
 his highness, with the applause of prince and 
 council." One of these amatory letters I have 
 recovered. The circumstance is domestic, being 
 nothing more at first than a very pretty letter on 
 Mr. Seymour having taken cold ; but, as every love- 
 letter ought, it is not without a pathetic crescendo; 
 the tearing away of hearts so firmly joined, while 
 in her solitary imprisonment, that he lived and was 
 her own, filled her spirit with that consciousness 
 which triumphed even over that sickly frame so 
 nearly subdued to death. The familiar style of 
 James I.'s age may bear comparison with our 
 own. I shall give it entire. 
 
 " Lady Arabella to Mr. William Seymour. 
 
 " Sir, — I am exceeding sorry to hear you have 
 not been well. I pray you let me know truly how 
 you do, and what was the cause of it. I am not 
 satisfied with the reason Smith gives for it; but if 
 it be a cold, I will impute it to some sympathy 
 betwixt us, having myself gotten a swollen cheek 
 at the same time with a cold. For God's sake, let 
 not your grief of mind work upon your body. 
 You may see by me what inconveniences it will 
 bring one to ; and no fortune, 1 assure you, daunts 
 me so much as that weakness of body I find in 
 myself; for si nous vivons I'aged'un veau, as Marot 
 says, we may, by God's grace be happier than we 
 look for, in being suffered to enjoy ourself with 
 his majesty's favour. But if we be not able to 
 live to it, I, for my part, shall think myself a pat- 
 tern of misfortune, in enjoying so great a blessing 
 as you, so little awhile. No separation but that 
 deprives me of the comfort of you. For whereso- 
 ever you be or in wliat state soever you are, it 
 sufRceth me you are mine ! Rachel tcept and 
 would not be comforted, because her children were 
 no more. And that, indeed, is the remediless sor- 
 row, and none else ! And, therefore, God bless 
 us from that, and I will hope well of the rest, 
 
 • H.irl. MSS.,T003. 
 
 + It 13 on record that at Long-leat, the seat of the Marquis 
 of Biiih, certain pajiers of Aral>ella are ]]reserved. I leave 
 to tlie noble owner the pleasure of the research. 
 
 though I see no apparent hope. But I am sure 
 God's book mentioneth many of his children in as 
 great distress, that have done well after, even in 
 this world ! I do assure you nothing the state can 
 do with me can trouble me so much as this news 
 of your being ill doth ; and you see when I am 
 troubled, I trouble you with tedious kindness ; for 
 so I think you will account so long a letter, your- 
 self not having written to me this good while so 
 much as how you do. But, sweet sir, I speak not 
 this to trouble you with writing but when you 
 please. Be well, and I shall account myself happy 
 
 in being 
 
 «' Your faithful loving wife, 
 
 " Arb. S."* 
 
 In examining the manuscripts of this lady, the 
 defect of dates must be supplied by our sagacity. 
 The following "petition," as she calls it, addressed 
 to the king in defence of her secret marriage, must 
 have beenwritten at this time. She remonstrates 
 with the king for what she calls his neglect of her; 
 and while she fears to be violently separated from 
 her husband, she asserts her cause with a firm and 
 noble spirit, which was aftervvards too severely 
 tried ! 
 
 " To THE King. 
 
 " May it please your most excellent Majesty. — 
 I do most heartily lament my hard fortune that I 
 should offend your majesty the least, especially in 
 that whereby I have long desired to merit of your 
 majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my 
 sovereign. And though your majesty's neglect of 
 me, my good liking of this gentleman that is my 
 husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract 
 before I acquainted your majesty, I humbly be- 
 seech your majesty to consider how impossible it 
 was for me to imagine it would be offensive to your 
 majesty, having few days before given me your 
 royal consent to bestoiv myself on any subject of 
 your majesty's (which likewise your majesty had 
 done long since). Besides, never having been 
 prohibited any, or spoken to for any, in this land 
 by your majesty, these seven years that I have 
 lived in your majesty's house, I could not conceive 
 that your majesty regarded my marriage at all; 
 whereas if your majesty had vouchsafed to tell me 
 your mind, and accept the freewill offering of my 
 obedience, I would not have offended your majesty, 
 of whose gracious goodness I presume so much, 
 that if it were now as convenient in a worldly 
 respect, as malice make it seem, to separate us 
 whom God hath joined, your majesty would not 
 do evil that good might come thereof, nor make 
 me that have the honour to be so near your 
 majesty in blood, the first precedent that ever was, 
 though our princes may have left some as little 
 imitable for so good and gracious a king as your 
 majesty, as David's dealing with your Uriah. But 
 1 assure myself, if it please your majesty in your 
 own wisdom to consider thoroughly of my cause, 
 there will no solid reason appear to debar me of 
 justice and your princely favour, which 1 will 
 endeavour to deserve whilst I breathe." 
 
 It is indorsed, " A copy of my petition to the 
 king's majesty." In another she implores that 
 " It" the necessity of my state and fortune, together 
 with my weakness, have caused me to do some- 
 what not pleasing to your majesty, let it all be 
 
 *IIarl. MSS.,7003.
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 23 
 
 covered with the shadow of your royal benignity.'' 
 Again, in another petition, she writes : — 
 
 " Touching the otTence for which I am now 
 punished, I most humbly beseech your majesty, in 
 your most princely wisdom and judgment, to con- 
 sider in what a miserable state I had been, if I had 
 taken any other course than I did ; for my own 
 conscience witnessing before God that I was then 
 the wife of him that now I am, I could never have 
 matched ,q^y other man, but have lived all the 
 days of my life as a harlot, which your majesty 
 would have abhorred in any (how otherwise un- 
 fortunate soever) to have any drop of your majesty's 
 blood in them.'" 
 
 I find a letter of Lady Jane Drummond, in reply 
 to this or another petition, which Lady Drummond 
 had given the queen to present to his majesty. It 
 was to leam the cause of Arabella's confinement. 
 The pithy expression of James 1. is charac- 
 teristic of the monarch ; and the solemn fore- 
 bodings of Lady Drummond, who appears to have 
 been a lady of excellent judgment, showed, by the 
 fate of Arabella, how they were true. 
 
 " Lady Jane Drummond to Lady Arabella. 
 
 " Answering her prayer, to know the cause of 
 her confinement. 
 
 "This day her majesty hath seen your ladyship's 
 letter. Her majesty says that when she gave your 
 ladyship's petition to his majesty, he did take it 
 well enough, but gave no other answer than that 
 ye had eaten of the forbidden tree. This was all 
 her majesty commanded me to say to your ladyship 
 in this purpose ; but withal did remember her 
 kindly to your ladyship, and sent you this little 
 token, in witness of the continuance of her ma- 
 jesty's favour to your ladyship. Now, where your 
 ladyship desires me to deal openly and freely with 
 you, I protest I can say nothing on knowledge, for 
 I never spoke to any of that purpose but to the 
 queen ; hut the wisdom of this state, with the ex- 
 ample how some of your qunhtij in the like case has 
 been used, makes me fear that ye shall not fiid so easy 
 end to yovr troubles as ye expect or I wish.' 
 
 In return. Lady Arabella expresses her grateful 
 thanks — presents her majesty with " this piece of 
 my work, to accept in remembrance of the poor 
 prisoner that wrought them, in hopes her royal 
 hands will vouchsafe to wear them, which till I 
 have the honour to kiss, I shall live in a great deal 
 of sorrow. Her case," she adds, " could be com- 
 pared to no other she ever heard of, resembling no 
 other." Arabella, like the Queen of Scots, be- 
 guiled the hours of imprisonment by works of em- 
 broidery ; for in sending a present of this kind to 
 Sir Andrew Sinclair to be presented to the queen, 
 she thanks him for " vouchsafing to descend to those 
 petty offices to take care even of these womanish 
 toys, for her whose serious mind must invent some 
 relaxation." 
 
 The secret correspondence of Arabella and Sey- 
 mour was discovered, and was followed by a sad 
 scene. It must have been now that the king re- 
 solved to consign this unhappy lady to the strictest 
 care of the Bishop of Durham. Lady Arabella 
 was so subdued at this distant separation, that she 
 gave way to all the wildnoss of desjjair ; she fell 
 suddenly ill, and could not travel but in a litter, 
 and with a physician. In her way fo Durham, 
 she was so greatly disquieted in the first few miles 
 
 of her uneasy and troublesome journey, that they 
 could proceed no further than to Highgate. The 
 physician returned to town to report her state, and 
 declared that she was assuredly very weak, her 
 pulse dull, and melancholy, and very irregular ; 
 her countenance very heavy, pals, and wan ; and 
 though free from fever, he declared her in no case 
 fit for travel. The king observed, " It is enough 
 to make any sound man sick to be carried in a bed 
 in that manner she is ; much more for her whose 
 impatietit and unquiet spirit heapeth ttpon herself far 
 greater indisposition of body than otherwise she would 
 have." His resolution, however, was, that " she 
 should proceed to Durham, if he were king !" 
 " We answered," replied the doctor, " that we 
 made no doubt of her obedience." " Obedience 
 is th;it required," replied the king, " which being 
 performed, I will do more for her than she ex- 
 pected."* 
 
 The king, however, with his usual indulgence, 
 appears to have consented that Lady Arabella 
 should remain for a month at Highgate, in con- 
 finement, till she had sufficiently recovered to pro- 
 ceed to Durham ; where the bishop posted, unac- 
 companied by his charge, to await her reception, 
 and to the great relief of the friends nf the lady, 
 who hoped she was still within the reach of their 
 cares, or of the royal favour. 
 
 A second month's delay was granted, in con- 
 sequence of that letter which we have before no- 
 ticed as so impressive and so elegant, that it was 
 commended by the king, and applauded by Prince 
 Henry and his council. 
 
 But the day of her departure hastened, and the 
 Lady Arabella betrayed no symptom of her first 
 despair. She openly declared her resignation to 
 her fate, and showed her obedient willingness by 
 being even over-careful in little preparations to 
 make easy a long journey. Such tender grief had 
 won over the hearts of her keepers, who could 
 but sympathise with a princess whose love, holy 
 and wedded too, was crossed only by the tyranny 
 of statesmen. But Arabella had not within 
 that tranquility with which she had lulled her 
 keepers. She and Seymour had concerted a flight, 
 as bold in its plot, and as beautifully wild, as any 
 recorded in romantic story. The day preceding 
 her departure, Arabella found it not difficult to per- 
 suade a female attendant to consent that she would 
 suffer her to pay a last visit to her husband, and 
 to wait for her return at an appointed hour. More 
 solicitous for the happiness of lovers than for the 
 repose of kings, this attendant, in utter simpli- 
 city, or with generous sympathy, assisted the Lady 
 Arabella in dressing her in one of the most ela- 
 borate disguisings. " She drew a pair of large 
 French-fashioned hose or trowsers over her petti- 
 coats ; put on a man's doublet or coat ; a peruke 
 such as men wore, whose long locks covered her 
 own ringlets ; a black hat, a black cloak, russet 
 boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side." 
 Thus accoutred, the Lady Arabella stole out with 
 a gentleman about three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 She had only proceeded a mile and a half, when 
 they stopped at a poor inn, where one of her con- 
 federates was waiting with horses, yet she was so 
 sick and faint, that the ostler, who held her stirrup, 
 observed, that " the gentleman could hardly hohl 
 out to London." She recruited her spirits by 
 
 • Tlieso jiaiticuliirs I drrivc from the manuscrii't letters 
 amoug the papfrs of" Arabella StiMit. Ifar. MS:?., /OOS.
 
 24 
 
 LADY ARABELLA STUART. 
 
 riding ; the blood mantled in her face ; and at six 
 o'clock our sick lover reached Blackwall, wliere a 
 boat and servants were waiting. The watermen 
 were at first ordered to Woolwich; there they were 
 desired to ])uslj on to Gravesend ; then to Tilbury, 
 where, complaining of fatisjue, they lauded to 
 refresh ; but, tempted by their fright, they reached 
 Lee. At the break of morn, they discovered a 
 French vessel riding there to receive the lady ; but 
 as Seymour had not yet arrived, Arabella was de- 
 sirous to lie at anclior for her lord, conscious that 
 he would not fail to his appointment. If he indeed 
 had been prevented in his escape, she herself cared 
 not to preserve the freedom she now possessed ; but 
 her attendants, aware of the danger of being over- 
 taken by a king's ship, overruled her wishes, and 
 hoisted sail, which occasioned so fatal a termina- 
 tion to this romantic adventure. Seymour, indeed, 
 had escaped from the Tower ; he had left his ser- 
 vant M-atching at the door, to warn all visitors not 
 to disturb his master, who lay ill of a raging 
 tooth-ache, while Seymour in disguise stole away 
 alone, following a cart which had just brought wood 
 to his apartment. He passed the warders ; he 
 reached the wharf, and found his coufldential man 
 waiting with a boat ; and he arrived at Lee. The 
 time pressed; the waves were rising; Arabella was 
 not there ; but in the distance he descried a vessel. 
 Hiring a fisherman to take him on board, to his 
 grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not 
 the French vessel charged with his Arabella. In 
 despair and confusion he found another ship fi'om 
 Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course, 
 and landed him in Flanders. In the meanwhile 
 the escape of Arabella was first known to govern- 
 ment, and the hot alarm which spread may seem 
 ludicrous to us. The political consequences at- 
 tached to the union, and the flight of these two 
 doves from their cotes, shook with consternation 
 the grey owls of the cabinet, more particularly the 
 Scotch party, who, in their terror, paralleled it 
 with the gunpowder treason ; and some political 
 danger must have impended, at least in their ima- 
 gination, for Prince Henry partook of this cabinet 
 panic. 
 
 Confusion and alarm prevailed at court ; cou- 
 riers were despatched swifter than the winds 
 wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in 
 the sea-ports. They sent to the Tower to warn the 
 lieutenant to be doubly vigilant over Seymour, who, 
 to his surprise, discovered that his prisoner had 
 ceased to be so for several hours. James at first 
 was for issuing a proclamation in a style so angry 
 and vindictive, that it required the moderation of 
 C;ecil to preserve the dignity while he concealed 
 the terror of his majesty. By the admiral's iieta-1 
 of his impetuous movements, he seemed in pursuit 
 of an enemy's fleet ; for the courier is urged, and 
 the post-masters are roused by a superscription, 
 which warned them of the eventful despatch : 
 " Haste, haste, post haste ! Haste for your life ! 
 your life !"* The family of the Seymours were in 
 a stale of distraction ; and a letter from Mr. Francis 
 Seymour to his grandfather the Earl of Hertford, 
 
 * ■' This emphatic injunction," observed a friend, " would 
 be efrecti\e when the me-scnger could ri-ad ; bnt in a letlcr 
 wiitten by the E.rl of lissex about il>e year 15'J7, to t)ie Lord 
 Hiifh Admiral at Plymouth, I have seen .-idded to the words, 
 " haste, hast, hast for lyfe !" the expressive symbol of a 
 gnllnirs preparrd with n hnllnr, which could not be well mis- 
 uudeigtoixl by the most illiterate of Mercuries. 
 
 residing then at his seat fiir remote from the capital, 
 to actjnaint him of the escape of his brother and 
 the lady, still bears to posterity a remarkable 
 evidence of the trepidations and consternation of 
 the old earl : it arrived in the middle of the night, 
 accompanied by a summons to attend the privy 
 council. In the perusal of a letter written in a 
 small hand, and filling more than two folio pages, 
 such was his agitation, that in holding the taper he 
 must have burnt what he probably had not heard ; 
 the letter is scorched, and the flame has perforated 
 it in so critical a part, that the poor old earl jour- 
 neyed to town in a state of uncertainty and con- 
 fusion. Nor was his terror so unreasonable as it 
 seems. Treason had been a political calamity with 
 the Seymours. Their progenitor, the Duke of 
 Somerset, the protector, had found that " all his 
 honours,' as Franklaud strangely expresses it, 
 " had hel])ed him too forward to hop headless." 
 Henry, Elizabeth, and James, says the same 
 writer, considered that it was needful, as indeed in 
 all sovereignties, that those who were near the 
 crown " should be narrowly looked into for mar- 
 riage." 
 
 But we have left the Lady Arabella alone and 
 mournful on the seas, not praying for favourable 
 gales to convey her away, but still imploring her 
 attendants to linger for her Seymour ; still straining 
 her eyes to the point of the horizon for some speck 
 which might give a hope of the approach of the 
 boat freighted with all her love. Alas ! never more 
 was Arabella to cast a single look on her lover and 
 her husband ! She was overtaken by a pink in the 
 kings service, in Calais roads ; and now she de- 
 clared that she cared not to be brought back again 
 to her imprisonment, should Seymour escape, 
 whose safety was dearest to her ! 
 
 The life of the unhappy, the melancholy, and 
 the distracted Arabella Stuart, is now to close in 
 an imprisonment, which lasted only four years ; for 
 her constitutional delicacy, her rooted sorrow, and 
 the violence of her feelings, sunk beneath the 
 hopelessness of her situation, and a secret resolu- 
 tion in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, 
 and to wear away the faster if she could, the feeble 
 remains of life. But who shall paint the emotions 
 of a mind which so much grief, and so much love, 
 and distraction itself equally possessed? 
 
 What passed in that dreadful imprisonment can- 
 not perhaps be recovered for authentic history; but 
 enough is known ; that her mind grew impaired, 
 that she finally lost her reason, and if the duration 
 of her imprisonment was short, it was only ter- 
 minated by her death. Some loose eff"usions, often 
 began and never ended, written and erased, inco- 
 herent and rational, yet remain in the fragments 
 of her papers. In a letter she proposed addressing 
 to Viscount Fenton, to implore for her his ma- 
 jesty's favour again, she says, "Good my lord, con- 
 sider the fault cannot be uncommitted ; neither 
 can any more be required of any earthly creature 
 but confession and most humble submission." In 
 a paragraph she had written, but crossed out, it 
 seems that a present of her work had been refused 
 by the king, and that she had no one about her 
 whom she might trust. 
 
 " Help will come too late : and be assured that 
 neither physician nor other, but whom I think 
 good, shall come about me while I live, till I have ■ 
 his majesty's favour, without which I desire not to 1 
 live. Ami if \on remember of old, I dare die, so
 
 ORATOR HENLEY. 
 
 25 
 
 I be not guilty of my own death, and oppress 
 others with my ruiu too, if there be no other way, as 
 God forbid, to whom I commit you ; and rest as 
 assuredly as heretofore, if you will be the same to 
 
 me, 
 
 « Your lordship's faithful friend, 
 
 " A. S." 
 
 That she had frequently meditated on suicide 
 
 appears bv another letter " I could not be so 
 
 unchristian as to be the cause of my own death. 
 Consider what the world would conceive if I should 
 be violently enforced to do it." 
 
 One fragment we may save as an evidence of her 
 utter wretchedness. 
 
 " In all humility, the most wretched and un- 
 fortuaatf^ creature that ever lived, prostrates itselfe 
 at d'.c feet of the most merciful liing that ever was, 
 desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being 
 more afflicted for anvthing than for the losse of that 
 which hath binne this long time the onely comfort 
 it had in the world, and which, if it weare to do 
 again, I would not avveuture the losse for any 
 other worldly comfort ; mercy it is I desire, and 
 that for God's sake !" 
 
 Such is the history of the Lady Arabella, who 
 from some circumstance not sufficiently opened to 
 us, was an important personage, designed by others, 
 at least, to play a high character in the political 
 drama. Thrice selected as a queen ; but the con- 
 sciousness of royalty was only left in her veins 
 while she lived in the poverty of dependence. 
 Many gallant spirits aspired after her hand, but 
 when her heart secretly selected one beloved, it was 
 for ever deprived of domestic happiness! She 
 is said not to have been beautiful, and to have 
 been beautiful ; and her very portrait, ambiguous 
 as her life, is neither one nor the other. She is 
 said to haie been a poetess, and not a single verse 
 substantiates her claim to the laurel. She is said 
 not to have been remarkable for her intellectual 
 accomplishments, yet I have found a Latin letter 
 of her composition in her manuscripts. The ma- 
 terials of her life are so scanty that it cannot be 
 written, and yet we have sufficient reason to be- 
 lieve that it would be as pathetic as it would be 
 extraordinary, could we narrate its involved inci- 
 dents, and paint forth her delirious feelings. Ac- 
 quainted rather with her conduct than with her 
 character, for us the Lady Arabella has no palpable 
 historical existence ; and we perceive rather her 
 shadow than herself. A writer of romance might 
 render her one of those interesting personages 
 whose griefs have been deepened by their royalty, 
 and whose adventures touched with the warm hues 
 of love and distraction, closed at the bars of her 
 prison gate ; a sad example of a female victim to 
 the state ! 
 
 '■ Through one dim lattice, frinp'd with ivy round. 
 Successive suns .'i languiil radiance threw, 
 To paint how lierce her unsjry guardian frown\l. 
 To mark how fast hor waning beauty Hew !" 
 
 Seymour, who was afterwards permitted to 
 return, distinguished himself by his loyalty through 
 three successive reigns, and retained his romantic 
 passion for the lady of his first affections ; for he 
 called the daughter he had by his second Itidy, by 
 the ever-beloved name of Arabella Stuakt. 
 
 XVIIL— ORATOR HENLEY. 
 
 [Every generation has had its " most impudent 
 
 man alive." a designation invented, we believe, in 
 
 favour of Bishop Warburton, whose genius, how- 
 ever, was perhaps nearly on a par with his preten- 
 sions. Very different was the case with the clever 
 but shameless, and therefore foolish, though clever 
 man, who is the subject of the following account, 
 and who became the quack he was for want of 
 heart, — the secret of most apparent inconsistencies 
 between cleverness and folly in the same indi- 
 vidual.] 
 
 John Henley was a native of Melton Mowbray' 
 in the county of Leicester, Avhere he officiated 
 several years as curate, and conducted a grammar- 
 school : but feeling, or fancying, that a genius like 
 his ought not to be cramped in so obscure a situa- 
 tion, " having been long convinced that many gross 
 errors and impostures prevailed in the various in- 
 stitutions and establishments of mankind, and 
 being ambitious of restoring ancient eloquence," 
 but, as his enemies assert, to avoid the scandal and 
 embarrassments of an amour, he repaired to the 
 metropolis, and for a short time performed clerical 
 functions in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury- 
 square, with a prospect of succeeding to the 
 lectureship of the parish, which soon became 
 vacant. 
 
 Several candidates offering for the situation, a 
 warm contest ensued; and after Mr. Henley's 
 probation sermon, which he thought would ensure 
 him an easy victory, we may judge of the disap- 
 pointment of this disciple of Demosthenes and 
 Cicero, when he was told by a person, deputed from 
 the congregation, that " they had nothing to object 
 against his language or his doctrine, but that he 
 threw himself about too much in the pulpit, and 
 that another person was chosen." 
 
 Losing his temper as well as his election, he 
 rushed into an adjoining room, where the principal 
 parishioners were assembled, and thus addressed 
 them, in all the vehemence of outrageous pas- 
 sion : — " Blockheads, are you qualified to decide on 
 the degree of action necessary for a preacher of 
 God's wordi Were you able to read, or had you 
 sufficient sense, you sorry knaves, to understand 
 the most renowned orator of antiquity, he would 
 tell you that the great, almost the only requisite, 
 for a public speaker, was action, action, action ; 
 but I despise and defy you ; provoco ad popubim, 
 the public shall decide between us!" With these 
 words he quitted the place for ever, but, in order 
 " to shame the fools," printed his discourse. 
 
 Thus disappointed in his hopes of preferment, 
 in the regular routine of his profession, he became, 
 " if the expression is allowable" (says our autho- 
 rity), a quack divine, a character for which he was 
 eminently qualified, possessing a strong voice, 
 fluent language, an imposing, magisterial air, the- 
 atric gesture, and a countenance which no violation 
 of propriety, reproach, or self-correction, was ever 
 known to embarrass or discompose. 
 
 He immediately advertised that he should hold 
 forth publicly two days in the week, and liired for 
 this purpose a large room, in or near Newport 
 market, which he called the Oratory; but previous 
 to the commencement of his " Academical Dis- 
 courses," he chose to write a letter to Whiston, the 
 celebrated mathematician and dissenter, in which 
 he desired to know whether he should incur any
 
 2B 
 
 ORATOR HENLEY. 
 
 legal penalties by officiating as a Separatist from 
 the Church of England. 
 
 Whistondid not encourage Henley's project, and 
 a correspondence took place, which ending in 
 virulence and ill-lnnguage, occasioned the latter, 
 a few years after, to send the following laconic note 
 to his adversary : — 
 
 " To Mr. William "Whiston. 
 " Take notice, that 1 give you warning not to enter 
 my room at Newport market, at your peril. 
 
 " John Henley." 
 
 As tickets of admission for those who subscribed 
 to his lectures, medals were issued with the rising 
 sun for a device ; and a motto expressive of tlie 
 man, as well as of the motives by which he was 
 impelled: " Tnveniam viam aut faciam" (I will 
 find a way or make one). He also published what 
 may be termed a syllabus of his lectures, contain- 
 ing a long list of the various subjects he meant to 
 handle, religious and political, in which it was easy 
 to see that he had selected whatever he thought 
 likely to excite public curiosity. 
 
 By these and other means, particularly by his 
 singular advertisements, which were generally ac- 
 companied by some sarcastic stanza on public men 
 and measures, he generally filled his room. Some- 
 times one of his old Bloomsbury friends caught the 
 speaker's eye; on which occasions Henley could 
 not suppress the ebullitions of vanity and resent- 
 ment : he would suddenly arrest his discourse, and 
 address the unfortunate interloper in words to the 
 following effect : — " You see, sir, all the world is 
 not exactly of your opinion ; there are, you per- 
 ceive, a few sensible people who think me not 
 wholly unqualified for the office I have under- 
 taken." 
 
 His abashed and confounded adversaries, thus 
 attacked (in a public company, a most awkward 
 species of address), were glad to retire, and in 
 some instances were pushed out of the room. 
 
 On the Sabbath day he generally read part of 
 the liturgy of the Church of England, and some- 
 times used extempore prayer. 
 
 That the efforts of the Oratory might be assisted 
 by its handmaid the press, Mr. Henley soon com- 
 menced author: the subject he chose proved that 
 he entertained no mean opinion of his own abi- 
 lities. To render some of his pamphlets more 
 impressive or more attractive, he published them 
 in a black letter type. The following were the 
 titles of a few of his publications : — ' The Origin 
 of Evil ;' ' The Means of forming a Correct Taste ;' 
 ' A Comparative View of Ancient and Modern 
 Languages ;' ' Thoughts on the Scriptural Narra- 
 tive of a Confusion of Tongues ;' ' A Defence of 
 Christianity." 
 
 He was also supposed to contribute to the 
 ' Hyp-Doctor,' a periodical paper published at 
 that time ; and is said to have received from Sir 
 Robert Walpole a present of lOOZ., as a reward 
 for his services in that paper. Sir Robert was 
 never reckoned any great judge of literary merit. 
 Henley was also author of a pamphlet occasioned 
 by his obtruding himself into a religious con- 
 troversy on baptism, entitled ' Samuel sleeping in 
 the Wilderness.' 
 
 As his popularity increased, the place where he 
 amused or instructed his friends was found not 
 sufficiently capacious, and he procured a larger 
 
 and more commodious receptacle, near a Catholic 
 chapel in Duke-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields. 
 
 In a fit of humourous caprice, or in the hope of 
 enticing some of the frequenters of that place of 
 worship to risit him, he called his new room, in 
 some of his advertisements, the little Catholic 
 Chapel. If any Catholics happened to look in 
 after mass, he was studious of paying them par- 
 ticular attention and respect, and would, in some 
 way or other, introduce a recommendation of uni- 
 versal philanthropy and religious toleration. On 
 one of these occasions he uttered the following 
 apostrophe : — " After all this outcry about the 
 devil, the pope, and the pretender, who and what 
 is this bugbear, this monster, this pope, whom we 
 so much dread 1 He is only a man like ourselves, 
 the ecclesiastical sovereign of Rome, the father 
 and head of the Catholic church." When the lec- 
 ture concluded he was seen to advance towards a 
 leading man among the Catholics, and shaking 
 him heartily by the hand, welcomed him in the 
 following words: — "God bless you — I love you 
 all : we are all Christians alike, from the same 
 stock, divided only by a few non-essentials.^' 
 
 Whether this mode of proceeding was dictated 
 by the liberal spirit of philosophical indiffei'ence, 
 by Christian charity, by any latent Papistical pro- 
 pensity, or for the mere purpose of inviting cus- 
 tomers of all persuasions to his shop, may be easily 
 determined by considering the character of Henley. 
 Having acquired or assumed the name of Orator 
 Henley, it became the fashion in certain circles to 
 hear his lectures : he attracted the notice and ex- 
 cited the resentment of Pope, who lashed him 
 severely in his ' Dunciad.' Much of the poet's 
 satire is well applied, except where he describes 
 him as a zany, and a talker of nonsense. This 
 certainly is not a character or just description of 
 Henley, who was impudent, insolent, and con- 
 ceited : a vain-glorious boaster, determined at all 
 events, and at all risks, to excite the attention of 
 the public ; but he exhibited at times a quaint 
 shrewdness, a farcical humour, and occasionally a 
 depth of reflection, far beyond the reach of a fool. 
 He was rather what the Methodists once called 
 their great episcopal assailant (Bishop Lavingtou), 
 " a theological and political buffoon." 
 
 A complete series of his singular advertisements, 
 mottos, medals, and pamphlets, with a panegyric 
 on hi^n, in the form of a life, by Welstead, was at 
 one time collected and in the possession of an 
 antiquary. 
 
 By coarse irony, vulgar raillery, and a certain 
 humourous (piaiutness of expression, he often 
 raised the laugh against opponents superior to him 
 in learning and argument. Henley once incurred 
 the hostility of the government, and was several 
 days in the custody of a king's messenger. On 
 this occasion Lord Chesterfield, the secretary of 
 state, amused himself and his associates in office, 
 by sporting with the hopes and fears of our re- 
 storer of ancient eloquence. During his exami- 
 nation before the privy council Henley asked leave 
 to be seated, on account of a real or pretended 
 rheumatism, and occasioning considerable merri- 
 ment by his eccentric answers, himself joining 
 heartily and loudly in the laughs he excited. The 
 noble lord having expostulated with him on the 
 impropriety of ridiculing the exertions of the 
 country, at the moment a rebellion raged in the 
 heart of the kingdom, he replied, '■' I thought there
 
 GEORGE PSALMAMAZAR. 
 
 27 
 
 was no harm in cracking a joke on a red herring ;" 
 alluding to Archbishop Herring, who had pro- 
 posed, or actually commenced arming the clergy ! 
 
 A number of disrespectable and unwarrantable 
 expressions he had applied to persons high in 
 office, and to their conduct, being repeated to him, 
 his only reply was, " My lords, I must live." " I 
 see no reason for that, Mr. Henley," replied Lord 
 Chesterfield. The council seemed pleased at the 
 retort ; but Henley immediately answered, " That 
 is a good thing, but unfortunately it has been said 
 before." 
 
 After being reprimanded for his improper con. 
 duct, he was in a few days dismissed, as an im- 
 pudent but entertaining fellow. 
 
 Tlie following was circulated by Henley as an 
 ad'.t rtii-ement, or by way of handbill, in October 
 1726 :— 
 
 " Having been threatened by various letters, that 
 if I do not drop the Oratory a minute account of 
 my life and character shall be published, I take 
 this method of informing those who propose under- 
 taking it, that they must be speedy, or their market 
 will be Spoiled, as I am writing it myself. 
 
 "John Henley." 
 
 XIX.— GEORGE PSALMANAZAR, THE 
 LITERARY IMPOSTOR. 
 
 George Psalmanazar, a man of learning, of un- 
 known origin, and subsequently one of the writers 
 employed in compiling the ' Universal History," a 
 task which he appears to have executed with suf- 
 ficient skill and fidelity, actually took the pains to 
 invent a language, which he wrote and spoke to 
 the satisfaction of curious inquirers, alleging it to 
 be that of the island of Formosa, where he pre- 
 tended to have been born. 
 
 This adventurer, who attracted in his time no 
 small attention, was first noticed by a Colonel 
 Lauder, in the garrison of Sluys, at which place, a 
 wanderer from his parents and country, and under 
 the pressure of extreme poverty, he had enlisted 
 as a private soldier ; but he industriously and art- 
 fully circulated a strange story that he was a 
 native of the above island, converted from idolatry 
 by certain missionaries of the Society of Jesus, 
 and that he was obliged to fly from the vengeance 
 of the Japanese, whose hatred used to be described 
 as particularly virulent against Christianity in all 
 its forms. 
 
 The singularity of this relation, and the apparent 
 simplicity of the stranger's manners, induced the 
 colonel, and Innes, his regimental chaplain, an 
 unprincipled profligate, to take him under their 
 protection. Psalmanazar accompanied them to 
 England, and was soon after introduced to the 
 Bishop of London, who listened to his account 
 with pity and imjilicit faith, became his patron, 
 contributed generously towards his support, and 
 rewarded with considerable preferment the chap- 
 lain Innes, who was aware of, and had early de- 
 tected the cheat, but considered it as a convenient 
 step to patronage. 
 
 The artful conduct of the stranger, in producing 
 and speaking a languago, alphabet, and grammar, 
 purely of his own invention, and of his eating raw 
 meat, roots, and herbs, soon rendered him an ob- 
 ject of public notice, and occasioned much curious 
 disquisition between many characters of the first 
 
 rank in church and state. The keen-eyed scep- 
 ticism of the Doctors Halley, Mead, and Wood- 
 ward, rescued them, however, from the charge of 
 blind credulity, in which many of their respectable 
 contemporaries were involved : these gentlemen 
 had cried down Psalmanazar as an arrant rogue 
 from the beginning. 
 
 The most sanguine hopes of the impostor, could 
 he have silenced the accusation of his own heart, 
 appear to have been crowned with success, and he 
 derived liberal contributions from the pit)', the 
 curiosity, or the folly of mankind, who considered 
 it their duty, as christians and as men, to protect 
 an unfortunate fugitive who had suffered in the 
 cause of truth. 
 
 Psalmanazar drew up, in Latin, an account of 
 the island of Formosa, a consistent and entertain- 
 ing work, which was translated and hurried through 
 the press, had a rapid sale, and is quoted without 
 suspicion by Buffon ; whilst his adherence to cer- 
 tain siuiTularities in his manners and diet, gathered 
 from popular opinion, or from books, considerably 
 strengthened the imposition ; for the carrying on 
 of which he was eminently qualified, by possessing 
 a command of countenance, temper, and recollec- 
 tion, which no perplexity, rough usage, or cross- 
 examination, could ruffle or derange. 
 
 His memory was, at the same time, so correctly 
 tenacious, that after the exercise of habit in verbal 
 arrangement, on being desired to translate a long 
 list of English words into the Formosan language, 
 they were marked down without his knowledge ; 
 and his credit was considerably corroborated by 
 his correctly fixing the same terms to the same 
 words three, six, or even twelve months after- 
 wards. In this manner his imposture had been 
 first discovered by Innes ; but this disgrace to his 
 cloth suppressed what he knew, and joined in the 
 fraud, from sinister motives. 
 
 By favoiu- of the Bishop of Oxford, who proved 
 a warm advocate in his cause, Psalmanazar was 
 enabled to improve himself in his studies, and 
 convenient apartments were provided for him in 
 one of the colleges of that university. To impress 
 his neighbours at this place with proper ideas of 
 his intense and unceasing application, it was his 
 custom to keep lighted candles in his room during 
 the night, and to sleep in an easy chair, that his 
 bed-maker finding his bed untumbled (and not 
 failing to repeat the circumstance), might not sup- 
 pose he indulged in so unphilosophical and illi- 
 terate a refreshment as going to bed ; he would 
 also occasionally lament the noise and interrup- 
 tions of certain young men in an adjoining apart- 
 ment, who preferred the joys of wine and good 
 fellowship to solitude and midnight studies. 
 
 On his return to London he drew up, at the 
 desire of his ecclesiastic friends, a version of tin- 
 Church Catechism in what he called his native 
 tongue, which was examined by the learned, found 
 regular and grammatical, and pronounced a real 
 languago, and no counterfeit. IJy these and other 
 conciliating arts the supplies of his patrons con- 
 tinued lil)cral, and he was enabled to lead an idle, 
 and in some instances, when he was thrown off 
 his guard, an extravagant life. The person of our 
 Formosan was far from being attractive, but his 
 qualities, it is said, were thought otherwise by 
 some fashionable ladies, one of whom is reported 
 to have exclaimed, " I ])ositively shall never be 
 easy till I have been introduced to this strange
 
 2S 
 
 ADVENTURE OF EUSTACHIO CHERUBINI. 
 
 man -with a liard name, who has fled from Japan, 
 and eats raw meat." 
 
 But many of his friends were offended by such 
 conduct, and the critics, and aniouj^ others Dr. 
 Douijhis, "the scourge of impostors, the terror of 
 quacks," could not rest till their doubts and in- 
 credulity were justified. Tiiey pointed out various 
 absurdities and many contradictions in his nar- 
 rative, as well as in Ids declarations : he was gra- 
 dually lowered in the general esteem ; his bene- 
 factors silently withdrew their support ; the fraud 
 was at length understood ; the favour of the public 
 converted by a natural process into resentment ; 
 and those who had originally given warning against 
 the imposture, did not forget to increase the con- 
 fusion of their opponents by ridicule and sarcasm. 
 The situation of Psalmanazar thus became cri- 
 tical. Detected, and almost deserted, his subsist- 
 ence was precarious ; but having displayed in his 
 assumed cliaracter considerable abilities, and having 
 cultivated an extensive acquaintance with a class 
 of men who have been pronounced the best pa- 
 trons of literary adventure, he was employed by 
 the booksellers in a periodic publication, and lastly 
 in a Universal History, a considerable portion of 
 the ancient part of which was committed to his 
 care. 
 
 By degrees he became quiet, untalked of, and 
 comparatively respectable, and he privately con- 
 fessed his imposture. He could never be prevailed 
 on to disclose his real name and country (supposed 
 to be the south of France) ; he was afraid, he said, 
 of disgracing his family ; but the imposition he 
 confessed thoroughly, adding to his confession all 
 the marks of remorse. His repentance was sin- 
 cere, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who used to 
 say that the sorrows of Psalmanazar, in speaking 
 of his deception, were heartfelt, strong, and ener- 
 getic, like those of Peter after the denial of his 
 Saviour, when he went out and wept bitterly. It 
 was no common grief, arising from blasted hopes, 
 but a real hatred of himself for the crime he had 
 committed, and a dread of that punishment which 
 he thought he deserved. His frame on these occa- 
 sions was shaken and convulsed, his face drowned 
 in tears, and his utterance choked with sobs : a 
 spectacle which no feeling man could behold with- 
 out emotion, or consider as produced by any thing 
 short of real anguish. 
 
 [Upon the whole Psalmanazar appears to have 
 been a clever, weak, and not bad-hearted man, 
 whose vanity supported him in his falsehood till 
 he got tired of it, and who then took extreme pity 
 on himself, and so was drowned in tears. The best 
 point about him, and which shows his nature to 
 have been good in the main, was his being able to 
 sit down quietly and earn an honest living.] 
 
 XX.— ADVENTURE OF EUSTACHIO 
 CHERUBINI. 
 
 [This account, which was first published, if we 
 remember, by Mrs. Graham, in her ' Six Months 
 Residence near Rome,' has been repeated by Mr. 
 M'Farlane in the ' History of Banditti ;' but we 
 are not aware that it has hitherto appeared in any 
 publication which gives it so cheap an introduction 
 to thousands as one like our own. The undoubted 
 authenticity of the terrors so naturally painted by 
 
 the poor apothecary, produces the last degree of 
 Interest by uniting certainty with surprise, and a 
 domestic familiarity with the remoteness of wild 
 stories. The narrative is given in a letter from the 
 person principally concerned.] 
 
 " Castel Madama, August 30, 1819. 
 " I SEND you the detailed account you requested of 
 the misfortune which befel me on the 17th current. 
 Early on the morning of that day the factor (bailiff 
 or farm-agent) of the Cavaliere Settimio Bischi, 
 named Bartolomeo Marasca, a person well known 
 to me, came to my house with a letter from his 
 master, desiring me to come to Tivoli, my assist- 
 ance as a surgeon being necessary both to Signor 
 Gregorio Celestini, and to the nun-sister Chlara 
 Eletta Morelli. On this account I hurried over 
 my visits to my patients at Castel Madama, and 
 set off on horseback, accompanied by the factor, 
 who was armed with a gun, towards Tivoli. I 
 passed through all the parish of San Gregorio and 
 that of Tivoli, as far as the second arch of the 
 antique aqueducts which cross the road two miles 
 from that town, to a spot commonly called the 
 narrows of Tivoli, without accident. And here I 
 must observe, that it is impossible for the road, 
 from its natural position, to be better adapted for 
 banditti, or more terrible to travellers. After 
 passing the bridge Degli Archi, on the way to Ti- 
 voli, it is bounded on the left by a steep hill, co- 
 vered with thick underwood, which reaches to the 
 very edge of the road ; the other side is a conti- 
 nued precipice of great height, and quite perpen- 
 dicular to the plain, through which the Anio runs 
 below. The breadth of this road is very little 
 more than sufficient for a carriage, so that it is not 
 possible to perceive the danger which may easily 
 be concealed in the thicket above, nor to fly from 
 it on either side when it bursts out upon one, and 
 therefore one must inevitably become the victim of 
 lawless violence. 
 
 " I had scarcely passed the second arch of the an- 
 tique aqueducts, when two armed men rushed from 
 the thicket, near a little lane to the left, and 
 stopped the way, and pointing their guns at the 
 factor, who was riding a little before, ordered him ! 
 to dismount. Meantime two others came out of 
 the wood behind me, so as to have us between 
 them and the former. We had both dismounted 
 on the first intimation. The two men behind me 
 ordered me to turn back instantly, and to walk 
 before them, not by the road to Castel Madama, but 
 that to San Gregorio. 
 
 "The first question they asked me was, whether 
 I was the Prince of Castel Madama ; meaning, I 
 fancy, the vice-prince, who had passed a little 
 before. To this I answered that I was not the 
 prince, but a poor surgeon of Castel Madama ; and 
 to convince them I spoke truth I showed them 
 my case of lancets, and my bag of surgical instru- 
 ments, but it was of no use. During our walk 
 towards San Gregorio I perceived that the number 
 of brigands increased to thirteen. One took my 
 watch, another my case of lancets. At the be- 
 ginning of our march we met at short distances 
 four youths belonging to San Gregorio, and one 
 elderly man, all of whom were obliged to share 
 my fate ; shortly after we met another man, and 
 an old woman, whose ear-rings were taken, 
 and they were then permitted to continue their 
 journey.
 
 ADVENTURE OF EUSTACHIO CHERUBINI. 
 
 29 
 
 " In the meadow by the last aqueduct the horses 
 wliich I and Bartolomeo had ridden were turned 
 loose, and after passing the ravine called del Val- 
 catore, we began to pass the steepest part of the 
 mountain with such speed, that, together with the 
 alarm I felt, made me pant so violently that I 
 trembled every moment lest I should burst a 
 blood-vessel. At length, however, we reached the 
 top of the hill, where we were allowed to rest, and 
 we sat down on the grass. The factor, Marasca, 
 then talketl" a good deal to the brigands, shewed 
 himself well acquainted with their numbers, and 
 said other things, which my wretched state of mind 
 prevented me from attending to very distinctly ; 
 but seeing him apparently so intimate with the 
 robbers, a suspicion crossed my mind that I was 
 betrayed by him. 
 
 " The chief brigand then turned to me, and throw- 
 ing down my lancet case by me, said that he had 
 reflected upon my condition, and that he would 
 think about my ransom. Then I with tears ex- 
 plained to him my poverty, and my narrow means, 
 and told him how, to gain a little money, I was on 
 my road to 'i'ivoli, to attend a sick stranger. Then 
 he ordered me to write to that stranger, and desire 
 him to send two thousand dollars, or I should be 
 a dead man, and to warn him against sending out 
 an armed force. He brought me pen, ink, and 
 paper, and I was obliged to write what he bade 
 me, with all the earnestness that thirteen assassins 
 and the fear of death could inspire me. While I 
 was writing, he sent two of his men to take a man 
 who was ploughing a little lower down. He be- 
 longed to San Gregorio ; but one of the messengers 
 having seen one of Castel Madama in the flat be- 
 low, he went down for him, and they were both 
 brought up to us. As soon as they were come, I 
 begged the man of Castel Madama to carry my 
 letter to Tivoli for Signor Celestini, and in order 
 to enforce it I sent my case of surgical instruments, 
 with which he was well acquainted, as a token. 
 This countrjman, who was as civil as he was 
 wary, prudent, and fit for the business, accepted 
 the commission which I gave him, and after having 
 afforded me some encouragement, without how- 
 ever offending the brigands, he gave me some 
 bread which he had with him, and set off for 
 Tivoli, the chief desiring him to take one of the 
 horses we had left below, that he might make 
 more speed. The ploughman from San Gregorio 
 was sent with him, but not quite to Tivoli, and 
 only to await at a given spot the return of the 
 peasant of Castel Madama. 
 
 " We were remaining in the same state of expect- 
 ation of the return of the messenger, when in 
 about three hours time we saw in the distance a 
 man on horseback coming straight to us, which we 
 believed to be the man returning. A little after, 
 however, several people were seen together, which 
 the chief took to be the armed force of Tivoli. 
 He abused one of his companions, who had broken 
 his spy-glass the day before, because he could not 
 obtain a more satisfactory view of them. At 
 length having made the best observations he could, 
 he concluded that tliere was really an armed force 
 advancing, and gave orders to his men to retire to 
 the highest and most woody part of the mountain, 
 obliging me and the other prisoner to keep pace 
 with them. After a long and painful march, find- 
 ing himself in a safe place, he halted, and there 
 awaited the return of the messenger ; but, as he 
 
 still delayed, the chief came to me, and said, per- 
 haps it might happen to me as it did to a certain 
 inhabitant of Veletri, who had been taken by this 
 very party, that entered his house in disguise and 
 carried him off to the woods : and because his 
 ransom was long in coming they killed him, and 
 when the money came the messenger found him 
 dead. I was alarmed beyond measure at this 
 story, and regarded it as a forerunner of my own 
 speedy death. 
 
 " However, I entreated them with tears to have a 
 little patience, and the messenger would surely 
 return with the money. Meantime, to satify the 
 chief as well as his companions, I told them I 
 might have written another letter to Castel Ma- 
 dama, with orders to sell whatever I possessed, 
 and to send up the money immediately. Thank 
 God, this pleased them, and instantly they caused 
 me to write another letter to Castel Madama, and 
 one of the prisoners from San Gregorio was sent 
 with it. After he was gone I saw the factor Ma- 
 rasca walking carelessly about among the brigands, 
 looking at their arms, and making angry gestures, 
 but he did not speak. Shortly after he came and 
 sat down by me : it was then that the chief, having 
 a large stick in his hand, came up to him, and 
 without saying a single word, gave him a blow on 
 the hack of the head, just where it joins the neck. 
 It did not kill him ; so he rose and cried, ' I have 
 a wife and children : for God's sake spare my 
 life ;' and thus saying he defended himself as well 
 as he could with his hands. Other brigands closed 
 round him, a struggle ensued, and they rolled to- 
 gether down a steep precipice. I closed my eyes, 
 my head dropped on my breast, I heard a cry or 
 two, but I seemed to have lost all sensation. In 
 a very short time the brigands returned, and I saw 
 the chief thrust his dagger, still stained with 
 blood, into his sheath ; then turning to me, he 
 announced the death of the factor in these very 
 words : — ' Do not fear : we have killed the factor 
 because he was a sbirro ; such as you are not 
 sbirri ; then he was of no use among us. He 
 looked at our arms, and seemed disposed to mur- 
 mur, and if the force had come up he might have 
 been dangerous.' And thus they got rid of Ma- 
 rasca. The chief seeing that the money did not 
 come from Tivoli, and being afraid lest troops 
 should be sent, seemed uncertain what to do, and 
 said to his companions, ' How shall we dispose of 
 our prisoners "i we must either kill them or send 
 them home ;' but they could not decide on either, 
 and he came and sat down by me. I, remembering 
 that I had a little money about mc, which might 
 amount altogether to thirty pauls (throe crowns), 
 gave them frankly to him, to gain his good will. 
 He took it in good part, and said he would keep 
 it to pay the spy. 
 
 " After this it came on to rain heavily ; it was 
 already twenty-one o'clock (about four in the after- 
 noon, English time), and I was wet to the skin. 
 Before the rain was quite over we heard some 
 voices from the top of the hill above us, on the 
 left hand ; then a strict silence was kept, that we 
 might discover if they were the voices of the 
 messengers from Tivoli, or some jmrty of the 
 troops, of whom they seemed much afraid. I en- 
 deavoured to convince them that it was probably 
 tiie messenger. They then called out, ' Come 
 down!' But no one came, nor did we ever find 
 out who it was, so we remained where we were.
 
 30 
 
 ADVENTURE OF EUSTACHIO CHEllUBINI. 
 
 " After another short interval we heard another 
 voice also from above on the left, and then we 
 said, ' Surely this must be the messenger.' But 
 the brigands would not trust to it, and forced us 
 to go on to a place a good deal higher, and even 
 with that whence the voice proceeded. When we 
 reached it they all presented their muskets, keeping 
 the prisoners behind them, and thus prepared to 
 stand on the defensive, they cried out, ' Come for- 
 ward !' In a few moments the men appeared 
 among the trees, one of them the j)easant of Castel 
 Madama, who had been sent in the morning to 
 Signor Celestini, at Tivoli ; the other the plough- 
 man of San Gregorio, his companion. 
 
 " As they were recognised, they were ordered to 
 lie down with their faces to the ground, and asked 
 if they came alone. But the man of Castel Ma- 
 dama answered, ' It would be a fine thing indeed 
 if I, who am almost dead with fatigue, after 
 climbing these mountains with the weight of five 
 hundred scudi about me, should be obliged to 
 prostrate myself with my face to the earth ! Here's 
 your money : it was all that could be got together 
 in the town.' Then the chief took the money, 
 and ordered us to change our station. Having 
 arrived at a convenient place we stopped, and he 
 asked if there were any letters. Being answered 
 that there were two, he gave them me to read ; and 
 learning from them that the sum sent was five hun- 
 dred crowns he counted them, and finding them 
 exact said all was well, praised the punctuality of 
 the peasant, and gave him some silver as a reward 
 for his trouble. His companion also received a 
 small present. 
 
 " The robbers, who no longer cared to keep the 
 prisoners belonging to San Gregorio, from whom 
 they could not hope to get anything, released them 
 all from this spot. I, therefore, and the peasant 
 of Castel Madama, remained the only prisoners, 
 and we began to march across the mountains, per- 
 haps only for the sake of changing place. I asked 
 why they did not set me at liberty as well as the 
 others, as they had already received so consider- 
 able a sum on my account. The chief said that 
 he meant to await the return of the messenger sent 
 to Castel Madama. I continued to press him to 
 let me go before night, which was now drawing on 
 apace, saying, that perhaps it had not been pos- 
 sible to procure any more money at Castel Ma- 
 dama, and that if I remained out all night on the 
 hill in the cold air, it would have been better to 
 have killed me at once. Then the chief stopped 
 me, and bade me take good care how I said such 
 things, for that to them killing a man was a matter 
 of perfect indifference. The same thing was also 
 said to me by another outlaw, who gave me his 
 arm during our rocky journey. At length we 
 reached the top of the mountain, where there were 
 some pools of water, formed by the rain that had 
 faUen a little before : and then they gave me some 
 very hard and black bread that I might eat, and 
 drink some of that water. I drank three times, 
 but I found it impossible to eat the bread. 
 
 " The journey continued over the tops of those 
 mountains which succeed one another, till we ar- 
 rived at a place known by the name of San Sierla 
 about midnight : there we saw an ass feeding, and 
 heard some one call to us, to ask if we had seen 
 the aes. The chief in a feigned voice answered 
 ' Yes,' and then made the man from Castel Ma- 
 dama desire him to come down from the ass. It 
 
 appeared that the man was afraid to come down ; 
 for which reason the chief said, that if he were 
 near enough he would have stuck his knife into 
 him. Piqued that the shepherd was afraid of 
 them, he said, ' Did one ever hear of a shepherd 
 being afraid of the brigands'?' When the man 
 at length came down they reproached him with his 
 fear ; but he, taking courage, said he was not 
 afraid, and invited them to his hut. The ass was 
 then taken, and a great coat put upon his back, 
 with a shepherd's coat of sheepskin, upon which 
 I was mounted, and we went on to the hut, where 
 there was a threshing floor. This was the only 
 time I saw them drink anything but water. 
 The chief told me they were always afraid when 
 fresh wine came lest it should be drugged, and 
 that they always made whoever brought it drink a 
 good deal of it, and if in two hours no bad symp- 
 tom appeared they used the wine. 
 
 " After this we went to the sheepfold, which we 
 reached about the fifth hour, and where we found 
 a quantity of boiled meat, which the brigands tied 
 up in various handkerchiefs, and a great coat, to- 
 gether with some cheeses. Before we left the fold, 
 the chief, reflecting that the messenger was not 
 come back from Castel Madama, began to think 
 he might have made his escape entirely, because 
 he was one of the prisoners from San Gregorio, 
 and determined to make me write another letter ; 
 and accordingly brought me all that was requisite 
 for writing, and ordered me to tell my friends at 
 Castel Madama that if they did not send eight 
 hundred crowns the following day, they would put 
 me to death ; or carry me to the woods of Fajola, if 
 there was a farthing less than the abovenamed 
 sum. I consequently wrote a second letter, and 
 gave it to the countryman to carry, telling him also 
 by word of mouth, if they found no purchasers at 
 Castel Madama for my effects, to desire that they 
 might be sent to Tivoli and sold for whatever they 
 might fetch. The chief of the brigands also begged 
 to have a few shirts sent. One of the brigands 
 proposed, I dont know why, to cut off one of my 
 ears, and send it with my effects to Castel Ma- 
 dama. It was well for me that the chief did not 
 approve of the civil proposal, so it was not done. 
 He, however, wanted the countryman to set out 
 that moment; but the man, with his usual cool- 
 ness, said it was not possible to go down that steep 
 mountain during night : on which the chief told 
 him he might remain in the sheep-cote all night, 
 and set out at daylight. ' But take notice,' said 
 he, 'if you do not return at the twentieth hour 
 to-morrow to the sheep-cote you may go about 
 your business, but we shall throw Cherubini into 
 some pit.' The peasant tried to persuade them 
 that perhaps it might not be possible to collect so 
 much money in a small town at so short a notice, 
 and begged to have a little more time ; but the 
 chief said that they had no time to waste, and that 
 if he did not return next day by the twentieth 
 hour, they would kill Cherubini. 
 
 " After they had given their orders, they left the 
 countryman at the sheepfold to wait for daylight 
 before he set out for Castel Madama, which was 
 about three miles from it. The brigands then set 
 off, carrying me with them, and obliging a shep- 
 herd to carry the great coat, in which they had 
 wrapped up the cold meat and cheese. And now, 
 instead of the low thicket which it was so difficult 
 to walk through, we came to fine tall timber trees,
 
 ADVENTURE OF EUSTACHIO CHERUBINI. 
 
 31 
 
 where the road was comparatively smooth, except 
 where a fallen tree here and there lay across it. 
 At this time I was overcome by fear in consequence 
 of the new threats I had heard to kill me next day 
 if the whole sum of eight hundred crowns was not 
 brought by the twentieth hour, for I thought it 
 quite impossible that so much money could be col- 
 lected at Castel Madama : I therefore recommended 
 myself to God, and begged him to have compassion 
 on my wretched state, when one of the brigands, a 
 man of gi-eat stature, who figured among them as 
 a kind of second chief, came up to me, and taking 
 me by the arm he assisted me to walk, and said, 
 'Now, Cherubini, that you cannot tell the man 
 from Castel Madama, I assure you that to-morrow 
 you shall go home free, however small the sum he 
 brings may be. Be of good cheer, therefore, and 
 do not distress yourself.' At that moment I felt 
 such comfort from the assurance of the outlaw, 
 that he appeared to me to be an angel from heaven ; 
 and without thinking why I should not, 1 kissed 
 his hand, and thanked him fervently for his unex- 
 pected kindness. 
 
 " AVhen we again reached the thicket and found 
 a fit place, we all lay down to sleep, and I had the 
 skins to rest on as before, and the chief wrapped 
 my legs in his own great coat, and he and the 
 second chief lay on each side of me. Two senti- 
 nels were placed to keep watch, and to prevent the 
 shepherd with the provisions from making his 
 escape. I know not how long we rested before 
 one of the sentinels came, and gave notice of day- 
 break. ' Come again then when it is lighter,' 
 said the chief, and all was again quiet. I turned 
 my face so as not to see the brigands and dozed a 
 little, till I was roused by the cry of some wild 
 bird. I am not superstitious, but I had often 
 heard that the shriek of the owl foreboded evil ; 
 and in the state of spirits in which 1 was, every 
 thing had more than its usual effect upon me. I 
 started, and said, 'What bird was that i' They 
 answered, ' A hawk.' ' Thank God '.' I replied, 
 and lay down again. Among my other sufferings 
 I cannot forget the stingings and torments of the 
 gnats, which fastened on my face and throat ; but 
 after the death of poor Marasca I dared not even 
 raise my hand to drive them away, lest it should 
 be taken for a sign of impatience. A little after 
 this we all arose and walked on for about an hour, 
 when we came to a little open space in the midst 
 of the thicket, where the brigands began to eat 
 their cold meat, inviting me to join them ; but I 
 only took a little new cheese, without bread. 
 After they had breakfasted they lay down to sleej), 
 the second chief giving me his great coat to wrap 
 myself in, as the ground was damp. While the 
 others slept, one of them began to read in a little 
 book, which I understood to be the romance of the 
 Cavalier Mcschino. After about an hour they all 
 arose, and filed off one by one guard to a higher 
 place, leaving a single sentinel to me and the 
 shepherd. In another hour the youngest of the 
 robbers came to relieve the guard, who then went 
 and joined the others. When I saw this, and per- 
 ceived that they were engaged in a kind of council 
 of war, I feared that they had taken some resolu- 
 tion about my life, and that the new sentinel was 
 CO mo to put their cruel designs in execution ; but 
 he very soon said to me, ' Be cheerful, for to-night 
 you will be at home,' which gave me some com- 
 fort : but as I could not entirely trust them, I had 
 
 still an internal fear, which, however, I endea- 
 voured to hide. Shortly afterwards we were called 
 to join the rest, our station being now on the 
 mountain commonly called Monte Picione, not 
 very far from the ancient sanctuary of Mentorella. 
 There we remained the rest of the day, only goin^ 
 out of the way once on the approach of a tiock of 
 goats, that we might not be seen ; but we soon 
 returned. 
 
 " Then the second chief, who said he was of Son- 
 nino, and one of the five who went to treat with 
 the president of Frosinone, began to talk of the 
 political nature of their situation. He said that 
 government would never succeed in putting them 
 down by force ; that they are not a fortress to 
 batter down with cannon, but rather birds, which 
 fly round the tops of the sharpest rocks without 
 having any fixed home ; that if by any misfortune 
 seven perished, they were sure of ten recruits to 
 replace their loss, for criminals who would be glad 
 to take refuge among them were never wanting ; 
 that the number of their present company amounted 
 to a hundred and thirty individuals ; and that they 
 had an idea of undertaking some daring exploit, 
 perhaps of threatening Rome itself. He ended 
 by saying, that the only way to put an end to their 
 depredations would be to give them a general 
 pardon, without reservation or limitation, that they 
 might all return to their houses without fear of 
 treachery, but otherwise they would not trust to 
 nor treat with any one ; and added that this was 
 the reason for which they had not concluded any 
 thing with the prelate sent to Frosinone to treat 
 with them. As it was, their company was deter- 
 mined to trust nothing but a pardon from the 
 pope's own lips ; and he repeated this same senti- 
 ment to me several times during the second day I 
 was obliged to pass with him and his fellows. 
 
 " One of the brigands begged me to endeavour to 
 obtain from government the freedom of his wife, 
 Marincia Carcapola di Pisterso, now in the prison 
 of St. Michael in Rome. Another said to me, 
 ' Have patience, Signor Cherubini, we made a 
 blunder when we took you : we intended to have 
 had the prince, who according to our information 
 should have passed by at that very time.' In fact, 
 he was to have travelled that road, and just before 
 I passed, not the prince, but the person commonly 
 called so, the vice-prince or agent, Signor Filipo 
 Gazoni, had gone by ; but fortunately for him they 
 did not know him, because, as I understood, he 
 was walking leisurely, only accompanied by an 
 unarmed boy who was leading his horse. The 
 banditti bit their fingers with rage when they 
 found that they had let him slip, for they said they 
 would not have released him under three thousand 
 crowns. The brigand who said all this had the 
 collar of the Madonna della Carmine * round his 
 neck, and said to rac, ' Suffer patiently for the 
 love of God.' Then the chief came to me, and 
 told me he was not very well, and desired me to 
 prescribe for him, which 1 did in writing. An- 
 other, the same who had taken my watch from me, 
 told mo that the watch did not go, and showed it 
 me : 1 found that he had broken the glass and the 
 minute hand. He said if I had any money he 
 would sell it me ; but I gave it him back, saying 
 nothing but shrugging up ray shoulders. Mean- 
 time the day was drawing to a close, and the chief, 
 
 • The Virgin Mary.
 
 32 
 
 HENRIETTA OF BOURBON. 
 
 taking out. his watch, said it was now twenty 
 o'clock. He calletl the shepherd to iiiiii, and or- 
 dered him to return to the sheeptbld which we hati 
 left during the night, and see if the countryman 
 was come back witli the answer to the second 
 letter to Castel Madama. In that case he ordered 
 liim to accompany him back to the place we were 
 now in ; and if he were not come, he ordered him 
 to wait three hours ; and if he did not come then, 
 to return alone. The shepherd obeyed, and after 
 an iiour and a half he came back with the country- 
 man and another sliepherd who had been sent with 
 liim. They brought with them two sealed packets 
 of money, which they said contained six hundred 
 crowns ; they aiso brought a few shirts of home- 
 spun linen, which the chief had begged of me, and 
 some little matter for me to eat and a little wine 
 to recruit me : but I could take nothing but a pear 
 and a little wine, the rest was eaten by the rob- 
 bers. They took the money without counting, 
 and gave the messengers some silver for their 
 pains ; after which they gave me leave to depart. 
 And thus I found myself free from them, after 
 having thanked them for their civility and for my 
 life, which they had had the goodness to spare. 
 
 " On the way homewards the two men of Castel 
 Madama informed me that the prisoner from San 
 Gregorio, who was sent the day before with the 
 iirst letter to Castel Madama for money, and who 
 had not been seen since, had really been there, 
 and had gone back the same day at the hour and 
 to the place appointed, with the sum of one hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven crowns sent from Castel 
 Madama ; but the robbers having forgotten to send 
 any one to meet him at the place agreed on, be- 
 cause we were a great way from it, the messenger 
 returned to town with the money after having 
 waited till night, carrying back the intelligence 
 that the factor had been killed, which alarmed all 
 my townsmen, who began to fear for my life. I 
 found that the last six hundred dollars had been 
 furnished half by Castel Madama and half bv 
 Tivoli. 
 
 " I went on towards Castel Madama, where all 
 the people anxiously expected me. In fact, a mile 
 before I reached the town I found a number of 
 people of all ranks, who had come out to meet 
 me, and I arrived at home a little before night in 
 the midst of such public congratulations and ac- 
 clamations as were never before heard, which pre- 
 sented a most affecting spectacle. I had hardly 
 arrived, when the arch-priest Giustiui ordered the 
 bells to be rung to call the people to the parish 
 church. On the first sound all the people flocked 
 thither with me to render public and devout thanks 
 to the most merciful God, and to our protector 
 Saint ^lichael the archangel, for my deliverance. 
 The priest had done the same when he first heard 
 of my capture, and soon after when he sent the six 
 hundred crowns. Both times he had assembled 
 his congregation in that very church to offer up 
 supplications to the Lord to grant me that mercy 
 which he deigned afterwards to show. 
 
 " I cannot conclude without saying that the epoch 
 of this my misfortune will be ever remembered by 
 me. I shall always recollect that the Lord God 
 visited me as a father ; for at the moment when 
 his hand seemed to be heavy upon me, he moved 
 the city of Tivoli and the whole people of Castel 
 Madama, even the very poorest, to subscribe their 
 money, and to sell their goods in so short a time 
 
 and with such profusion for my sake. The same 
 epocha will also always remind me what gratitude 
 I owe to those, particularly the Signors Cartoui 
 and Celestini, both Romans, who with such open- 
 ness of heart exerted themselves in my favour. I 
 now pray God that he \\ ill preserve me from all 
 the bad consequences which commonly arise out 
 of similar misfortunes ; and I am always 
 " Your affectionate Iriend, 
 
 " EusTACHio Cherubini." 
 
 XXL— HENRIETTA OF BOURBON; 
 
 OTHERWISE STYLED MADEMOISELLE DE MONT- 
 
 PENSI£R. I 
 
 [We take the account of this lady and her un- 
 usual marriage from Miss Hays's ' Female Bio- 
 graphy,' a work of considerable judgment and 
 impartiality, not unworthy the attention of the 
 most accomplished of the writer's sex. The reader 
 will be amused at the close of the narrative with 
 the portrait which the princess has drawn of her- 
 self. There are many such portraits in French 
 memoirs, and many too almost as remarkable for 
 their candour as for the subtle contrivances which 
 self-love naturally resorts to, for the purpose of 
 making amends for its confessions.] 
 
 Mademoiselle de Montpensier, daughter of Gas- 
 ton, Duke of Orleans (brother to Lewis XIII.), 
 and of Marie de Bourbon Montpensier, was born 
 in Paris, 1627. Her parents leaving France dur- 
 ing her childhood, she was committed to the charge 
 of her grandmother, the queen-regent, who ap- 
 pointed as her governess Madame de St. George, 
 a woman of distinguished learning. To a taste for 
 literature Mademoiselle added a singular passion 
 for military exercises. Dm-ing the civil dissensions 
 in France, in the disputes of the Fronde, the town 
 of Orleans, belonging to the duke her father, was 
 on the point of submitting to the party of the 
 king. Mademoiselle on this intelligence imme- 
 diately quitted Paris, and marching in person at 
 the head of a small number of troops, forced the 
 inhabitants to open their gates and join the parlia- 
 ment, whose cause her father had espoused. Ma- 
 demoiselle had probably been provoked to oppose 
 the court in resentment for a recent mortification : 
 suspected of a secret matrimonial negociation with 
 the archduke, she had been publicly reprimanded 
 by her grandmother in the council chamber, whence 
 she retired full of indignation, and meditating ven- 
 geance for the affront she had received. 
 
 Having returned to Paris after her martial ex- 
 ploit, she passed thence to Etampes ; where having 
 reviewed the parliament troops and those of the 
 Prince of Conde, she gave battle to Marshal Tu- 
 renne, who commanded the royal army. In this 
 engagement, perhaps too unequal, she suffered a 
 defeat. Disconcerted by this blow, she negociated 
 for assistance with Spain ; and advancing at the 
 head of 6000 Spaniards, encamped close to La 
 Porte St. Antoine, one of the gates of Paris, de- 
 fended by the forces of the king. At the head of 
 her troops Mademoiselle ascended the Bastile, and 
 seizing the cannon placed on the ramparts, turned 
 them against the enemy, whom having driven back, 
 she entered the city in triumph. 
 
 Cardinal Mazarin, who knew the ambition of 
 Mademoiselle to espouse a sovereign prince, said 
 on this occasion in his bad French, " Elle a Uie son
 
 HENRIETTA OF BOURBON. 
 
 33 
 
 marie — she has killed her husband :" a prediction 
 which he took care should be verified. 
 
 Our heroine was at length obliged to resign her 
 laurels, and submit to a stronger power. Banished 
 by the king to her estate at St. Fargeau, she passed 
 some years in discontent, disgraced at court, and 
 involved in a contention with her father respecting 
 her mothers property, a part of which she had 
 been entitled to on her coming of age. These 
 differences being at length accommodated, she 
 returned to- oourt, and was well received. Disap- 
 pointed in her hope of marrying the archduke, 
 she rejected the kings of Portugal and of England, 
 with several other princes, who solicited her alli- 
 ance. At the age of forty-five she became attached 
 to Mons. de Lauzun, captain of the King's Garde 
 de Corps, whom she was desirous to espouse, and 
 obtai!:ed the consent of Louis XIV. to the mar- 
 riage. Mademoiselle and her lover received the 
 compliments of all France on this occasion. The 
 contract was drawn up, and magnificent prepara- 
 tions made for the nuptials, when tlie king, ou the 
 representations of the princes of the blood, who 
 considered this alliance as humiliating, was induced 
 to retract his consent, and to refuse his signature 
 to the contract. 
 
 Mademoiselle was sensibly affected by the dis- 
 solution of the engagement and the failure of her 
 hopes, while De Lauzun, who lost a princely for- 
 tune, loudly complained. It was the opinion of 
 many that the lovers had concluded a secret mar- 
 riage, when a short time after De Lauzun was pre- 
 cipitated from the favour of the king and thrown 
 into prison, where he remained ten years. His 
 liberty was then obtained through the intercession 
 and sacrifices of Mademoiselle, who purchased his 
 freedom by the surrender of a large part of her 
 estates to the Duke du Maine, natural son of 
 Louis XIV. and of Mad. de Montespan. Mons. 
 de Lauzun ill repaid his benefactress for her con- 
 stancy and generosity. He assumed on his libera- 
 tion the authority of a husband, and treated the 
 princess with tyranny and hauteur. The affection 
 of Mademoiselle for this ungenerous man enabled 
 her for some time to endure his imperious man- 
 ners, till with the insolence and ingratitude of a 
 vulgar mind he exceeded the limits of forbearance, 
 and converted her attachment into disgust. Re- 
 turning one day from the chace, " Henriette de 
 Bourbon," exclaimed he, angrily, " come and draw 
 off my boots." The unfortunate Henrietta remon- 
 strating on the impropriety and cruelty of his con- 
 duct, he made an effort to strike her with his foot. 
 This insult was not to be borne : Mademoiselle, 
 resuming with the pride and spirit which belonged 
 to her character the privileges of her birth and 
 rank, insisted on his withdrawing from her pre- 
 sence, and forbade him to see her atrain. 
 
 Justified by her birth, her fortunes, her con- 
 nexions, and her talents, in the most aspiring views, 
 the life of Henrietta of Bourbon exhibited a series 
 of vexations, disappointments, and mortifications. 
 She died in 1693, leaving memoirs of her own life 
 and times in six volumes, with other writings, 
 principally on subjects of religion and morals, 
 composed at an advanced period of life. Her por- 
 trait and character are drawn, in the fashion of the 
 times, by her own pen, with apparent truth and 
 modesty. 
 
 " I could wish," said she, " that I had been more 
 indebted to nature and less to art. I am sensible 
 
 that my defects are not few, and I purpose to speak 
 of myself with a sincerity whicli, I trust, with mv 
 friends will in some degree palliate tnem. It 
 would hurt me to be pitied, therefore I ask it not ; 
 raillei-y would be more agreeable to me, of which 
 envy is often the source, and which is seldom used 
 but against persons of merit. Called upon by my 
 friends to draw my own character, I will begin 
 with my exterior. My shape is good and easy, 
 my aspect open, my neck rather handsome ; good 
 hands and arms, but not fine. My legs are straight, 
 and my feet well made. My hair a fine ash colour, 
 my face lung, my nose large and aquiline ; my 
 mouth neither large nor small, but well propor- 
 tioned, with lips of a good colour. My teeth, 
 though not fine, are far from bad. My eyes are 
 light blue, clear, and sparkling. My air stately, 
 but not haughty. I dress negligently, but not 
 slovenly, which I abhor ; whether in dishabille or 
 magnificently apparelled, I preserve the same air 
 of consequence. Negligence of dress does not 
 misbecome me ; and I may venture to say I disfi- 
 gure the ornaments I put on less than they embel- 
 lish me. I am civil and familiar, but not more so 
 than is consistent with commanding respect. I 
 talk a great deal without using a foolish, vulgar, 
 or uncouth expression. By never speaking on any 
 subject I do not well understand I avoid the error 
 of great talkers, who, overrating their own abili- 
 ties, are apt to despise those of others. I confess 
 I love praise, and seek eagerly occasions to acquire 
 it : on this subject, perhaps, T am the most vulnera- 
 ble to raillery. There is nothing on which I j)ique 
 myself so much as on constancy in friendship : 
 when I am so fortunate as to find persons who 
 merit my esteem, I am a real and steady friend. 
 Nothing can equal my fidelity towards those I 
 have professed to love : would to God I had found 
 in others the same sentiment. From this disposi- 
 tion I bear impatiently the levity of my acquaint- 
 ance. To repose confidence in me gains above all 
 things upon my regard : I consider confidence as 
 the highest mark of esteem, and I am secret to 
 excess. I am a dangerous enemy ; I resent warmly, 
 and do not easily pardon. This vindictive temper, 
 joined to my influence and high station, has made 
 my enemies tremble ; but I possess also a noble 
 and an upright mind, incapable of base or criminal 
 actions. I am of a melancholy turn of mind, and 
 prefer solid and serious books to lighter composi- 
 tions, which soon weary me. My judgment of the 
 merit of an author is perhaps not less just than 
 that of those who boast more learning. I love the 
 conversation of men of sense, and can endure with- 
 out lassitude those who are less entertaining, since 
 my rank imposes on them some constraint. Though 
 not always amused, I am seldom offended. I dis- 
 cern and esteem all persons of merit, of whatever 
 profession, but I greatly prefer military men. On 
 the subject of war I converse with pleasure, for 
 with great personal courage I have much ambition. 
 My resolutions are suddenly taken and firmly kept. 
 I feel so much indifference for some things in the 
 world, so much contempt for others, and entertain 
 80 good an opinion of myself, that I would choose 
 rather to pass the remainder of my life in solitude 
 than impose the least constraint on my humour, 
 however advantageous it might bo to my fortune. 
 I love best to be alone. I have no great comj)lai- 
 sance, though I expect a great deal. I love to pro- 
 voke and irritate, though sometimes I can oblige. 
 
 n
 
 34 
 
 HISTORY OF THE LATE MR. COMBE. 
 
 I am not fond of diversions, neither do I trouble my- 
 self to procure them for others. Of all instruments 
 of music I prefer the violin. I did love dancinj^ 
 and danced well. 1 hate cards, love games of ex- 
 ercise, am a proficient in all kinds of needlework, 
 and am fond of riding on horseback. I am more 
 sensible to grief than to joy, jiossibly from having 
 had more acquaintance with the former : but it is 
 difhcult to distinguish with which I am affected, 
 for, though no comedian, I am too much mistress 
 of my looks and actions to discover to those about 
 me more than I choose they should know. I am 
 at all times self-possessed : the vexations and cha- 
 grin which I have sufiered wovdd have killed any 
 other tlian myself, but God has been merciful and 
 good in endowing me with sufficient strength to 
 sustain the misery which he has allotted to me ; no- 
 thing fatigues, dejects, or discourages me. Though 
 I sincerely wish to he so, I am not devout : though 
 indifferent to the world, I do not, I fear, sufficiently 
 despise it wholly to detach myself from it, since I 
 have not enrolled myself among the number of 
 those who, by quitting it, prove their contempt. 
 Self-love is not requisite to become devout. I am 
 naturally distrustful and suspicious. I love order 
 even in the minutest article. I know not whether 
 I am liberal, but I know well that I love magnifi- 
 cence and pomp, and give generously to men of 
 merit and to those whom I regard ; but as on 
 these occasions I am guided by my fancy, I know 
 not whether the term liberal would be properly 
 applied to me : however, I feel a pleasure in doing 
 every thing of this kind in the handsomest manner. 
 I have no inclination for gallantry, nor do I possess 
 any great tenderness of soul : I am less sensible to 
 love than to friendship. I like to know what 
 passes in the world without the trouble of mixing 
 with it. I have a great memory, and form a tole- 
 rably good judgment of most things. No one will, 
 I hope, be so rash as to attribute to a defect of 
 judgment the misfortunes I have suffered : were 
 fortune guided by judgment or justice, she would 
 certainly have treated me better." 
 
 [This lady's confessions, though not free from 
 contradiction, have an air of ingenuousness. Her 
 love of " pomp and magnificence " was probably 
 her real character ; her indifference and contempt 
 for the world the offspring of disappointment.] 
 
 XXII.— HISTORY OF THE LATE 
 Mr. combe. 
 
 [Though a moment's reflection tells us that 
 ' Romances of Real Life ' must be daily occurring 
 round about us, yet we are hardly the less sur- 
 prised to find them true, especially in those ranks 
 of life where we are accustomed to expect the 
 reasonableness and regularity that seem the natural 
 consequences of an educated understanding. We 
 are even, perhaps for the latter reason, more asto- 
 nished at eccentric departures from conventional 
 life, and changes from gentility to vagabondism, 
 than at the more tragical results of bad and violent 
 passions, the wilfulness of which defies specula- 
 tion, or throws us into general reflections on the 
 mysteries of one's common nature ; whereas there 
 seems no reason at first sight why a man, bred up 
 in the comfort and convenience of refined inter- 
 course, should think it worth his while to depart 
 from it, and play the part of a madman on so poor 
 
 and unaccommodating a scale. A reason, how- 
 ever, there is : it is to be found, if it be not actual 
 madness, in an over-lively state of the blood, act- 
 ing upon a strong egotism and a vivid though weak 
 imagination — one that has a quick sense of the 
 novelty and sufficiency of the moment, at the ex- 
 pense of all the future moments of life. Persons 
 of this temperament and turn of mind, unless they 
 stop short while young, never end in anything 
 superior to cleverness ; and it manifests an un- 
 usual portion of natural goodness in them, if they 
 ever show themselves capable of the industry and 
 regular conduct of Mr. Combe, even in old age. 
 
 The present curious account of this gentleman, 
 which could not have been better written, is given 
 by Mr. Campbell in one of the notes to his life of 
 Mrs. Siddons. The narrative runs well to the 
 last, and the surprise at the close of it is truly 
 dramatic] 
 
 Mr. Combe's history (says Mr. Campbell) is not 
 less remarkable for the recklessness of his early 
 days than for the industry of his maturer age, and 
 the late period of life at which he attracted popu- 
 larity by his talents. He was the nephew of a 
 Mr. Alexander, an alderman of the city of Lon- 
 don ; and as he was sent first to Eton College, and 
 afterwards to Oxford, it may be inferred that his 
 parents were in good circumstances. His uncle 
 left him sixteen thousand pounds. On the acquisi- 
 tion of this fortune he entered himself of the Tem- 
 ple, and in due time was called to the bar. On 
 one occasion he even distinguished himself before 
 the Lord Chancellor Northington ; but his ambi- 
 tion was to shine as a man of fashion, and he paid 
 little attention to the law. Whilst at the Temple 
 his courtly dress, his handsome liveries, and, it 
 may be added, his tall stature and fine appearance, 
 procured him the appellation of Duke Combe. 
 Some of the most exclusive ladies of fashion had 
 instituted a society which was called the Coterie, 
 to which gentlemen were admitted as visitors : 
 among this favoured number was the Duke Combe. 
 One evening. Lady Archer, who was a beautiful 
 woman, but too fond of gaudy colours, and who 
 had her face always lavishly rouged, was sitting in 
 the Coterie, when Lord Lyttleton, the graceless 
 son of an estimable peer, entered the room evi- 
 dently intoxicated, and stood before Lady Archer 
 for several minutes with his eyes fixed on her. 
 The lady manifested great indignation, and asked 
 why he thus annoyed her. " I have been think- 
 ing," said Lord Lyttleton, "what I can compare 
 you to in your gaudy colouring, and you give me 
 no idea but that of a drunken peacock." The lady 
 returned a sharp answer, on which he threw the 
 contents of a glass of wine in her face. All was 
 confusion in a moment; but though several noble- 
 men and gentlemen were present, none of them 
 took up the cause of the insulted female till Mr. 
 Combe came forward, and by his resolute be- 
 haviour obliged the ofi"ender to withdraw. His 
 spirited conduct on this occasion gained him much 
 credit among the circles of fashion ; but his grace's 
 diminishing finances ere long put an end to the 
 fashionableness of his acquaintance. He paid all 
 the penalties of a spendthrift, and was steeped in 
 poverty to the very lips. At one time he was 
 driven for a morsel of bread to enlist as a private 
 in the British army ; and at another time, in a 
 similar exigency, he went into the French service.
 
 A GAMESTER, WITH A WIFE TOO GOOD FOR HIM, 
 
 35 
 
 From a more cogent motive than piety he after- 
 wards entered into a French monastery, and lived 
 there till the term of his noviciate expired. He 
 returned to Britain, and took service wherever he 
 could get it ; but in all these dips into low life he 
 was never in the least embarrassed when he met with 
 any of his old acquaintance. A wealthy divine, 
 who had known him in the best London society, 
 recognised him when a waiter at Swansea actually 
 tripping abaut with the napkin under his arm, and 
 staring at him exclaimed, " You cannot be Combe?" 
 " Yes, indeed, but I am," was the waiter's answer. 
 He married the mistress of a noble lord, who pro- 
 mised him an annuity with her, but cheated him ; 
 and in revenge he wrote a spirited satire entitled 
 ' The Diaboliad.' Among its subjects were an 
 Irish pri r and his eldest son, who had a quarrel 
 that extinguished any little natural affection that 
 might have ever subsisted between them. The 
 father challenged the son to fight ; the son refused 
 to go out with him, not, as he expressly stated, 
 because the challenger was his own father, but 
 because he was not a gentleman. 
 
 After his first wife's death, Mr. Combe made a 
 more creditable marriage with a sister of Mr. 
 Cosway, the artist, and much of the distress which 
 his imprudence entailed upon him was mitigated 
 by the assiduity of this amiable woman. For many 
 years he subsisted by writing for the booksellers, 
 with a reputation that might be known to many 
 individuals, but that certainly was not public. He 
 wrote a work which was generally ascribed to the 
 good Lord Lyttleton, entitled ' Letters from a 
 Nobleman to his Son,' and ' Letters from an 
 Italian Nun to an English Nobleman,' that pro- 
 fessed to be translated from Rousseau. He pub- 
 lished also several political tracts, that were trashy, 
 time-serving, and scurrilous. Pecuniary diflSculties 
 brought him to a permanent residence in the 
 King's Bench, where he continued for about 
 twenty years, and for the latter part of them a 
 voluntary inmate. One of his friends offered to 
 effect a compromise with his creditors, but he 
 refused the favour. " If I compounded with my 
 creditors," said Mr. Combe, " I should be obliged 
 to sacrifice the little substance which I possess, 
 and on which I subsist in prison. These chambers, 
 the best in the Bench, are mine at the rent of a 
 few shillings a week, in right of my seniority as a 
 prisoner. My habits are become so sedentary, 
 that if I lived in the airiest square of London, I 
 should not walk round it once in a month. I am 
 contented in my cheap quarters." 
 
 When he was near the age of seventy, he had 
 some literary dealings with Mr. Ackermann, the 
 bookseller. The late caricaturist, Rowlandson, 
 had offered to Mr. Ackermann a number of draw- 
 ings representing an old clergyman and school- 
 master, who felt, or fancied himself in love with 
 the fine arts, quixotically travelling during his 
 holidays in search of the picturesque. As the 
 drawings needed the explanation of Ictter-jiress, 
 Mr. Ackermann declined to purchase them unless 
 he should fine some one who could give them a 
 poetical illustration. He carried one or two of 
 them to Mr. Combe, Avho undertook the subject. 
 The bookseller, knowing his procrastinating tem- 
 per, left him but one drawing at a time, which he 
 illustrated in verse, without knowing the subject 
 of the drawing that was next to come. The popu- 
 larity of ' The Adventures of Dr. Syntax,' induced 
 
 Mr. Ackermann afterwards to employ him in 
 two successful publications, ' The Dance of 
 Life,' and 'The Dance of Death,' in England, 
 which were also accompanied by Rowlaudson's 
 designs. 
 
 It was almost half a century before the appear- 
 ance of these works, that Mr. Combe so narrowly 
 missed the honour of being Mrs. Siddon's reading- 
 master. He had exchanged the gaieties of London 
 for quarters at a tap-room in Wolverhampton, where 
 he was billeted as a soldier in the service of his 
 Britannic majesty. He had a bad foot at the time, 
 and was limping painfully along the high-street of 
 the town, when he was met by an acquaintance 
 who had known him in all his fashionable glory. 
 This individual had himself seen better days, 
 having exchanged a sub-lieutenancy of marines 
 for a strollership in Mr. Kemble's company. 
 "Heavens!" said the astonished histrion ; "is it 
 possible, Combe, that you can bear this condi- 
 tion'?" "Fiddlesticks!" answered the ex- duke, 
 taking a pinch of snuff, " a philosopher can bear 
 anything." The player ere long introduced him 
 to Mr. Roger Kemble ; but, by this time, Mr. 
 Combe had become known in the place through 
 his conversational talents. A gentleman passing 
 through the public-house had observed him read- 
 ing, and looking over his shoulder, saw with sur- 
 prise a copy of Horace. "What!" said he, 
 " my friend, can you read that book in the 
 original 1" " If I cannot," replied Combe, " a 
 great deal of money has been thrown away on my 
 education." His landlord soon found the literary 
 red-coat an attractive ornament to his tap-room, 
 which was filled every night with the wondering 
 auditors of the learned soldier. They treated him 
 to gratuitous potations, and clubbed their money 
 to procure his discharge. Roger Kemble gave 
 him a benefit night at the theatre, and Combe 
 promised to speak an address on the occasion. 
 In this address, he noticed the various conjectures 
 that had been circulated resjjecting his real name 
 and character ; and after concluding the enumera- 
 tion, he said, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall 
 tell you what I am." While expectation was all 
 agog, he added, "I am — ladies and gentlemen, 
 your most obedient humble servant." He then 
 bowed, and left the stage. 
 
 XXIIL— A GAMESTER, WITH A WIFE TOO 
 GOOD FOR HIM. 
 
 [This rare, because pleasing passage^ in the 
 domestic history of a gamester (we do not meiiu 
 the having a wife too good for him — which must 
 be the case with all gamesters whose wives are 
 good for any thing — but the agreeable surprise 
 which she had prepared for him against his down- 
 fall) is related by Goldsmith in his life of Beau 
 Nash. It looks like a page out of one of Fielding's 
 novels. We have only to imagine Booth grown 
 less civil, and Amelia remaining wliat she was, and 
 the incident would have perfectly suited her.] 
 
 At Tunbridge, in the year 1715, Mr. J. Hedges 
 made a very briliant appearance ; he had been 
 married about two years to a young lady of great 
 beauty and large fortune ; they had one child, a 
 boy on whom they bestowed all th.it affection 
 which they could spare from each other. He 
 
 r. 9
 
 36 
 
 STORY OF MADEMOISELLE DE TOURNON. 
 
 knew nothing of gaming, nor seemed to have the 
 least passion for phiy ; but lie was unacquainted 
 with his own heart : lie began by degrees to bet at 
 the table for trifling sums, and his soul took fire at 
 the prospect of immediate gain ; he was soon 
 surrounded with sharpers, who with calmness lay 
 in ambush for his fortune, and coolly took advan- 
 tage of the precipitancy of his passions. 
 
 His lady jierceived the ruin of her family ap- 
 proaching', but, at first, without being able to form 
 any scheme to prevent it. She advised with his 
 brother, who at that time was possessed of a small 
 fellowship at Cambridge. It was easily seen that 
 whatever passion took the lead in her husband's 
 mind, seemed to be there fixed unalterably : it was 
 determined therefore to let him pursue fortune, 
 but previously take measures to prevent the pur- 
 suit being fatal. 
 
 Accordingly, every night this gentleman was a 
 constant attender at the hazard tables ; he under- 
 stood neither the arts of sharpers, nor even the 
 allowed strokes of a connoiseur, yet still he played. 
 The consequence is obvious ; he lost his estate, his 
 equipage, his wife's jewels, and every other move- 
 able that could be parted with, except a repeat- 
 ing watch. His agony, upon this occasion, was 
 inexpressible ; he was even mean enough to ask 
 a gentleman who sat near to lend him a few 
 pieces, in order to turn his fortune ; but this pru- 
 dent gamester, who plainly saw there were no 
 expectations of being repaid, refused to lend a 
 farthing, alleging a former resolution against 
 lending. Hedges was at last furious with the 
 continuance of ill success, and pulling out his 
 watch, asked if any person in company would set 
 him sixty guineas upon itl The company were 
 silent : he then demanded fifty ; still no answer ; 
 he sunk to forty, thirty, twenty : finding the com- 
 pany still without answering, he cried out, " By 
 G — d it shall never go for less!" and dashed it 
 against the floor ; at the same time attempting 
 to dash out his brains against the marble chimney- 
 piece. 
 
 This last act of desperation immediately excited 
 the attention of the whole company ; they instantly 
 gathered round, and prevented the effects of his 
 passion ; and after he again became cool, he was 
 permitted to return home, with sullen discontent, 
 to his wife. Upon his entering her apartment, she 
 received him with her usual tenderness and satis- 
 faction ; while he answered her caresses with con- 
 tempt and severity, his disposition being quite 
 altered with his misfortunes. " But, my dear 
 Jemmy," says his wife, " perhaps you don't know 
 the news I have to tell ; my mamma's old uncle is 
 dead, the messenger is now in the house, and you 
 know his estate is settled upon you." This account 
 seemed only to increase his agony, and looking 
 angrily at her, he cried, " There you lie, my dear ; 
 his estate is not settled upon me." " I beg your 
 pardon," said she, " I really thought it was, at 
 least you have always told me so." " No," returned 
 he, " as sure as you and I are to be miserable here, 
 and our children beggars hereafter, I have sold the 
 reversion of it this day, and have lost every farthing 
 I got for it at the hazard table." " What all ?' 
 replied the lady. " Yes, every farthing," returned 
 he ; " and I owe a thousand pounds more than I 
 have got to pay." Thus speaking, he took a few 
 frantic steps across the room. When the lady had 
 a little enjoyed his perplexity, " No, my dear," 
 
 cried she, " you have lost but a trifle, and you owe 
 nothing: your brother and I have taken care to 
 prevent the effects of your rashness, and are actually 
 the jiersons who have won your fortune ; we em- 
 ployed proper persons for this purpose, who brought 
 their winnings to me. Your money, your equipage, 
 are in my possession, and here I return them to 
 you, from whom they were unjustly taken. I only 
 ask j)ermission to keep my jewels, and to keep you, 
 my greatest jewel, from such dangers for the 
 future." Her prudence had the proper eifect. 
 He ever after retained a sense of his former follies, 
 and never played for the smallest sums, even for 
 amusement. 
 
 XXIV.— STORY OF MADEMOISELLE DE 
 TOURNON, 
 
 RELATED BY MARGARET, QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 
 
 [This story, which, if we are not mistaken, has 
 been worked up into a novel by Madame de Genlis, 
 is taken from a translation of the autobiographical 
 memoirs of the celebrated Margaret of Valois, 
 Queen of Navarre, who seems to have been beloved 
 by everybody but her husband, Henry IV., who 
 divorced her. Her majesty, who was sister of Kings 
 Charles IX. and Henry III., and much used by 
 them for court purposes, on account of her wit and 
 persuasiveness, is relating a journey which she had 
 been advised to make into the Netherlands, in com- 
 pany with the Princess de la Roche sur Yon ; and 
 we have retained in our extract the circumstances 
 immediately preceding and following the young 
 lady's story, as a sort of frame and contrast to the 
 picture, and a specimen of those gay court enjoy- 
 ments which encircled whatever happened in those 
 times, however tragical.] 
 
 The Bishop of Liege, who is the sovereign of the 
 city and country (says the royal autobiographer), 
 received me with all the cordiality and respect that 
 could be expected from a person of his dignity and 
 great accomplishments. He was, indeed, a noble- 
 man endowed with singular prudence and virtue, 
 agreeable in his person and conversation, gracious 
 and magnificent in his carriage and behaviour ; to 
 which I may add that he spoke the French language 
 perfectly well. 
 
 He was constantly attended by his chapter, with 
 several of his canons, who are all sons of dukes, 
 counts, or great German lords. The bishopric is 
 itself a sovereign state, which brings in a consider- 
 able revenue, and includes a number of fine cities. 
 The bishop is chosen from amongst the canons, who 
 must be of noble descent, and resident one year. 
 The city is larger than Lyons, and much resembles 
 it, having the Meuse running through it. The 
 houses in which the canons reside have the ap- 
 pearance of noble palaces. The streets of the city 
 are regular and spacious, the houses of the citizens 
 well built, the squares large and ornamented with 
 curious fountains : the churches apppear as if 
 raised entirely of marble, of which there are con- 
 siderable quarries in the neighbourhood, and are 
 all of them ornamented with beautiful clocks and 
 exhibitions of moving figures. 
 
 The bishop received me as I landed from the 
 boat, and conducted me to his magnificent resi- 
 dence, ornamented with delicious fountains and 
 gardens, set oif with galleries all painted superbly, 
 gilt, and enriched with marble beyond description.
 
 STORY OF MADEMOISELLE DE TOUENON. 
 
 37 
 
 The spring which affords the waters of Spa being 
 distant no more than three or four leagues from 
 the city of Liege, and there being only a village, 
 consisting of three or four small houses on the spot, 
 the Princess of Roche sur Yon was advised by 
 her physicians to stay at Liege, and have the 
 waters brought to her, which they assured her 
 would have equal efficacy, if taken up after sunset 
 and before sunrise, as if drank at the spring. I 
 was well pluased that she resolved to follow the 
 advice of her doctors, as we were more comfortably 
 lodged, and had an agreeable society ; for besides 
 his grace (so the bishop is styled, as a king is 
 addressed his majesty, and a prince his highness'), 
 the news of my arrival being spread about, many 
 lords and ladies came to visit me. Amongst these 
 was the Countess d'Aremberg,who had the honour 
 to accompany Queen Elizabeth to Meziers, to 
 which place she came to marry King Charles, my 
 brother, a lady very high in the estimation of the 
 empress, the emperor, and all the princes in Chris- 
 tendom. With her came her sister the Land- 
 gravine, Madame d'Aremberg her daughter, Moiis. 
 d'AremheVg her son, a gallant and accomplished 
 nobleman, the perfect image of his father, who 
 brought Spanish succours to King Charles, my 
 brother, and returned with great honour and addi- 
 tional reputation. This meeting, so honourable to 
 me, and so much to my satisfaction, was damped 
 by the grief and concern occasioned by the loss of 
 Mademoiselle de Tournon, whose story being of a 
 singular nature, I shall now relate to you, agreeable 
 to the promise I made in my last letter. 
 
 Madame de Tournon, lady of my bedchamber, 
 had several daughters, the eldest of whom married 
 Mons. de Balenson, governor for the king of 
 Spain in the county of Burgundy. This daughter, 
 upon her marriage, had solicited her mother to 
 admit of her taking her sister, the young lady 
 whose story I am now about to relate, to live with 
 her. as she was going to a country strange to her, 
 and wherein she had no relations. To this her 
 mother consented ; and the young lady being 
 universally admired for her modesty and graceful 
 accomplishments, for which she certainly deserved 
 admiration, attracted the notice of the Marquis de 
 Vareubon. The marquis was the brother of M. 
 de Balenson, and was intended for the church ; 
 but, being violently enamoured of Mademoiselle de 
 Tournon (whom, as he lived in the same house, 
 he had frequent opportunities of seeing), he now 
 begged his brother's permission to marry, not having 
 yet taken orders. The young lady's family, to whom 
 he had likewise communicated his wish, readily 
 gave their consent ; but his brother refused his, 
 strongly advising him to change his resolution, and 
 put on the gown. 
 
 Thus wore matters situated when her mother, 
 Madame de Tournon, thinking she had cause to be 
 offended, ordered her daughter to leave the house 
 of her sister, Madame de Balenson, and come to 
 her. The mother, a woman of violent spirit, not 
 considering that her daughter Avas grown up and 
 merited a mild treatment, was continually scolding 
 the poor young lady, so that she was for ever witli 
 tears in her eyes. Still there was nothing to blame 
 in the young lady's conduct ; but such was the 
 severity of the mother's disposition, the daughter, 
 as you may well suppose, wished to be from under 
 the mother's tyrannical government, and was ac- 
 cordingly delighted with the thoughts of attending 
 
 me in the journey to Flanders, hoping, as it 
 happened, that she should meet the Marquis de 
 Yarenbon somewhere on the road ; and that, as he 
 had now abandoned all thoughts of the church, he 
 would renew his proposal of marriage, and take 
 her from her mother. 
 
 I have before mentioned that the Marquis de 
 Yarenbon and the younger Balenson joined us at 
 Namur. Young Balenson, who was far from being 
 so agreeable as his brother, addressed himself to 
 the young lady, but the marquis during the whole 
 time we stayed at Namur paid not the least atten- 
 tion to her, and seemed as if he had never been 
 acquainted with her. 
 
 The resentment, grief, and disappointment occa- 
 sioned by a behaviour so slighting and unnatural 
 was necessarily stifled in her breast, as decorum, 
 and her sex's pride obliged her to appear as if she 
 disregarded it ; but when, after taking leave, all of 
 them left the boat, the anguish of her mind which 
 she had hitherto suppressed could no longer be 
 restrained, and labouring for vent it stopped her 
 respiration, and forced from her those lamentable 
 outcries which I have already spoken of. Her 
 youth combated for eight days with this uncommon 
 disorder, but at the expiration of that time she 
 died, to the great grief of her mother as well as 
 myself; I say of her mother, for though she was 
 so rigidly severe over her daughter, she tenderly 
 loved her. 
 
 The funeral of this unfortunate young lady was 
 solemnized with all proper ceremonies, and con- 
 ducted in the most honourable manner, as she was 
 descended from a great family allied to the queen 
 my mother. When the day of interment arrived, 
 four of my gentlemen were ajipointed bearers, one 
 of whom was named La Boessiere. This man had 
 entertained a secret passion for her, which he 
 never durst declare, on account of the inferiority of 
 his family and station. He was now destined to 
 bear the remains of hei- dead for whom he had 
 long been dying, and was now as near dying for 
 her loss as he had before been for her love. 
 
 The melancholy procession was marching slowly 
 along when it was met by the Marquis de 
 Yarenbon, who had been the sole occasion of it. 
 We had not left Namur long when the marquis 
 reflected upon his cruel behaviour towards the 
 unhappy young lady ; and his passion (wonderful 
 to relate !) being revived by the absence of her 
 who inspired it, though scalrcely alive while she 
 was present, he had resolved to come and ask her 
 of her mother in marriage. He made no doubt 
 perhaps of success, as he seldom failed in enter- 
 prises of love — witness the great lady he has since 
 obtained for a wife, in opposition to the will of her 
 family. He might besides have flattered himself 
 that he should easily have gained a pardon from 
 her by whom he was beloved, according to the 
 Italian proverb, Che la fcrrza d'amorc non rigiiarda 
 al dilitto — "Lovers are not criminal in the esti- 
 mation of one another." Accordingly, the marquis 
 solicited Don John to be despatched to me on some 
 errand, and arrived, as I said before, at the very 
 instant tiic corpse of this ill-fated young lady was 
 bearing to the grave. He was stopped by the 
 crowd occasioned by this solemn procession : he 
 contemi)lates it for some time : he observes a 
 long train of persons in mourning, and remarks 
 the coflin to be covered with a white pall, and that 
 there are chaplets of flowers laid upon the coffin : 
 
 iiJoS^l? 

 
 38 
 
 A SERIOUS JOKE SERIOUSLY RETURNED. 
 
 he inquires whose funeral it is. The answer he 
 receives is, that it is the funeral of a jounff lady. 
 Unfortunately for him, tliis rei)ly fails to satisfy his 
 curiosity. He makes up to one who led the jiro- 
 cession, and eagerly asks the name of the young 
 lady they are proceeding to bury 1 When oh ! fatal 
 answer ! Love, willing to revenge the victim of 
 his ingratitude and neglect, suggests a reply which 
 had nearly deprived him of life. He no sooner 
 heard the name of Mademoiselle de Tournon pro- 
 nounced, than he fell from his horse in a swoon. 
 He is taken up for dead and conveyed to the 
 nearest house, where he lay for a time insensible ; 
 his soul, no doubt, leaving his body to obtain par- 
 don from her whom he had hastened to a prema- 
 ture grave, and then to return to taste the bitterness 
 of death a second time. 
 
 Having performed the last offices to the remains 
 of this poor young lady, I was unwilling to dis- 
 compose the gaiety of the society assembled here 
 on my account, by any show of grief. Accordingly, 
 I joined the bishop, or, as he is called, his grace, 
 and his canons, in their entertainments at difierent 
 houses, or in gardens, of which the city and its 
 neighbourhood afforded a variety, I was everj* 
 morning attended by a numerous company to the 
 garden, in which I drank the waters, the exercise 
 of walking being recommended to be used with 
 them. As the physician who advised me to take 
 them was my own brother, they did not fail of 
 their effect with me ; and for these six or seven 
 years which are gone over my head since I drank 
 them, I have been free from any complaint of 
 erysipelas on my arm. From this garden we 
 usually proceeded to the place where wc were 
 invited to dinner ; after dinner we were amused 
 with a ball ; from the ball we went to some con- 
 vent, where we heard vespers ; from vespers to 
 supper ; and tliat over, we had another ball, or 
 music on the river. 
 
 XXV.— A SERIOUS JOKE SERIOUSLY 
 RETURNED. 
 
 [From the ' Familiar Letters of James Howell, 
 Esq.,' the first popular writer of that kind in the 
 language. He was the son of a clergyman in 
 Caermarthenshire, was born about 1596, and was 
 in employment under Charles I. and II.] 
 
 When the Duke of Alva was in Brussels, about 
 the beginning of the tumults in the Netherlands, 
 he had sat down before Hulst in Flanders ; and 
 there was a provost-marshal in his army who was 
 a favourite of his ; and this provost had put some 
 to death by secret commission from the duke. 
 There was one Captain Bolea in the army, who 
 was an intimate friend of the provost's ; and one 
 evening late he went to the captain's tent, and 
 brought with him a confessor and an executioner, 
 as it was his custom. He told the captain he was 
 come to execute his excellency's commission and 
 martial law upon him. The captain started up 
 suddenly, his hair standing upright, and being 
 struck with amazement, asked him, " Wherein 
 have I offended the dukel" The provost an- 
 swered, "Sir, I am not to expostulate the busi- 
 ness with you, but to execute my commission ; 
 therefore I pray prepare yourself, for there are 
 your ghostly father and executioner." So he fell 
 on his knees before the priest, and having done. 
 
 and the hangman going to put the halter about his 
 neck the provost threw it away, and breaking into 
 a laughter, told him " There was no such thing, 
 and that he had done this to try his courage, how he 
 would bear the terror of death." The captain, 
 looking ghastly at him, said, " Then, sir, get you 
 out of my tent, for you have done me a very ill 
 office." The next morning the said captain Bolea, 
 though a young man about thirty, had his hair all 
 turned gray, to the admiration of all the world, and 
 the Duke of Alva himself, who questioned him 
 about it ; but he would confess nothing. Tlie 
 next year the duke was recalled, and in his journey 
 to the court of Spain he was to pass by Saragossa; 
 and this captain Bolea and the provost went along 
 with him, as his domestics. The duke being to 
 repose some days at Sarogossa, the young old 
 captain Bolea told him, " That there was a thing in 
 that town worthy to be seen by his excellency, 
 which was a casa de loco, a bed lam -house, such 
 an one as there was not the like in Christendom." 
 " Well," said the duke, " go and tell the warden I 
 will be there to-morrow in the afternoon." The 
 captain having obtained this, went to the warden, 
 and told him the dukes intention, and that the 
 chief occasion that moved him to it was, that he 
 had an unruly provost about him, who was subject 
 oftentimes to fits of frenzy ; and because he wished 
 him well he had tried divers means to cure him, 
 but all would not do, therefore he would try whe- 
 ther keeping him close in bedlam for some days 
 would do him any good. The next day the duke 
 came with a rufHing train of captains after him, 
 amongst whom was the said provost very shining 
 and fine : being entered into the house, about the 
 duke's person, captain Bolea told the warden, 
 pointing at the provost, " That's the man :" the 
 warden took him aside into a dark lobby where he 
 had placed some of his men, who muffled him in 
 his cloak, seized upon his sword, and hurried him 
 into a dungeon, "rhe provost had lain there two 
 nights and a day ; and afterwards it happened that 
 a gentleman, coming out of curiosity to see the 
 house, peeped into a small grate where the provost 
 wa^. The provost conjured him, as he was a 
 christian, to go and tell the Duke of Alva his 
 provost was there confined, nor could he imagine 
 why. The gentleman did his errand ; and the 
 duke being astonished sent for the warden with 
 his prisoner: the warden brought the provost in 
 cuerpo, full of straws and feathers, madman-like, 
 before the duke ; who at the sight of him burst into 
 laughter, and asked the warden why he had made 
 him prisoner. " Sir," said the warden, "it was by 
 virtue of your excelleneys commission, brought me 
 by Captain Bolea," who stepped forth and told the 
 duke, " Sir, you have asked me oft how these 
 hairs of mine grew so suddenly gray : I have not 
 revealed it to any soul breathing ; but now I'll tell 
 your excellency ;" and so related the passage in 
 Flanders ; and added, " I have been ever since 
 beating my brains to know how to get an equal 
 revenge of him, for making me old before my time." 
 The duke was so pleased with the story, and the 
 wittiness of the revenge, that he made them both 
 friends ; and the gentleman who told me this pas- 
 sage, said that the said Captain Bolea is now alive, 
 and could not be less than ninety years of age.
 
 A RECLUSE IN THE THICK OF LONDON. 
 
 39 
 
 XXVI. — A RECLUSE IN THE THICK OF 
 LONDON. 
 
 [This simple and affecting account of a human 
 being, so constituted as to be driven from society 
 by a single shocli to his feelings, is taken from the 
 notes to the excellent edition of the ' Tatler ' pub- 
 lished in 1789, Mr. Welby's resolution probably 
 originated in a variety of motives. He was shocked 
 by the strangeness as well as inhumanity of liis 
 brother's attempt ; it gave him a horror of the very 
 faces of his fellow-creatures, perhaps also some- 
 thing of a personal fear of them, and very likely a 
 hypochondriacal dread even of himself, and of the 
 blood of which his veins partook. "We see that he 
 lived in the most sparing manner, eating little else 
 than grucd and salads. But great was the propor- 
 tion of beauty mixed up with his character, and 
 even of strength, though it retreated into this timid 
 shape. He was a blighted human fruit, of the 
 most noble and delicate order ; and one wishes 
 that instead of the old servant he could have had 
 some afFectionate companion, to live with and love 
 him, and repay him for the large sympathies he 
 retained with his species. But he had his con- 
 solation. He was a reader ; and the same roman- 
 tic turn of mind which put him into his solitude, 
 as well as the temperance which enabled him to 
 grow old in it, probably secured him a child-like 
 delight in his books to the last.] 
 
 The noble and virtuous Henry Welby, Esq., was 
 a native of Lincolnshire, and inherited a clear 
 estate of more than 1000/. a year. He was regu- 
 larly bred at the university, studied for some time 
 at one of the inns of court, and in the course of 
 his travels spent several years abroad. On his 
 return, this very accomplished gentleman settled 
 on his paternal estate, lived with great hospitality, 
 niatched to his liking, and had a beautiful and 
 virtuous daughter, who was wedded with his entire 
 approbation to a Sir Christopher Hilliard, in 
 Yorkshire. He had now lived to the age of forty, 
 respected by the rich, prayed for by the poor, 
 honoured and beloved by all, when one day a 
 younger brother Avith whom he had some differ- 
 ence in opinion, meeting him in the field, snapped 
 a pistol at him, which happily flashed in the pan. 
 Thinking that this was done only to fright him, he 
 coolly disarmed the ruffian, and putting the weapon 
 carelessly into his pocket thoughtfully returned 
 home ; but on after examination, the discovery of 
 bullets in the pistol had such an effect upon liis 
 mind that he instantly conceived an extraordinary 
 resolution of retiring entirely from the world, in 
 which he persisted inflexibly till the end of his life. 
 He took a very fair house in the lower end of 
 Grub-street, near Cripplegate, and cortracting a 
 numerous retinue into a small family, having the 
 house prepared for his ])urpose, he selected three 
 chambers for himself, the one for his diet, the 
 second for his lodging, and the third for his study. 
 As they were one within another, while his diet 
 was set on table by an old maid, he retired into his 
 lodging room ; and when his bed was making, into 
 his study, still doing so till all was clear. Out of 
 these chambers, from the time of his first entry 
 into them, he never issued till he was carried 
 thence forty-four years after, on men's shoulders ; 
 neither in all that time did his son-in-law, daughter, 
 or grandchild, brother, sister, or kinsman, young 
 or old, rich or poor, of what degree or condition 
 
 soever, look upon his face, save the ancient maid, 
 whose name was Elizabeth. She only made his fire, 
 prepared his bed, provided his diet, and dressed 
 his chambers. She saw him but seldom, never but 
 in cases of extraordinary necessity, and died not 
 above six days before him. In all the time of his 
 retirement he never tasted fish or flesh ; his chief 
 food was oatmeal gruel; now and then, in summer, 
 he had a salad of some choice cool herbs ; and for 
 dainties, when he would feast himself upon a high 
 day, he would eat the yolk of a hen's egg, but no 
 part of the white : what bread he did eat he cut 
 out of the middle of the loaf, but the crust he 
 never tasted ; his constant drink was four-shilling 
 beer, and no other, for he never tasted wine or 
 strong water. Now and then, when his stomach 
 served, he did eat some kind of suckets ; and now 
 and then drank red cow's milk, which his maid 
 Elizabeth fetched him out of the fields hot from 
 the cow. Nevertheless, he kept a bountiful table 
 for his servants, and sufficient entertainment for 
 any stranger or tenant who had occasion of busi- 
 ness at his house. Every book that was printed 
 was bought for him, and conveyed to him ; but 
 such as related to controversy he always laid 
 aside and never read. In Christmas holidays, 
 at Easter, and other festivals, he had great 
 cheer provided-, with all dishes in season, served 
 into his own chamber, with store of wine, which 
 his maid brought in ; then, after thanks to God 
 for his good benefits, he would pin a clean napkin 
 before him, and putting on a pair of white Holland 
 sleeves which reached to his elbows, cutting up 
 dish after dish in order, he would send one to one 
 poor neighbour, the next to another, whether it 
 were bra^vn, beef, capon, goose, &c., till he had 
 left the table quite empty ; when, giving thanks 
 again, he laid by his linen, and caused the cloth to 
 be taken away, and this would he do, dinner and 
 supper, upon these days, without tasting one 
 morsel of anything whatsoever. When any cla- 
 moured impudently at his gate, they were not, 
 therefore, immediately relieved ; but when, from 
 his private chamber, which had a prospect into the 
 street, he spied any sick, weak, or lame, he would 
 presently send after them to comfort, cherish, and 
 strengthen them, and not a trifle to serve them for 
 the present, but so much as would relieve them 
 many days after. He would moreover inquire 
 what neighbours were industrious in their callings, 
 and who had great charge of children, and withal, 
 if their labour and industry could not sufficiently 
 supply their families ; to such he would liberally 
 send, and relieve them according to their neces- 
 sities. He died at his house in Grub-street, after 
 an anchoretical confinement of forty-four years, 
 October 29, 1636, aged eighty-four. At his death, 
 his hair and beard were so overgrown, that he ap- 
 peared rather like a hermit of the wilderness than 
 the inhabitant of one of the first cities of the 
 world. 
 
 XXVII., XXVIII., XXIX.— THREE STO- 
 RIES OF HUMAN VIRTUE. 
 
 fWe have put these interesting narratives to- 
 gether, because they are short, and because they 
 strike the same harmonious note — consideration 
 for others. The second and third in particular 
 (and we have attended to the rights of climax, and 
 put the noblest last) are among the best instances
 
 40 
 
 THE DUTCHMAN AND HIS HORSE. 
 
 of virtue, properly so called ; that is to say, of 
 moral force — strengtli of purpose beiieficeiitly 
 exercised. We make no apoloiiy for the lioiiie- 
 liuess of the scene in which the heroine makes her 
 appearance : rather oui;ht we to apoloi;ise to her 
 memory for thiukinLT of apoloijy ; but sophistications 
 are sometimes forced upon the mind of a jour- 
 nalist. Virtue can no more be sullied than the 
 sunbeams, let her descend where she may ; and as 
 the divine poet says, in one of his variations upon 
 a favourite sentiment, 
 
 " Entire alTcction scorneth nicer liamls." 
 
 The Stories are taken from the work to which 
 we have been so often indebted, and which lias 
 long been out of print, ' The Lounger's Common- 
 place Book.'] 
 
 School Friendship remembered 
 
 Sir Austin Nicholas was a judge under the pro- 
 tectorate of Cromwell, concerning whom the fol- 
 lowing circumstances are related. — Having, while 
 a boy at school, committed an offence for which 
 as soon as it was known flogging would be the 
 inevitable punishment, his agitation, from a strong 
 sense of shame or a peculiar delicacy of constitu- 
 tion, was so violent, that his schoolfellow Wake, 
 an intimate associate, and father of the archbishop, 
 remarked it with concern. Possessing stronger 
 nerves and sensibility less exquisite, he told him 
 that the discipline of the rod was a mere trifle, and 
 insisted on taking on himself the fault, for which, 
 after a mutual struggle of friendship and gene- 
 rosity, he suSered a severe whipping. 
 
 A fortuitous chain of events, which often dis- 
 perses school intimates and college chums into 
 opposite quarters of the globe, guided Nicholas 
 through politics and law to a seat in the Court of 
 Common Pleas, and confirmed him a friend to the 
 powers that are. Wake, on the contrary, was a 
 firm royalist and cavalier, whose zeal and activity 
 rendering him highly obnoxious to bis opponents, 
 he was seized, tried for his life, and condemned at 
 Salisbury by his old acquaintance, Nicholas ; who, 
 after a separation of six-aud-twenty years, did not 
 recollect Mr. Wake till he came to pass the fatal 
 sentence, when the name catching his eye, a sudden 
 conviction, strengthened by a few leading questions, 
 flashed on his mind that the prisoner at the bar 
 whom he had just sentenced to an ignominious 
 death, was no other than the fond friend of his 
 juvenile hours, those hours which, whatever be the 
 colours of our fate we always contemplate with a 
 sacred, a serious, and interesting pleasure. I need 
 not describe the state of a mind in which civil 
 discord had not wholly obliterated gratitude and 
 sympathy : he beheld with the most poignant 
 emotion the forlorn situation of that faithful firm 
 associate of his youth, who had undergone for him 
 disgrace and stripes ; he saw on every side the 
 hell-hounds of war, and the mastiffs of the law 
 waiting with eager impatience to drag the man he 
 once loved to untimely death : he hurried from the 
 bench precipitately to conceal his feelings, and 
 burst into tears. 
 
 But friendshij). like other virtues, required the 
 speedy and effectual proof of exertion, or it would 
 have been counteracted by the din of arms or the 
 malevolence of party fury. After much opposition 
 from the roundheads, whom Mr. Wake's behaviour 
 had exasperated, a respite was granted ; and Ni- 
 
 cholas, unwilling to risk a life he highly valued by 
 the imcertainty of letters and the dilatory tardiness 
 of messengers, hurried immediately to London. 
 He rushed to the Protector, and would not quit 
 him till, sorely against Oliver's will, he had ob- 
 tained a pardon for his friend, against whom, from 
 personal enmity or misrepresentation, Cromwell 
 was peculiarly inveterate. 
 
 The fortunate royalist, from inattention, a mag- 
 nanimous or an affected contempt of death, was a 
 stranger to the name and person of his judge, and 
 knew not the powerful interposition in his favour. 
 Nicholas also had reserved the precious, the im- 
 portant secret in his own breast till certain of 
 s\iccess, lest, by vainly exciting hope, he should 
 only add new pains to misfortune. Returning 
 without delay to Salisbury, he flew to the prison, 
 gradually disclosed his name and office to Wake, 
 and producing a pardon, the friends sunk into 
 each other's arms — Nicholas overpowered by the 
 bliss of conferring life and comfort on one for 
 whom he had early experienced the most dis- 
 interested friendship ; Wake unexpectedly snatched 
 from death by discovering perhaps the first friend 
 he ever loved, in a party whom he had always 
 considered as usurpers of lawful authority, as the 
 wolves and tigers of his country. 
 
 The Dutchman and his Horse. 
 
 Cornelius Voltemad, a Dutchman, and an in- 
 habitant of the Cape of Good Hope, had an 
 intrepid philanthrophy which impelled him to risk, 
 and (as it unfortunately proved) to lose his own 
 life in consequence of heroic efforts to save the 
 lives of others. This generous purpose in a great 
 degree he effected in the year 1773, when a Dutch 
 ship was driven on shore in a storm near Table 
 Bay, not far from the South River fort. lieturnLng 
 from a ride, the state of the vessel and the cries of 
 the crew strongly interested him in their behalf. 
 Though unable to swim, he provided himself with 
 a rope, and being mounted on a powerful horse 
 remarkably muscular in its form, plunged with the 
 noble animal into the sea, which rolled in waves 
 sufficiently tremendous to daunt a man of common 
 fortitude. This worthy man, with his spirited 
 horse, approached the ship's side near enough to 
 enable the sailors to lay hold of the end of a cord, 
 which he threw out to them ; by this method, and 
 their grasping the horse's tail, he was happy 
 enough, after returning several times, to convey 
 fourteen persons on shore. 
 
 But in the warmth of his benevolence he appears 
 not to have sufficiently attended to the prodigious 
 and exhausting efforts of his horse, who, in com- 
 bating with the boisterous billows and his accu- 
 mulated burdens, was almost spent with fatigue 
 and debilitated by the quantity of sea water, which 
 in its present agitated state could not be prevented 
 from rushing in great quantities down his throat. 
 Li swimming with a heavy load, the appearance of 
 a horse is singular ; his forehead and nostrils are 
 the only parts to be seen : in this perilous state 
 the least check in his mouth is generally con- 
 sidered as fatal, and it was supposed that some of 
 the half-drowmed sailors, in the ardour of self-pre- 
 servation, pulled the bridle inadvertently ; for the 
 noble creature, far superior to the majoritj' of 
 bipeds who harass and torment his species, sud- 
 denly disappeared with his master, sunk, and rose 
 no more.
 
 A PERSEVERING IMPOSTOR. 
 
 41 
 
 This affecting circumstance induced the Dutch 
 East India Company to erect a monument to 
 Voltemad's memory. They likewise ordered that 
 such descendants or relations as he left should be 
 speedily provided for. Before this intelligence 
 reached the Cape, his nephew, a corporal iu the 
 service, had solicited to succeed him iu a little em- 
 ployment he held in the menagerie, but being 
 refused, retired iu chagrin to a distant settlement, 
 where he died before news of the Directors' recom- 
 mendations could reach him. "VVliile we lament 
 Voltemad's fate, and the ungrateful treatment his 
 relation experienced from the people at the Cape, 
 a circumstance arises iu our minds which tends to 
 render this misfortune still more aggravating. In 
 his bold and successful attempt to reach the ship, 
 if tliis benevolent man, instead of embarrassing 
 himself with a hazardous burden fatal to them all, 
 had only brought the end of a long rope with him 
 on shore, it might have been fixed to a cable, 
 which with proper help might have been dragged 
 on shore, and the whole ship's company saved 
 without involving their benefactor and a noble 
 animal in destruction. 
 
 Heroism of a Maid Servant. 
 
 Catherine Vassent, the daughter of a French 
 peasant, exhibited at the age of seventeen, and in 
 the humble capacity of a menial, a proof of in- 
 trepid persevering sympathy which ranks her with 
 the noblest of her sex. 
 
 A common sewer of considerable depth having 
 been opened at Noyon for the purpose of repair, 
 four men passing by late in the evening unfortu- 
 nately fell in, no precautions having been taken 
 to prevent so probable an accident. It was almost 
 midnight before their situation was known ; and 
 besides the difficulty of procuring assistance at that 
 unseasonable hour, every one present was intimi- 
 dated from exposing himself to similar danger by 
 attempting to rescue these unfortunate wretches, 
 who appeared already in a state of suffocation 
 from the mephitic vapour. 
 
 Fearless or ignorant of danger, and irresistibly 
 impelled by the cries of their wives and children, 
 who surrounded the spot, Catherine Vassent, a 
 servant of the town, insisted on being lowered 
 without delay into the noxious opening, and fast- 
 ening a cord with which she had furnished herself 
 previous to her descent round two of their bodies, 
 assisted by those above, she restored them to life 
 and their families : but, in descending a second 
 time, her breath began to fail, and after effectually 
 securing a cord to the body of a third man, she 
 had sufficient presence of mind, although in a 
 fainting condition, to fix the rope firmly to her 
 own hair, which hung in long and luxuriant curls 
 round a full but well-formed neck. Her neigh- 
 bours, who felt no inclination to imitate her 
 heroism, had willingly contributed such assistance 
 as they could afford compatible with safety, and in 
 pulling up as they thougiit the third man's body, 
 were equally concerned and surprised to see the 
 almost lifeless body of Catherine suspended by her 
 hair, and swinging on the same cord. Fresh air, 
 with eau-de-vie, soon restored this excellent girl ; 
 and I know not whether most to admire her 
 generous fortitude in a third time exjjloring the 
 pestilential cavern, which had almost proved fatal 
 to her, or to execrate the dastardly meanness and 
 selfish cowardice of the bystanders for not sharing 
 
 the glorious danger. In consequence of the delay 
 produced by her indisposition, the fourth man was 
 drawn up a lifeless and irrecoverable corpse. 
 
 Such conduct did not pass unnoticed : a proces- 
 sion of the corporation, and a solemn Te Deum 
 were celebrated on the occasion ; Catherine re- 
 ceived the public thanks of tlie Duke of Orleans, 
 the Bishop of Noyon, the town magistrates, and an 
 emblematic medal, w-ith considerable pecuniary 
 contributions, and a civic crown : to these were 
 added the congratulations of her own heart, that 
 inestimable reward of a benevolent mind. 
 
 XXX.— A PERSEVERING IMPOSTOR, 
 
 [We had doubts whether the following story, 
 from an old magazine, had " dignity " enough for 
 our Romances of Real Life : but a falsehood, how- 
 ever shabby, persevered in through the very solemn- 
 ities of a death-bed, and investing itself with ima- 
 ginary glories as it sets, even of name and estate, 
 acquires a sort of astounding importance, however 
 mixed with the trivial and absurd. The poor 
 wretch who thus strangely died had at least some- 
 thing of an imagination, and he could not bear to 
 part with the flatteries of it, even in the sliape of 
 the greater simpleton whom he had deceived.] 
 
 A GOOD likely sort of man, that had been many 
 years footman to Mr. Wickham, a rich gentleman 
 at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, came to London, and 
 took lodging at a bakehouse over against Arundel- 
 street, in the Strand, The baker being asked by 
 his lodger what countryman he was, re])lied, '■ that 
 be was of Banbury." The other, mighty ijlad to 
 meet with his countryman, was wonderfully fond 
 of the baker, adding, " that since he was of Ban- 
 bury he must needs know Mr. Wickham, or have 
 heard his name," The baker, who indeed was 
 very well acquainted with that gentleman's family, 
 though he had been absent from Banbury fifteen 
 or twenty years, was very glad to hear news of it. 
 but was perfectly overjoyed when he heard that the 
 man he was talking with was INIr. Wickham him- 
 self. This produces great respect on the side of 
 the baker, and new testimonies of friendship from 
 the sham Wickham, The family must be called 
 up that Mr. Wickham might see them, and they 
 must drink a glass together to their friends at 
 Banbury, and take a pipe. The baker did not in 
 the least doubt his having got Mr. Wickham for 
 his lodger, but yet he could not help wondering 
 that he should see neither footman nor portman- 
 teau. He therefore made bold to ask him •' How 
 a man of his estate came to be unattended V The 
 pretended Wickham, making a sign to him to 
 speak softly, old him " That his servants were in a 
 place wliere he could easily find them when he 
 wanted them, but tliat at jire-ent he must be very 
 careful of being known, because he came up to 
 town to arrest a merchant of London who owed 
 him a great sum of money, and was going to break ; 
 that he desired to be incognito, for fear he should 
 miss his stroke, and so he begged he would never 
 mention his name." The next day Mr, Wickham 
 went abroad to take his measures with a comrade 
 of his own stamj), about playing their parts in con- 
 cert. It was concluded between them that this 
 latter should go for Mr. Wickham's servant, and 
 come jirivately from time to time to see his master, 
 and attend upon him. That very night the servant
 
 42 
 
 TRAGEDY IN THE FAMILY OF KYTE. 
 
 ciimc, ami Mr. AVickbam, looking at his own dirty 
 neckcloth in the glass, was in a great rage with 
 him for letting him be without money, linen, or 
 any other conveniences, by his negligence in not 
 carrying his box to the waggon in clue time, which 
 AvouKl cause a delay of three days. This was said 
 aloud while the baker was in the next room, on 
 purpose that he might hear it. This poor deluded 
 man hereupon runs immediately to his drawers, 
 carries Mr. AVickham the best linen he had in the 
 house, begs him to honour him so much as to 
 wear it, and at the same time lays down fifty 
 guineas upon his table that he might do him the 
 favour to accejit them also. Wickham at first re- 
 fused them, but with much ado was prevailed upon. 
 As soon as he had got this money, he made up a 
 livery of the same colour as the true Mr. Wick- 
 ham's, gave it to another pretended footman, and 
 brought a box full of goods as coming from the 
 Banbury waggon. The baker, more satisfied than 
 ever that he had to do with Mr. Wickham, and 
 consequently with one of the richest and noblest 
 men in the kingdom, made it more and more his 
 business to give him fresh marks of his profound 
 respect and zealous affection. To be short, Wick- 
 ham made a shift to get of him a hundred and fifty j 
 guineas besides the first fifty, for all which he gave j 
 him his note. Three weeks after the beginning of I 
 this adventure, as the rogue was at a tavern, he 
 was seized with a violent headache, with a burning 
 fever, and great pains in all parts of his body. As 
 soon as he found himself ill he went home to his 
 lodging to bed, where he was waited upon by one 
 of his pretended footmen, and assisted in every 
 thing by the good baker, who advanced whatever 
 money was wanted, and passed his word to the 
 doctors, apothecaries, and everybody else. Mean- 
 while Wickham grew worse and worse, and about 
 the fifth day was given over. The baker, grieved 
 to the heart at the melancholy condition of his 
 noble friend, thought himself bound to tell him, 
 though with much regret, what the doctors thought 
 of him. Wickham received the news as calmly as 
 if he had been the best christian in the world, and 
 fully prepared for death : he desired a minister 
 might be sent for, and received the communion 
 the same day. Never was more resignation to the 
 will of God ; never more piety, more zeal, or more 
 confidence in the merits of Christ. Next day the 
 distemper and the danger increasing very much, 
 the impostor told the baker that it was not enough 
 to have taken care of his soul ; he ought also to 
 set his worldly affairs in order, and desired that he 
 might make his will while he was yet sound in 
 mind. A scrivener was therefore immediately sent 
 for, and his will made and signed in all the forms 
 before several witnesses. AVickham by this dis- 
 posed of all his estate, real and personal, jewels, 
 coaches, teams, race-horses of such and such co- 
 lours, packs of hounds, ready money, &c., and a 
 house with all appurtenancies and dependencies, 
 to the baker ; almost all his linen to the wife ; five 
 hundred guineas to their eldest son ; eight hundred 
 guineas to the four daughters; two hundred to the 
 ])arson that had comforted him in his sickness ; 
 two hundred to each of the doctors, and one hun- 
 dred to the apothecary ; fifty guineas and mourn- 
 ing to each of his footmen ; fifty to embalm him ; 
 fifty for his coffin ; two hundred to hang the house 
 with mourning, and to defray the rest of the charges 
 of his interment ; a hundred guineas for gloves. 
 
 hat-bands, scarfs, and gold rings ; such a diamond 
 to such a friend, and such an emerald to the other : 
 nothing more noble, nothing more generous. This 
 done, AVickbam called the baker to him, loaded 
 him and his whole family with benedictions, and 
 told him that immediately after his decease he had 
 nothing to do but to go to the lawyer mentioned 
 in his will, who was acquainted with all his affairs, 
 and would give him full instructions how to pro- 
 ceed. Presently after this my gentleman falls into 
 convulsions and dies. The baker at first thought 
 of nothing but burying him with all the pomp 
 imaginable, according to the will ; he hung all the 
 rooms in his house, the staircase, and the entry, 
 with mourning ; he gave orders for making the 
 rings, clothes, coffin, &c. : he sent for the em- 
 balmer In a word, he omitted nothing that was 
 ordered by the deceased to be done. AVickbam 
 was not to be interred till the fourth day after his 
 death, and everything was got ready by the second. 
 The baker having got this hurry oft' his hands, had 
 now time to look for the lawyer before he laid him 
 in the ground. After having put the body into a 
 rich coffin covered with velvet and plates of silver, 
 and settled everything else, he began to consider 
 that it would not be improper to reimburse him- 
 self as soon as possible, and to take possession of 
 his new estate ; he therefore went and communi- 
 cated this whole affair to the lawyer. This gentle- 
 man was indeed acquainted with the true Mr. 
 AVickbam, had all his papers in his hands, and often 
 received letters from him. He was strangely sur- 
 prised to hear of the sickness and death of Mr. 
 Wickham, from whom he had heard the very day 
 before ; and we may easily imagine the poor baker 
 was much more surprised when he found that in 
 all likelihood he was bit. It is not hard to con- 
 ceive the discourse that passed between these two. 
 To conclude, the baker was thoroughly convinced 
 by several circumstances too tedious to relate 
 here, that the true Mr. AA'^ickham was in perfect 
 health, and that the mm he took for him was the 
 greatest villain and most complete hypocrite that 
 ever lived. Upon this he immediately turned the 
 rogue's body out of the rich coffin, which he sold 
 for a third part of what it cost him. All the 
 tradesmen that had been employed towards the 
 burial had compassion on the baker, and took their 
 things again, though not without some loss to him. 
 They dug a hole in a corner of St. Clement's 
 churchyard, where they threw in his body with as 
 little ceremony as possible. I was an eye-witness 
 of most of the things which f have here related, and 
 shall leave the reader to make his own reflections 
 upon them, I have been assured from several hands 
 that the baker has since had his loss pretty well 
 made up to him by the generosity of the true Mr. 
 AA'ickham, for whose sake the honest man had 
 been so openhearted. 
 
 XXXI.— TRAGEDY IN THE FAMILY OF 
 KYTE. 
 
 [If this frightful piece of domestic history had 
 been brought upon the modern stage, the dramatist, 
 in consequence of the hero's setting his house on fire, 
 would probably have called it (not with thorough 
 apjdicability, but that does not signify to a good 
 play-bill) the " Sardanapalus of Private Life." It 
 is impossible of course to pronounce complete
 
 TRAGEDY IN THE FAMILY OF KYTE. 
 
 43 
 
 judgments on the parties concerned in this or any 
 other tragedy : to judge all, it is necessary to know 
 all. But the writer tells us that if Lady Kyte had 
 begun with a little less anger, it is probable that 
 no tragedy would have taken place. Loving-kind- 
 ness does not always effect what it wishes ; but it 
 is the only sure card to play, whether to do away 
 evil or to lessen it : and that man must be stupid 
 or a monster, who would not adore above all other 
 women, the wife that, with a real love for his per- 
 son, should have treated him kindly in a matter 
 like this.] 
 
 Sir William Kyte was a baronet of very con- 
 siderable fortune and of ancient family, and on his 
 • eturn from his travels had so amiable a cha- 
 rncfer, and was reckoned what the world calls so 
 fine a gentleman, that he was thought a very de- 
 sirable match for a worthy nobleman's daughter in 
 the neighbourhood, of great beauty, merit, and a 
 suitable fortune. Sir William and his lady lived 
 very happily together for several years, and had four 
 or five fine children, when he was unfortunately 
 nominated at a contested election to represent the 
 borough of Warwick, in which county the bulk of 
 his estate lay, and where he at that time resided. 
 After the election, as some sort of recompense to a 
 zealous partisan of Sir William, Lady Kyte took 
 an innkeeper's daughter for her own maid: she was 
 a tall, genteel girl, with a fine complexion, and 
 seemingly very modest and innocent. Molly Jones, 
 for that was her name, attracted Sir William's 
 attention ; and after some time the servants began 
 to entertain some suspicions that she was too 
 highly in her master's favour : the housekeeper in 
 particular soon perceived that there was too much 
 foundation for their suspicions, and knowing that 
 the butler had made overtures to Molly, she in- 
 formed him of the circumstance, and his jealousy 
 having rendered him vigilant he soon discovered 
 the whole afi'air, and found that it had proceeded 
 much farther than was at first apprehended. The 
 housekeeper made use of the butler's name, as well 
 as his intelligence to her lady ; and this threw 
 everything into confusion. Lady Kyte's passion 
 soon got the better of her discretion ; for if, instead 
 of reproaching Sir William for his infidelity, she 
 had dissembled her resentment till his first fond- 
 ness for this new object had abated, she might 
 probably have reclaimed her husband, wlio, not- 
 withstanding this temporary defection, was known 
 to have a sincere regard and esteem for his lady. 
 The affair being now publicly known in Uie family, 
 and all restraints of shame or fear of discovery 
 being quite removed, things were soon carried to 
 extremity between Sir William and his lady, and a 
 separation became unavoidable. Sir William left 
 lady Kyte with the two younger children, in posses- 
 sion of the mansion-house in Warwickshire ; and re- 
 tired himself, with his mistress and his two eldest 
 sons, to a large farm-house on the side of the Cots- 
 wold hills. The situation was fine, plenty of wood 
 and water, and commanded an extensive view of 
 the vale of Evesham : this tempted him to build a 
 handsome box there, with very extensive gardens, 
 planted and laid out in the luxurious taste of the 
 age ; and not content with this, before the body of 
 the house was quite finished. Sir William added 
 two large side fronts, for no better reason than that 
 his mistress happened to say, " What is a Kite 
 without wings?" The expense of finishing this 
 
 place, which amounted at least to 10,000^., was the 
 first cause of Sir William encumbering his estate ; 
 and the difBculties in which he was involved 
 making him uneasy, he, as is too often the case, 
 had recourse to his bottle for relief. He kept 
 what is called a hospitable table, and being seldom 
 without company, this brought on a constant 
 course of dissipation and want of economy, by 
 which means his affairs in the course of a few years 
 became almost desperate. 
 
 There was taken into the family about this time 
 a fresh-coloured country girl, in the capacity of a 
 dairy-maid, with no other beauty than what arises 
 from the bloom of youth ; and as people who once 
 give way to their passions know no bounds. Sir 
 William, in the decline of life, conceived an 
 amorous regard for this girl, who was scarce 
 twenty : this event produced still further confusion 
 in the family. Mrs. Jones soon observed this 
 growing passion in Sir William, and either'from 
 resentment, or the apprehension, or perhaps the 
 real experience of ill usage, thought proper to re- 
 tire to Cambden, a neighbouring market-town, 
 where she was reduced to keep a little sewing- 
 school for bread. Young Mr. Kyte, whether 
 shocked at this unparalleled infatuation of his father, 
 or, as was commonly said, finding himself exposed 
 to the continual insults of his female favourite, 
 sought an asylum and spent most of his time with 
 a nobleman, a friend of his, in Warwickshire. Sir 
 William, though he had now a prospect of being 
 successful in this humble amour, and of indulging 
 it without molestation, yet began at length to see 
 the delusive nature of all vicious pursuits ; and 
 though he endeavoured to keep up his spirits, or 
 rather to drown all thought by constant intoxica- 
 tion, in his sober intervals he became a victim to 
 gloomy reflections : he had injured a valuable wife, 
 which he could not now reflect upon without sonic 
 remorse ; he had wronged his innocent children, 
 whom he could not think upon without the tcnder- 
 est sentiments of compassion. His son, who had 
 been a sort of companion to him for several years, 
 had now left him through his ill usage, and as Mrs. 
 Jones had for some time been useful to him, he 
 was shocked at being deserted even by the woman 
 for whose sake he had brought this distress upon 
 his family; and he found himself almost alone in 
 that magnificent but fatal mansion, the erecting 
 and adorning of which had been the princii)al 
 cause of ruining his fortune. Tormented by these 
 contending passions, he had for a week raised liim- 
 self by constant inebriation to a degree of phrenzy, 
 and behaved in so frantic a manner that even his 
 new favourite could bear it no longer, and had 
 eloped from him. On- the day on which he exe- 
 cuted his fatal resolution, he sent for his son and 
 for his new mistress, with what intention can be 
 only conjectured, but hukiiy neither of them obeyed 
 the summons. Eailyin the evening, it being in 
 the month of October, the butler had lighted two 
 candles as usual and set them upon the marble 
 table in the hall. Sir William came down and took 
 them up himself, as he frequently did : after some 
 time, however, one of the housemaids ran down 
 stairs in a great fright, and said " The lobby was 
 all in a cloud of smoke." The servants, and a 
 tradesman that was in the house upon business, 
 ran immediately up, and forcing open the door 
 whence the smoke seemed to proceed they found 
 that Sir William had set fire to a large heap of fine
 
 44 
 
 EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN DAWSON. 
 
 linen, piled up in the middle of the room, which 
 had been given by some old lady, a relation, as a 
 legacy to his eldest son. While the attention of 
 the SL>rvants was entirely taken up with extinguish- 
 ing tlie ilamcs in this room. Sir William had made 
 his escape into an adjoining chamber, where was a 
 cotton-bed, and which was wainscotted with deal, 
 as most linished rooms then were : Avhen they had 
 broken open this door, the flames burst out upon 
 them with such fury that they were all glad to 
 make their escape out of the house, the principal 
 part of which sumptuous pile was in a feAV hours 
 burned to the ground, and no other remains of Sir 
 William Mere found next morning than the hip- 
 bone, and the vertebraj or bones of the back, with 
 two or three keys, and a gold watch which he had 
 in his pocket. Such was the dreadful consequence 
 of a licentious passion not checked in its infancy. 
 
 XXXII., XXXIIL, XXXIV.— THREE TRA- 
 GEDIES OF CIVIL AVAR. 
 
 [We need not disclaim any antipathy to parties 
 among our ancestors, much less to the erring or 
 non-erring individuals of whom they were com- 
 posed, when we draw upon the sympathies of our 
 readers with the sufferings occasioned by mistakes 
 on all sides. Even in the fiercest and most unre- 
 lenting exercise of the human will may sometimes 
 be discerned the perversion of a thwarted desire 
 for sympathy; and its worst evidences are not un- 
 accompanied with something which finds an excuse 
 for it in imperfections of education or j)arentage 
 (we mean, of course, in the moral and physical 
 sense, and not in the conventional). Let us be 
 thankful when the moral storms of the world turn 
 manifestly to good ; and let us hope as much of the 
 rest, and trust that its new lights will show us how 
 they may be dispensed with by and by. There 
 may be discoveries (we trust they are now making) 
 which will render moral as well as physical elec- 
 tricity harmless, and enable what is called the 
 " anger of heaven," to be known only in its bene- 
 ficence of operation. 
 
 The fallowing passages are taken from a little 
 volume full of the Tory pepper and mustard of 
 lampoon, entitled the 'Jacobite Minstrelsy of Scot- 
 land.' We had long wished to meet again with 
 the history of the affecting incident which moved 
 Shenstone to write his ballad of ' Jemmy Dawson,' 
 and here we found it, and seized upon it for our 
 readers. We shall put the prose first, and the 
 poetry afterwards, like a dirge over its grave. By 
 the way, nobody thinks the worse of Shenstone's 
 hero for being called " Jemmy ;" though when Mr. 
 Wordsworth re-published his Lyrical Ballads, he 
 absolutely thought himself obliged to leave out half 
 the first line of one of them, because he had ad- 
 dressed his brother in it, as he was wont, by the 
 title of " Dear brother Jem '." So reasonable is 
 custom at one time, and so ridiculous at another, 
 upon the same point !] 
 
 Execution of Captain Dawson. 
 Shenstone's ballad is commemorative of the me- 
 lancholy and peculiarly hard fate of a youthful 
 victim, who was sacrificed to the harsh and unre- 
 lenting policy of the government, at the period of 
 its triumph in 1740. He was the son of a gentle- 
 man of Lancashire of the name of Dawson, and 
 
 while pursuing his studies at Cambridge he heard 
 the news of the insurrection in Scotland, and the 
 progress of the insurgents. At that moment he 
 had committed some youthful excesses which in- 
 duced him to run away from his college, and 
 either from caprice or enthusiasm he proceeded to 
 the north, and joined the Prince's army, which had 
 just entered England. He was made an officer in 
 Colonel Townly's Manchester regiment, and after- 
 wards surrendered with it at Carlisle. Eighteen 
 of that corps were the first victims selected for 
 trial, and among these was young Dawson. They 
 were all found guilty, and nine were ordered for 
 immediate execution, as having been most actively 
 and conspicuously guilty. Kennington Common 
 was the place appointed !or the last scene of their 
 punishment, and as the spectacle was to be at- 
 tended with all the horrid barbarities inflicted by 
 the British law of treason, a vast mob from London 
 and the surrounding country assembled to witness 
 it. The prisoners beheld the gallows, the block, 
 and the fire into which their hearts were to be 
 thrown, without any dismay, and seemed to brave 
 their fate on the scaffold with the same courage 
 that had prompted them formerly to risk their lives 
 in the field of battle. They also justified their 
 principles to the last, for, with the ropes about their 
 necks, they delivered written declarations to the 
 sheriff that they died in a just cause, that they did 
 not repent of what they had done, and that they 
 doubted not but their deaths would be afterwards 
 avenged. After being suspended for three minutes 
 from the gallows, their bodies were stripped naked 
 and cut down in order to undergo the operation 
 of beheading and embowelling. Colonel Townly 
 was the first that was laid upon the block, but the 
 executioner observing the body to retain some 
 signs of life he struck it violently on the breast, 
 for the humane purpose of rendering it quite in- 
 sensible to the remaining part of the punishment. 
 This not having the desired effect, he cut the 
 unfortunate gentleman's throat. The shocking 
 ceremony of taking out the heart and throwing 
 the bowels into the fire, was then gone through, 
 after which the head was separated from the body 
 with a cleaver, and both were put into a coffin. 
 The rest of the bodies were thus treated in succes- 
 sion ; and, on throwing the last heart into the fire, 
 which was that of young Dawson, the executioner 
 cried, " God save King George !" and the spec- 
 tators responded with a shout. Although the 
 rabble had hooted the unhappy gentlemen on their 
 passage to and from their trials, it was remarked 
 that at the execution their fate excited considerable 
 pity, mingled with admiration of their courage. 
 Two circumstances contributed to increase the 
 public sympathy on this occasion, and caused it to 
 be more generally expressed. The first was, the 
 appearance at the place of execution of a youthful 
 brother of one of the culprits of the name of Dea- 
 con, himself a culprit and under sentence of death 
 for the same crime ; but who had been permitted 
 to attend this last scene of his brother's life in a 
 coach, along with a guard. The other, was the fact 
 of a young and beautiful female to whom Mr. 
 Dawson had been betrothed, actually attending to 
 witness his execution, as commemorated in the 
 ballad. This singular fact is narrated, as follows, 
 in most of the journals of that period. 
 
 " A young lady of good family and handsome 
 fortune had for some time extremely loved, and
 
 CRUELTIES TOWARDS WHIG AND TORY. 
 
 45 
 
 been equally beloved by Mr. James Dawson, one 
 of those unfortunate gentlemen who suffered at 
 Kennington Common for high treason ; and had he 
 been acquitted, or after condemnation found the 
 royal mercy, the day of his enlargement was to 
 have been that of their marriage. 
 
 " Not all the persuasions of her kindred could 
 prevent her from going to the place of execution ; 
 she was determined to see the last hour of a person 
 so dear tO her ; and accordingly followed the 
 sledges in a hackney coach, accompanied by a 
 gentleman nearly related to her, and one female 
 friend. She got near enough to see the fire kindled 
 which was to consume that heart she knew was so 
 much devoted to her, and all the other dreadful 
 preparations for his fate, without being guilty of 
 any of those extravagancies her friends had appre- 
 hended. But Avhen all was over, and she found 
 that he was no more, she drew her head back into 
 the coach, and crying out, ' My dear, I follow thee 
 — I follow thee. Sweet Jesus, receive both our 
 souls together !' fell on the neck of her companion, 
 and expired in the very moment she was speaking. 
 
 "That excess of grief, which the force of her re- 
 solution had kept smothered within her breast, it is 
 thought put a stop to the vital motion, and suffo- 
 cated at once all the animal spirits." 
 
 Come listen to my mournful tale. 
 Ye tender hearts and lovers dear ; 
 
 Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh, 
 Nor need you blush to shed a tear. 
 
 And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid, 
 
 Do thou a pensive ear incline ; 
 For thou canst weep at every woe, 
 
 And pity every plaint — but mine. 
 
 Young Dawson was a gallant boy, 
 
 A brighter never trod the plain ; 
 And well he loved one charming maid, 
 
 And dearly was he loved again. 
 
 One tender maid, she loved him dear, 
 
 Of gentle blood the damsel came; 
 And faultless was her beauteous form. 
 
 And spotless was her virgin fame. 
 
 But curse on party's hateful strife 
 
 That led the favour'd youth astray ; 
 The day the rebel clans appear'd, — 
 
 Oh, had he never seen that day. 
 Their colours and their sash he wore, 
 
 And in the fatal dress was found ; 
 And now he must that death endure 
 
 Which gives the brave their keenest wound. 
 
 How pale was then his true-love's cheeks 
 When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear ! 
 
 For never yet did Alpine snows 
 So pale or yet so chill appear. 
 
 With falt'ring voice, she weeping said, 
 " Oh ! Dawson, monarch of my heart. 
 
 Think not thy death shall end our loves 
 For thou and I will never part. 
 
 " Yet might sweet mercy find a place, 
 And bring relief to Jemmy's woes, 
 
 Oh, George ! without a prayer for thee, 
 My orisons would never close. 
 
 " The gracious prince that gave him life 
 Would crown a never-dying flame ; 
 
 And every tender babe I bore 
 
 Should learn to lisp the giver's name. 
 
 " But though he should be dragg'd in scorn 
 
 To yonder ignominious tree, 
 He shall not want one constant friend 
 
 To share the cruel fate's decree." 
 
 O, then her mourning coach was call'd ; 
 
 The sledge moved slowly on before ; 
 Though borne in a triumphal car, 
 
 She had not loved her fav'rite more. 
 
 She follow'd him, prepared to >iew 
 
 The terrible behests of law ; 
 And the last scene of Jemmy's woes 
 
 With calm and stedfast eyes she saw. 
 
 Distorted was that blooming face. 
 Which she had fondly loved so long ; 
 
 And stifled was that tuneful breath. 
 Which in her praise had sweetly sung. 
 
 And sever'd was that beauteous neck. 
 
 Round which her arms had fondly closed ; 
 
 And mangled was that beauteous breast. 
 On which her love-sick head reposed. 
 
 And ravish'd was that constant heart 
 
 She did to every heart prefer ; 
 For though it could its King forget, 
 
 'Twas true and loyal still to her. 
 Amid those unrelenting flames, 
 
 She bore this constant heart to see ; 
 But when 'twas moulder'd into dust, 
 
 "Yet, yet," she cried, "I follow thee." 
 
 *' My death, my death alone can show 
 The pure, the lasting love I bore ; 
 
 Accept, Oh heaven! of woes like ours. 
 And let us, let us, -weep no more." 
 
 The dismal scene was o'er and past. 
 The lover's mournful hearse retired ; 
 
 The maid drew back her languid head. 
 And sighing forth his name — expired! 
 
 Though justice ever must prevail, 
 
 The tear my Kitty sheds is due ; 
 For seldom shall she hear a tale 
 
 So sad, so tender, yet so true. 
 
 Cruelty towards a Whig. 
 " One morning, in those evil days, a man of the 
 name of John Brown, having performed the wor- 
 ship of God in his family, was going with a spade, 
 in his hand to make ready some peat-ground. The 
 mist being very dark he knew not where he was, 
 till the bloody Claverhouse compassed him witii 
 three troops of his horse, brought him to his house 
 and there examined him, who, though he was a 
 man of stammering speech, yet answered both dis- 
 tinctly and solidly, which made Claverhouse ex- 
 amine those whom he had taken to be his guides 
 through the muirs, if they had heard liim preach ? 
 They answered, ' No, no, he was never a preacher.' 
 To which he replied, ' If he has never preached, 
 meikle has he prayed in his time.' He then said 
 to John, ' Go to your prayers, for you shall imme- 
 diately die.' When he was praying, Claverhouse 
 interrupted him three times. One time that he 
 interrupted him, he was praying that the Lord 
 would spare a remnant, and not make a f\ill end 
 in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, ' I gave 
 you time to [)ray, and you are begun to preach.' 
 He turned on his knees, and said, ' Sir, you know 
 neither the nature of prayer nor preaching, that call 
 this preaching ;" and then continued without con- 
 fusion ! His wife standing by, with her children
 
 46 
 
 ESCAPE OF THE EARL OF NITHSDALE FROM THE TOWKR. 
 
 in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and 
 another cliilJ of Ills first wife's, he came to her and 
 said, ' Now, Marion, the day is come that I told 
 you would come when I first spoke to you of 
 marrying me.' She said, ' Indeed, John, I can 
 willingly part with you.' Then he said, ' This is 
 all I desire ; I have no more to do but to die.' He 
 kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased 
 and promised blessings to be poured upon them, 
 and gave them his blessing. Claverhouse ordered 
 six soldiers to shoot him ; the most part of the 
 bullets came upon his head, which scattered his 
 brains upon the ground. Then said Claverhouse 
 to the hapless widow, ' What thinkest thou of thy 
 husband now, woman V To which she answered, 
 ' I thought ever much of him, and now as much 
 as ever.' He said, ' It were justice to lay thee 
 beside him.' She replied, ' If ye were permitted, 
 I doubt not yotu- cruelty would go that length ; 
 but how will ye make answer for this morning's 
 work?' 'To men,' said he, 'I can be answer- 
 able ; and, for God, I will take him in mine own 
 hand.' Claverhouse mounted his horse, and left 
 her with the corpse of her dead husband lying 
 there : she set the bairn on the ground, and gathered 
 his brains, and tied up his head, and straighted his 
 body, and covered hini with her plaid, and sat 
 down and wept over him. It being a very desert 
 place where never victual grew, and far from neigh- 
 bours, it was some time before any friends came to 
 her: the first that came was a very fit hand, that 
 old singular christian woman in the Cummerhead, 
 named Elizabeth Menzies, three miles distant, who 
 had been tried with the violent death of her hus- 
 band at Pentland, afterwards of two worthy sons, 
 Thomas Weir who was killed at Drumclog, and 
 David Steele who was suddenly shot afterwards 
 when taken. The said Marion Weir, sitting upon 
 her husband's grave, told me, that before that she 
 could see no blood but she was in danger to faint, 
 and yet she was helped to be a witness to all this 
 without either fainting or confusion, except when 
 the shots were let off her eyes were dazzled. His 
 corpse was buried at the end of the house where 
 he was slain." — Pcden's Life. 
 
 Cruelty towards a Jacobite. 
 
 In the rising of 1745 a party of Cumberland's 
 dragoons was running through Nithsdale in search 
 of rebels. Hungrj' and fatigued, they stopped at a 
 lone widow's house and demanded refreshment. 
 Her son, a youth of sixteen, dressed up a dish of 
 long kale and butter for them, and the good woman 
 brought her new milk, that she told them was all 
 her stock. One of the party enquired, with seem- 
 ing kindness, how she lived. " Indeed," said she, 
 "the cow and the kale yard, wi' God's blessing, 
 are a' my mailen." Without another word being 
 spoken, the heartless trooper then rose, and with 
 his sabre killed the cow and destroyed all the kale. 
 The poor woman and her son were thus in a mo- 
 ment thrown destitute upon the world. She her- 
 self soon died of a broken heart, and the disconso- 
 late youth wandered away beyond the inquiry of 
 friends or the search of compassion. In the con- 
 tinental war which followed some years after, when 
 the British army had gained a great and signal 
 victory, some of the soldiery were one day making 
 merry with their wine, and recounting their ex- 
 ploits : a dragoon roared out — " I once stai-ved a 
 Scotch ■witch at Nithsdale ; I killed her cow, and 
 
 destroyed her greens ; but," added he, " she could 
 live for all that, on her God, she said !" " And 
 don't you rue it ?" cried a young soldier, starting 
 up at the moment. "Don't you rue it?" "Rue 
 it! rue what?" said the other : " why should I rue 
 aught like that?" "Then, by heaven, you shall 
 rue it," exclaimed the youth, unsheathing his 
 sword ; " that woman was my mother. Draw, you 
 brutal villain, draw " They fought on the instant. 
 The youth passed his sword twice through the 
 dragoon's body ; and, while he turned him over in 
 the throes of death, exclaimed, " "Wretched man ! 
 had you but rued it, you should only have been 
 punished by your God !" 
 
 [We shall conclude these tragical stories, by way 
 of relief, with an exquisite off-hand lampoon (at 
 least it has all the air of being such) upon Frede- 
 rick Prince of Wales, son of George II., a prince 
 whom people of all parties are now agreed in 
 thinking no very great worthy, nor superior to 
 what a lively woman has here written upon him ; 
 for if we understand Horace Walpole rightly, who 
 says the verses were found among her papers, they 
 were the production of the Honourable Miss Rollo, 
 probably the daughter of the fourth Lord Rollo, 
 who was implicated in the rebellion. Frederick 
 was familiarly termed Feckie and Fed. 
 
 "Here lies Prince Fed, 
 Gone down among the dead. 
 Had it been his father. 
 We had much rather ; 
 Had it been his mother, 
 Better than any other ; 
 Had it been her sister, 
 Few would have miss'd her ; 
 Had it been the whole generation, 
 Ten times better for the nation ; 
 But since 'tis only Fed, 
 There's no more to be said." 
 
 XXXV.— ESCAPE OF THE EARL OF 
 NITHSDALE FROM THE TOWER. 
 
 [This is another story of the Scotch rebellion 
 against the succession of the House of Hanover, 
 and is taken from the same book that furnished us 
 with the three previous romances. As an interesting 
 subject is apt to make us wish to know more of it, 
 or to refresh our memories if we knew it before, 
 we thought the reader would not dislike to see 
 another specimen of the stirring adventures of that 
 period. The Countess of Nithsdale, whose cou- 
 rageous affection saved the life of her husband, 
 has had a sister heroine in our own times in the 
 person of the Countess Lavalette, who, though she 
 succeeded also as far as her husband was concerned, 
 appears to have had an ultra-sensibility of tempera- 
 ment which risked more of her own peace, and 
 thus enhanced the merit of the daring, for she is 
 understood to have lost her senses in consequence 
 of the alarm she underwent. The other day, meet- 
 ing with one of those delightful old editions of the 
 ' Spectator,' the plain and sober type of which 
 renders them so much pleasanter to read than the 
 modern sharply cut letters and glaring paper, we 
 rejoiced to open it upon a vignette representing 
 the famous vacation of the town of Hensberg, 
 when the Emperor Conrad III., who besieged it, 
 gave permission to the female inhabitants to quit
 
 ESCAPE OF THE EARL OF NITHSDALE FROM THE TOWER. 
 
 47 
 
 the place, taking with them as much as they could 
 carry. Accordingly, they issued forth, each carry- 
 ing her husband, which so affected the emperor 
 that he shed tears, pardoned the town, and took 
 the Duke of Bavaria, who commanded it, into 
 favour. Our present subject reminded us of the 
 vignette, and the vignette induced us to read the 
 paper containing the story over again, which so 
 much gratified us that it has made us devote one 
 of our specimens of celebrated authors to it this 
 week. We hope nobody will complain of the com- 
 monness of the admirable work from which it is 
 taken, nor fancy that we do it to "fill up," which 
 most assuredly we do not. We are more perplexed 
 with abundance of materials, than the want of 
 them. But commonly as the ' Spectator' is to be 
 met with, the circle of readers has been so largely 
 and suddenly extended of late years, that there are 
 doubtless many persons capable of enjoying it, who 
 are better acquainted with it by name than by its 
 contents ; and to such as know it well we can 
 only say that we hope they are as glad to see a 
 choice bit of it again as we are, and to perceive the 
 new beauties which are ever developing themselves 
 to one's eyes as we advance in life and become 
 more capable of appreciating the wit and know- 
 ledge of these fine writers. But to our romance.] 
 
 The Earl of Nithsdale (says our authority) was 
 one of those who surrendered at Preston. He was 
 afterwards tried and sentenced to decapitation ; but 
 by the extraordinary ability and admirable dexterity 
 of his countess he escaped out of Jhe Tower, on the 
 evening before his intended execution, and died at 
 Rome, 1744. The subjoined narrative of the man- 
 ner in which his escape was effected is so full of 
 interest that the reader can hardly be displeased at 
 its length, more particularly as it exhibits a memo- 
 rable instance of that heroic intrepidity to which the 
 female heart can rouse itself on trying occasions, 
 when man, notwithstanding his boasted superiority, 
 is but too apt to give way to despondency and 
 despair. The tenderness of conjugal affection and 
 the thousand apprehensions or anxieties that beset 
 it in adversity, the long pressure of misfortune, and 
 the dread of impending calamity, tend uniformly to 
 overwhelm the spirits and distract the mind from 
 any settled purpose ; but it is possible that those 
 sentiments may be absorbed in a more energetic 
 feeling, in a courage sustained by the conflicting 
 influence of hope and desperation. Yet, even thus 
 prepared, the mind may be inadequate to the attain- 
 ment of a long and perilous enterprise ; and in the 
 present case, we have the testimony of Lady Niths- 
 dale herself, that she would have sunk at the 
 prospect of so many and such fearful obstacles, had 
 she not relied with firmness on the aid of Pro- 
 vidence. The detail of her narrative will show 
 how greatly this reliance contributed to strengthen 
 and regulate the tone of her resolution, not only in 
 every vicissitude of expectation and disappoint- 
 ment, but in what is more trying than either, the 
 sickening intervals of suspense and doubt. 
 
 Extract of a letter from Lady Nithsdale to her 
 sister. Lady Lucy Herbert, abbess of the Augustine 
 Nuns at Bruges : — 
 
 " On the 22nd of February, which fell on a 
 Thursday, a petition was to be presented to the 
 House of Lords. * * * The subject of the 
 debate was whether the king had the power to 
 pardon those who had been condemned by Parlia- 
 
 ment. * * * * * ^g ^}jg motion }jad passed 
 generally, I thought I could draw some advantage 
 in favour of my design. Accordingly, I immedi- 
 ately left the House of Lords and hastened to the 
 Tower, where, affecting an air of joy and satis- 
 faction, I told all the guards I passed by that I 
 came to bring joyful tidings to the prisoners. I 
 desired them to lay aside their fears, for the peti- 
 tion had passed the house in their favour. I then 
 gave them some money to drink to the lords and 
 his majesty, though it was but trifling ; for I thought 
 that if I were too liberal on the occasion they 
 might suspect my designs, and that giving them 
 something would gain their good humour and ser- 
 vices for the next day, which was the eve of the 
 execution. The next morning I could not go to 
 the Tower, having too many things on my hands 
 to put in readiness ; but in the evening, when all 
 was ready, I sent for Mrs. Mills, with whom I 
 lodged, and I acquainted her with my design of 
 attempting my lord's escape, as there was no pro- 
 spect of his being pardoned ; and this was the last 
 night before the execution. I told her that I had 
 everything in readiness, and I trusted she would 
 not refuse to accompany me, that my lord might 
 pass for her. I pressed her to come immediately, 
 as we had no time to lose. At the same time 
 I sent for Mrs. Morgan, then usually known by 
 the name of Hilton, to whose acquaintance my 
 dear Evans had introduced me, which I looked 
 upon as a very singular happiness. 1 immediately 
 communicated my resolution to her. She was of 
 a tall and slender make ; so I begged her to put 
 under her own riding-hood one that I had prepared 
 for Mrs. Mills, as she was to lend her's to my lord, 
 that in coming out he might be taken for her. 
 Mrs. Mills was then with child, so that she was 
 not only of the same height, but nearly of the same 
 size as my lord. When we were in the coach 1 
 never ceased talking, that they might have no 
 leisure to reflect. Their surprise and astonishment 
 on my first opening my design to them had made 
 them consent without ever thinking of the con- 
 sequences. On our arrival at the Tower, the first 
 I introduced was Mrs. Morgan, for I was only al- 
 lowed to take in one at a time. She brought in 
 the clothes that were to serve Mrs. Mills when she 
 left her own behind her. When Mrs. Morgan had 
 taken off what she had brought for that purpose, 
 I conducted her back to the staircase, and in going 
 I begged her to send me my maid to dress me ; 
 adding that I was afraid of being too late to present 
 my last petition that night, if she did not come im- 
 mediately. I dispatched her safe, and went partly 
 down stairs to meet Mrs. Mills, Mho had the pre- 
 caution to hold her handkerchief to her face, as 
 was very natural for a woman to do when she was 
 going to bid her last farewell to a friend on tlie eve 
 of his execution. I had indeed desired her to do 
 it, that my lord might go out in the same manner. 
 Her eyebrows were rather inclined to be sandy, 
 and my lord's were dark and very thick ; however, 
 I had prepared some paint of the colour of hers to 
 disguise his with. I also bought an artificial head- 
 dress of the same coloured hair as hers, and I 
 painted his face with white and his cheeks witli 
 rouge, to hide his long beard, which lie had nut 
 had time to shave. All this provision I had before 
 left in the Tower. The poor guards, whom my 
 slight liberality the day before had endeared me to, 
 let me go quietly with my company, and were not
 
 48 
 
 ESCAPE OF THE EAUL OF NITHSDALE FROM THE TOAVER. 
 
 so strictly on the watch as they usually liad been ; 
 and tlie more so, as they were persuaded from 
 what I had told them the day before, that the 
 prisoners would obtain their pardon. I made Mrs. 
 Mills take off her own hood, and put on that which 
 I liad brought for her. I then took Iier by the 
 hand, and led her out of my lord's clianiber, and 
 in passing through the next room, in which there 
 were several people, with all the concern imagina- 
 ble I said, ' My dear Mrs. Catherine, go in all 
 haste and fetch me my waiting-maid, she certainly 
 cannot rellcct how late it is ; she forgets that I am 
 to present a petition to night, and if I let slip this 
 op])ortunity I am undone, for to-morrow will he 
 too late. Hasten her as much as possible, for I 
 shall he on thorns till she comes.' Everybody in 
 the room, who were chiefly the guards' wives and 
 daughters, seemed to compassionate me exceed- 
 ingly ; and the sentinel otRciously opened the door. 
 AVlien 1 had seen her out, I returned back to my 
 lord and finished dressing him. I had taken care 
 Mrs. Mills did not go out crying as she came in, 
 that my lord might the better pass for the lady who 
 came in crying and affected ; and the more so 
 because he had the same dress she wore. When 
 I had alniost finished dressing my lord in all my 
 petticoats, I perceived that it was growing dark, 
 and was afraid that the light of the candles might 
 betray us ; so I resolved to set off. I went out 
 leading him by the hand, and he held his hand- 
 kerchief to his eyes. I spoke to him in the piteous 
 and most afflicted tone of voice, bewailing bitterly 
 the negligence of Evans, who had vexed me by her 
 delay. Then said I, ' My dear Mrs. Betty, for 
 the love of God, run quickly and bring her with 
 you. You know my lodging, and if you ever made 
 dispatch in your life do it at present : I am almost 
 distracted with this disappointment.' The guards 
 opened the doors, and I went down stairs with 
 him, still conjuring him to make all possible dis- 
 patch. As soon as he had cleared the door I 
 made him walk before me, for fear the sentinels 
 should take notice of his walk ; but I still con- 
 tinued to press him to make all the dispatch he 
 possibly could. At the bottom of the stairs I met 
 my dear Evans, into whose hands I confided him. 
 I had before engaged Mr. Mills to be in readiness 
 before the Tower to conduct him to some place of 
 safety, in case we succeeded. He looked upon the 
 affair so very improbable to succeed, that his as- 
 tonishment when he saw us threw him into such 
 consternation that he was almost out of himself; 
 which Evans perceiving, with the greatest presence 
 of mind, without telling him anything, lest he 
 should mistrust them, conducted him to some of 
 her own friends on whom she could rely, and so 
 secured him, without which we should have been 
 undone. When she had conducted him and left 
 him with them, she returned to find Mr. Mills, 
 who by this time had recovered himself of his 
 astonishment. They went home together, and 
 having found a place of security, they conducted 
 him to it. 
 
 " In the meanwhile, as I had pretended to have 
 sent the young lady one message, I was obliged to 
 return up stairs, and go back to my lord's room in 
 some feigned anxiety of being too late, so that 
 everybody seemed sincerely to sympathise with my 
 distress. When I was in the room I talked to him 
 as if he had been really present, and answered my 
 own questions in my lord's voice as nearly as I 
 
 could imitate it : I walked up and down, as if we 
 were conversing together, till I thought they had 
 time enough thoroughly to clear themselves of the 
 guards. I then thought proper to make off also. 
 1 opened the door, and stood half in it, that those 
 in the outward chamber might hear what 1 said ; 
 but held it so close that they could not look in. 
 I bade my lord a formal farewell for the night, 
 and added that something more than usual must 
 have happened to make Evans negligent on this 
 important occasion, who had always been so punc- 
 tual in the smallest trifle ; that I saw no other 
 remedy than to go in person ; tliat, if the Tower 
 were still open when I had finished my business, I 
 would return that night ; but that he might be 
 assured I would be with him as early in the 
 morning as I could gain admittance into the Tower ; 
 and I flattered myself I should bring favourable 
 news. Then, before I shut the door, I pulled 
 through the string of the latch, so that it could only 
 be opened on the inside. I then shut it with 
 some degree of force, that I might be sure of its 
 being shut. I said to the servant as I passed by, 
 who was ignorant of the whole transaction, that 
 he need not carry in candles to his master till my 
 lord sent for them, as he desired to finish some 
 prayers first. I went down stairs and called a 
 coach. As there were several on the stand, I drove 
 home to my lodgings, where poor Mr. Mackenzie 
 had been waiting to carry the petition, in case the 
 attempt had failed. I told him there was no need 
 of any petition, as my lord was safe out of the 
 Tower, and out of the hands of his enemies, as I 
 hoped ; but that I did not know where he was. 
 I discharged the coach, and sent for a sedan-chair, 
 and went to the Duchess of Buccleuch, who ex- 
 pected me about that time, as I had begged of her 
 to present the petition for me — having taken my 
 precautions against all events — and asked if she 
 were at home ; and they answered that she ex- 
 pected me, and had another duchess with her. I 
 refused to go up stairs, as she had company with 
 her, and I was not in a condition to see any other 
 company. I begged to be shown into a chamber 
 below stairs, and that they would send her grace's 
 woman to me. I had discharged tiie chair, lest I 
 might be pursued and watched. When the maid 
 came in, I told her to present my most humble 
 respects to her grace, who, they told me, had com- 
 pany with her ; and to acquaint her that this was 
 my only reason for not coming up stairs. I also 
 charged her with my sincerest thanks for her kind 
 offer to accompany me when I went to present my 
 petition. I added, that she might spare herself 
 any further trouble, as it was now judged more 
 advisable to present one general petition in the 
 name of all : however, that I should never be un- 
 mindful of my particular obligations to her grace, 
 which I would return very soon to acknowledge 
 in person. I then desired one of the servants to 
 call a chair, and I went to the Duchess of Mont- 
 rose, who had always borne a part in my distress. 
 When I arrived she left her company to deny 
 herself, not being able to see me under the afflic- 
 tion which she judged me to be in. By mistake, 
 however, I was admitted — so there was no remedy. 
 She came to me ; and as my heart was in an ecstacy 
 of joy, I expressed it in my countenance as I entered 
 the room. I ran up to her in the transport of my 
 joy. She appeared to be extremely shocked and 
 frighted ; and has since confessed to me that she 
 
 J
 
 HISTORY OF ARNOLD DU TILB. 
 
 49 
 
 1 apprehended my trouble had throwia me out of 
 iiij"=Hlf, till I communicated my happiness to her. 
 She tlicn advised me to retire to some place of 
 security, iir that the king was highly displeased, 
 and even enraged at the petition I had presented 
 to him, and had complained of it severely. I sent 
 for another chair ; for I always discharged them 
 immediately, lest I might be pursued. Her grace 
 said that she would go to court, to see how the 
 news of my lord's escape was received. "When 
 the news was brought to the king, he flew into an 
 excess of passion, and said he was betrayed, for 
 it could not have been done without some con- 
 federacy. He instantly dispatched two persons to 
 the Tower to see that the other prisoners were 
 s*'ll scijuied, lest they should follow the example. 
 Somp ♦; ,ew the blame upon one, some upon ano- 
 the. lut, duchess was the only one at court who 
 knew it. 
 
 " When I left the duchess, I went to a house 
 which Evans had found out for me, and where 
 she promised to acquaint me where my lord was. 
 She got thither some few minutes after me, and 
 told r .a, that when she had seen him secure she 
 went in search of Mr. Mills, who by that time 
 had recovered himself from his astonishment; that 
 he had returned to her house, where she had 
 found him ; and that he had removed my lord from 
 the first place, where she had desired him to wait, 
 to the house of a poor woman directly opposite to 
 the guard-house. She had but one small room up 
 one pair of stairs, and a very small bed in it. We 
 threw ourselves upon the bed, thai we might not 
 be heard walking up and down. We subsisted on 
 this provision from Thursday to Saturday night, 
 when Mr. Mills came and conducted my lord to 
 the Venetian ambassador's. "We did not communi- 
 cate the affair to his excellency ; but one of his ser- 
 vants concealed him in his own room till Wednesday, 
 on which occasion the ambassador's coach and 
 six was to go down to Dover to meet his brother. 
 My lord put on a livery and went down with the 
 retinue, without the least suspicion, to Dover, 
 where Mr. Mitchell (which was the name of the 
 ambassador's servant) hired a small vessel and im- 
 mediately set sail for Calais. The passage was so 
 remarkably short that the captain threw out this 
 reflection, that the wind could not have served 
 better if his passengers had been flying for their 
 lives, little thinking it to be really the case. Mr. 
 Mitchell might have easily returned without being 
 suspected of being concerned in my lord's escape ; 
 but my lord seemed inclined to have him continue 
 with him, which he did, and has at present a good 
 place under our young master. 
 
 " This is as exact and as full an account of this 
 affair, and of the persons concerned in it, as I 
 could possibly give you, to the best of my memory, 
 and you may rely on the truth of it. I am, with 
 the strongest attachment, my dear sister, yours 
 most affectionately, — Winifred Nithesdalt:.'' 
 
 The original MS. of this letter is in the pos- 
 session of Constable Maxwell, Esq., of Terreagles, 
 a descendant of the noble house of Nithesdale. 
 As a proof of the interest which the public took 
 in the extraordinary adventure which it details, 
 the following memorandum may be (juoted: — 
 '■ William Maxwell, Earl of Nithesdale, made his 
 escape from the Tower, February 2;'rd, 171;"), 
 dressed in a woman's cloak and hood, which were 
 for some time after called Nithcsdales." 
 
 XXXVI.— HISTORY OF ARNOLD 
 DU TILB. 
 
 Arnold Du Tilb, a native of Sagias, a village 
 near the city of Rieux, in the Upper Languedoc, 
 lived about the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 and was the object of a criminal prosecution, ex- 
 traordinary in its nature, perplexing and difficult 
 to decide. 
 
 At Artigues, a country hamlet only a few miles 
 from the place of Du Tilb's residence, lived a little 
 farmer whose name was Martin Guerre, married to 
 a modest, handsome young woman born in that 
 neighbourhood, but himself of the Spanish pro- 
 vince of Biscay : they had a son, and, for their 
 situation in life, possessed tolerable property. 
 
 Ten years after their marriage, in consequence 
 of a dispute with his father-in-law, Martin sud- 
 denly quitted his family ; and charmed with the 
 licentious freedom of a roving life, or cooled in 
 his affection towards his wife, although she had 
 conducted herself with exemplary propriety, had 
 not been seen or heard of for eight years. 
 
 It was during this long absence (to lovers as 
 well as husbands a dangerous interval) that Arnold 
 du Tilb, the subject of our present article, who 
 had formerly seen and admired the wife of Martin 
 Guerre, meditated a most perfidious and cruel 
 stratagem. 
 
 In age and appearance he greatly resembled the 
 absent man : like him, too, Du Tilb having for 
 many years quitted his country, was generally 
 considered as dead ; and having made himself 
 acquainted with all the circumstances, connexions, 
 and general habits of Guerre, as well by collateral 
 inquiries as by actual association with him during 
 two campaigns as a private soldier, he boldly pre- 
 sented himself to the wife and family as her long- 
 lost husband. 
 
 The risk he incurred and the difficulties he en- 
 countered were considerable : a thousand little cir- 
 cumstances which it is easy to imagine but unneces- 
 sary to describe, must daily and hourly have led him 
 to the brink of destruction ; indeed, it is not easy to 
 conceive how he could succeed, unless the unhappy 
 dupe of his delusion had been herself a promoter of 
 the deceit, which does not appear to have been the 
 case. 
 
 The stranger at once and without hesitation was 
 received with transports of joy by the wife and all 
 the family, which at that time consisted of four of 
 her husband's sisters and an uncle. One of them 
 remarking that his clothes were somewhat out of 
 repair, he replied, " Yes," and in a careless and 
 apparently unpremeditated way desired that a pair 
 of taffety breeches might be brought him. His wife, 
 not immediately recollecting where she had jjut 
 them, he added, " I am not surprised you have 
 forgot, for I have not worn them since the christen- 
 ing of my son : they are in a drawer at the bottom 
 of the large chest in the next room." In this plHC<^ 
 they were found and immediately brought to him. 
 
 The supposed Martin's return was welcomed by 
 the neighbours in the old French way, with song and 
 dance; and be enjoyed the jjrivileges and pleasures, 
 he shared the emoluments and cares of a liusband, 
 and a few days after his arrival repaired to Rieux 
 to transact some necessary law business, which had 
 been deferred in consequence of his absence : the 
 fond coui)le liveil apparently happy for three years, 
 in which time two children were added to thenr 
 family. 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 HISTORY OF ARNOLD DU TILB. 
 
 But their tranquillity was graJuallj- interrupted 
 by the uncle, whose suspicions of imposture were 
 first excited by a traveller passinir through the vil- 
 lage : this person hearing the name of Martin 
 Guerre accidentally mentioned, declared that eigh- 
 teen months before he had seen and conversed with 
 an invalid of that name in a distant province of 
 France, who informed him that he had a wife and 
 children in Langneiloc, but that it was not his de- 
 sign to return during the life of his uncle. 
 
 The stranger being sent for and privately ques- 
 tioned, repeated in a clear and consistent manner 
 what he had before communicated, confirmed the 
 apprehensions of the uncle that the real Martin 
 Guerre was still absent, and added, that since 
 quitting his wife he had lost one of his legs in the 
 battle of St. Quintin. 
 
 The family, alarmed by this account, now saw 
 or thought they saw many little circumstances, 
 which had before escaped their notice, but all tend- 
 ing to prove that the man with whom Mad. Guerre 
 cohabited, and by whom she had had two children, 
 was not in fact her lawful husband. 
 
 But they found it extremely difficult to convince 
 the deluded female of her mistake ; and she loudly 
 and with tears insisted that her present domestic 
 companion was her first love, her real and original 
 husband : it was not till after several months that 
 the unhappy woman was at length prevailed on to 
 prosecute the impostor. 
 
 He was taken into custody and imprisoned by 
 the order of the criminal judge of Rieux, and a 
 time fixed for examining the evidence and hearing 
 what Du Tilb had to offer in his defence. 
 
 On the day appointed, the off'ender was brought 
 into court, followed by a number of people whose 
 curiosity was naturally excited : the deposition of 
 the traveller concerning the absent Martin Guerre 
 was first read ; the uncle, the sisters, and many of 
 the inhabitants of Sagias were next closely ques- 
 tioned on their oath. Some declared that the pri- 
 soner was not Martin Guerre, others as positively 
 insisted that he was the identical person, corrobo- 
 rating their testimony by many collateral circum- 
 stances ; but the greater number averred without 
 scruple that the resemblance between the two, if 
 two there were, was so great, that it was not in 
 their power to distinguish them : the weight of evi- 
 dence was thought by many to preponderate in 
 favour of the prisoner. 
 
 The judge demanding of him what he had to say 
 in his defence, he answered without embarrass- 
 ment, that the whole was a conspiracy of the 
 uncle and a certain part of the family, who taking 
 advantage of the easy temper and weak understand- 
 ing of his wife, had contrived the story in order to 
 be rid of him and to get possession of his property, 
 which he valued at eight thousand livres. 
 
 The uncle, he observed, had for some time taken 
 a dislike to him, had frequently assaulted him, and 
 in one instance would have killed him by the stroke 
 of an iron bar on his head, had he not fortunately 
 parried the blow. 
 
 The remark of the prisoner on the weakness of 
 his wife's understanding served to diminish the 
 surprise of the court at her being so easily duped, 
 nor indeed could they blame any relation for en- 
 deavouring in any manner they were able to expel 
 the violator of the wife and property of their kins- 
 man. 
 
 Du Tilb then proceeded to inform the court of 
 
 the reasons which first induced him to quit his 
 house and family ; related minutely where, how, 
 and with whom he had passed his time ; that he 
 had served in the French army seven years, and 
 on his regiment being disbanded had entered into 
 the Spanish service, from which, being impatient 
 to see his wife, and sorely repenting that he had 
 ever quitted her, at a considerable expense he pro- 
 cured his discharge and made the best of his way 
 to Artigues. At this place, notwithstanding his 
 long absence and the loss of his hair, he was di- 
 rectly and universally recognised by his old ac- 
 quaintance, and received with transports of joy by 
 his wife and sisters, and particularly by his uncle, 
 although that unnatural and cruel relation had now 
 thought proper to stir up the present prosecution 
 against him. 
 
 The prisoner, in consequence of certain leading 
 questions from the judge, gave a minute description 
 of the situation and peculiar circumstances of the 
 place in Biscay where he said he was born (still 
 insisting that he was Martin Guerre), mentioning 
 the names, ages, and occupations of the relations 
 he had left there, the year, the day, and the month 
 of his marriage, also the persons who were present 
 at the ceremony, as well as those who dined with 
 them ; which, on referring to collateral evidence, 
 were found to tally. 
 
 On the other hand, forty-five reputable and cre- 
 dible witnesses, who were well acquainted with 
 Martin Guerre and Arnold du Tilb, swore that the 
 prisoner was not and could not be Martin : one of 
 these, Carbon Barreau, maternal uncle of Du Tilb, 
 acknowledged his nephew with tears, and observ- 
 ing that he was fettered like a malefactor, bitterly 
 lamented the disgrace it would bring upon his 
 family. 
 
 These persons also insisted that Martin Guerre 
 was tall, of a slender make, and as persons of that 
 form frequently are, awkward and sloping in his 
 gait ; that he had a remarkable way of protruding 
 and hanging down his under lip ; that his nose was 
 flat, and that several scars were to be seen on his 
 left eyebrow and other parts of his face. 
 
 On the contrary, they observed that Du Tilb was 
 a middle-sized, well-set man, upright, with thick 
 legs, a well-formed nose, and without anything 
 remarkable about his mouth or lips : they agreed 
 that his countenance exhibited the same scars as 
 that of Martin. 
 
 The shoemaker who had for many years fur- 
 nished Guerre with shoes, being called, deposed 
 that his foot reached the twelfth size, but that the 
 prisoner's was rather short of the ninth : it further 
 appeared that he formerly had, from his early 
 youth, been dexterous at cudgeling and wrestling, of 
 which the impostor was wholly ignorant. 
 
 As a strong circumstance against the person ac- 
 cused, it was added, that his manner of speaking, 
 and the sort of language he used, though at times 
 artfully interlarded with patois and unintelligible 
 gibberish, was very different from that which used 
 to be spoken by the real Martin Guerre, who, 
 being a Biscayan, spoke not wholly Spanish, wholly 
 French, nor wholly Gascon, but a curious mixture 
 of each, a sort of language called the Basque. 
 
 Lastly, and wh-at seemed to make an impression 
 on the court, the prosecutors referred to the in- 
 ternal evidences of the offender's character, which 
 they proved had been from his childhood vicious 
 and incorrigible in the extreme : they produced
 
 HISTORY OF ARNOLD DU TILB. 
 
 51 
 
 satisfactory proofs of his being hardened in all 
 manner of wickedness and uncleanness, a common 
 swearer and blasphemer, a notorious profligate, 
 every way capable of the crime laid to his charge. 
 
 The accusation lay heavy upon the prisoner, a 
 pause ensued for deliberation, and the court, fa- 
 tigued by a long and patient examination of a host 
 of witnesses, took refreshment; the town-house 
 being still crowded by persons impatient to give 
 their testiijiony in behalf of the prisoner, whom 
 they considered and pitied as an injured man. 
 
 The first parties next examined astonished the 
 judge and staggered the whole court. They were 
 the four sisters of Martin Guerre, all reputed to 
 be women of sound understanding and of cha- 
 racter iiub;emished : they positively swore that the 
 mar in -..ujtody was " their dear brother Martin." 
 Two of liioir husbands, and thirty-tive persons 
 born or brought up in the neighbourhood, corrobo. 
 rated their assertions. Among others, Catherine 
 Boere, who carried Martin and his wife the me- 
 dianoche, or as an Englishman would call it the 
 sack-posset, after they were put to bed on their 
 wedding-night, declared, as she hoped for ever- 
 lasting salvation, that the prisoner and the man 
 she saw in bed with the bride was the same 
 person. 
 
 The majority of these last witnesses also de- 
 posed that Martin Guerre had two scars in his 
 face, and that the nail of his forefinger on the k-ft 
 hand in consequence of a wound received in his 
 childhood grew across the top of his finger ; that 
 he had three warts on the back of his right hand 
 towards the knuckles, and another on his little 
 finger. The judge ordered the culprit to stretch 
 forth both his hands, which were found to agree 
 with this description- 
 It further appeared, that on his first arrival at 
 Artigues the prisoner addressed most of the inha- 
 bitants by name, and recalled to the memory of 
 those who had forgotten him several circumstances 
 with respect to the village, on the subject of births, 
 marriages, and deaths, which had happened ten, 
 fifteen, and twenty years before ; he also spoke to 
 his wife (as he still insisted she was) of certain 
 circumstances of a very peculiar nature. 
 
 He who could give an assumed character so 
 strong a resemblance to reality, and so dexterously 
 clothe falsehood in the robes of truth, was no 
 common impostor. Like other great villains, he 
 must have been a man of abilities. 
 
 To add to the perplexities of this business, the 
 wife being called, her pretended husband solemnly 
 addressed and called on her, as she valued peace 
 of mind here and everlasting happiness hereafter, 
 to speak truth without fear or aft'ection ; that he 
 would submit to instant death, without repining, 
 if she would swear that he was not her real hus- 
 band. The woman replied, that she would by no 
 means take an oath on the occasion : at the same 
 time she would not give credit to anything he 
 could say. 
 
 The evidence on both sides being closed and 
 the defence of the prisoner having been heard, the 
 judge pronounced Arnohi du 'i'ilb guilty, and sen- 
 tenced him to suffer death ; but the culjirit ap- 
 pealed to the parliament of Toulouse, who not 
 long after ordered a co[)y of the proceedings and 
 the convict to be forthwith transmitted to them. 
 
 The parliament, at that period a court of justice 
 as well as registry of royal edicts, wisely deter- 
 
 mined to take no decisive step in the business tili 
 they had endeavoured to get sight of and secure 
 the man with the wooden leg, as described by the 
 traveller, the uncle strenuously insisting that he 
 and no other was his long-lost nephew. 
 
 A commission was called to examine the papers 
 and call for new evidence, if necessary ; descrip- 
 tions of the person and circumstances of Martin 
 Guerre, the absent husband, were also circulated 
 throughout the kingdom. At length, after several 
 months had elapsed, and considerable pains had 
 been taken, the absentee was fortunately disco- 
 vered in a distant province, conveyed to Toulouse 
 and ordered into close custody, with particular 
 directions that he should have no intercourse with 
 any person whatever, even at his meals, but in the 
 jjresence of one of the commissioners, who ordered 
 an additional lock to the door of the room in 
 which he was confined, and themselves kept the 
 key. 
 
 A day was fixed for a solemn and final re- 
 hearing, and a list of such witnesses as would be 
 required to appear before the parliament was in 
 the meantime sent to Rieux, for the purpose of 
 preventing the trouble and expense of conveying 
 to Toulouse so large a number of persons as had 
 crowded the court and streets of Rieux. 
 
 The parliament assembled at an early hour, the 
 former proceedings were read, the prisoner still 
 persisted in asserting his innocence, and com- 
 plained of the hardship and injuries he had suf- 
 fered. 
 
 The real Martin Guerre now walked into court 
 on his wooden leg, and Du Tilb being asked if he 
 knew him, undauntedly answered " No." The in- 
 jured husband reproaching the impostor for the 
 perfidiousness of his conduct, in basely taking ad- 
 vantage of the frankness of an old companion and 
 depriving him of his wife and property, Du Tilb 
 retorted the charge on his accuser. 
 
 The prisoner was thought a curious instance of 
 audacity, contrasted with simplicity of lieart and 
 unassuming manner : an impudent and flagitious 
 adventurer, who had for several years enjoyed 
 the wife and property of another, in the face of 
 his country endeavouring to persuade the injured 
 man out of his name and ])ersonal identity. It 
 was further observed, that the gesture, deportment, 
 air, and mode of speaking of the prisoner were 
 cool, consistent, and steady ; while those who ap- 
 peared in the cause of truth were embarrassed, 
 hesitating, confused, and on certain points con- 
 tradictory in their evidence. 
 
 The wife, the four sisters, and the imcle had 
 not yet seen the real Martin Guerre : they were 
 now called into court. The first who entered was 
 the eldest sister, who the moment she caught sight 
 of the man with the wooden leg, ran and embraced 
 him, exclaiming with tears, " Oh, my dear brother, 
 I now see and acknowledge the error and misfor- 
 tune into which this abominable traitor hath be- 
 trayed us." 
 
 The rest of the family, as they approached, con- 
 fessed in a similar way how much they had been 
 deceived; and the long-lost Martin, mingling his 
 tears with theirs received their embraces, and 
 heard their penitential apologies with every ap- 
 pearance of tenderness and aft'ection. 
 
 But towards his wife he deported himself very 
 differently: she hud not yet ventured to come near 
 him, but stood at tlic entrance of the court trem- 
 
 E 2
 
 FIVE STORIES OF THIEVERY. 
 
 bling and (Hsmnycil. One of the sisters takins,' licr 
 anil couilucted her to iMartiii ; but he viewed her 
 with sternness and aversion, and in rejily to the 
 excuses and advances slie made and the inter- 
 cession of his sisters in Iier behalf, " that she was 
 herself innocent, but seduced by the arts of a vil- 
 lain," he observed, " Her tears and her sorrow are 
 useless: I shall never love her again : it is in vain 
 that you attempt to justify lier, from the circum- 
 stance of so many others having been deceived ; a 
 wife has always ways of knowing a husband un- 
 known to all the world. In such a case as this 
 it is impossible that a woman can have been im- 
 posed on, if she had not entertained a secret wish 
 to be unfaithful. J shall for ever regard her as the 
 cause of all my misfortunes, and impute solely to 
 her the whole of my wretchedness and disgrace." 
 
 The judge, reminding the angry husband that if 
 he had remained at home nothing of what had 
 happened could have ever taken place, recom- 
 mended lenity and forgiveness. 
 
 Du Tilb was pronounced guilty of fraud, adul- 
 tery, sacrilege, rape, and theft, and condemned to 
 make the amende honorable in the market-place of 
 Artigues in his shirt, with his head and feet bare, 
 a halter round his neck, and a lighted torch in his 
 hand : to demand pardon of God, the king, the 
 nation, and the family whom he had so cruelly 
 deceived. It was further ordered that he should 
 be hanged before the dwelling-house of Martin 
 Guerre, and that his body should be burned to 
 ashes. His effects were adjudged to be the pro- 
 perty of the children begotten by him on Martin's 
 wife. 
 
 The criminal was taken back to Artigues, and 
 as the day of execution approached was observed 
 to lose his firmness. After a long interview with 
 the cure he at last confessed his crime, acknow- 
 ledging that he was first tempted to commit it by 
 being frequently mistaken for and addressed by 
 the name of Martin Guerre. He denied having 
 made use of charms or of magic, as many sus- 
 pected, very properly observing that the same 
 supernatural art which could enable him to carry 
 on his deception, would also have put it in his 
 power to escape punishment. 
 
 He was executed according to his sentence, 
 first addressing a few words to Martin Guerre's 
 wife, and died offering up prayers to the Almighty 
 to pardon his sins through the merits and media- 
 tion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 [This singular narrative is authenticated by the 
 respectable evidence of Gayot de Pitavel, and 
 related in good Latin by the worthy De Thou.] 
 
 XXXVII.— FIVE STORIES OF THIEVERY. 
 
 [We take these from one of those celebrated 
 old book-stall books which were written hundreds 
 of years ago, when men only published because 
 they were in earnest, and which therefore are 
 interesting in their very errors and old wives' 
 fables. It is a folio, on all sorts of curious sub- 
 jects, printed in a honest old type, and is a trans- 
 lation (through a French medium) from the Latin 
 of Camerarius, a German scholar and essayist, 
 famous in his day, but who has come to nothing 
 with posterity for a certain insufficiency of dis- 
 crimination between good and bad, between what 
 is worthy of implicit acceptation and what to be 
 
 received with an accompaniment of doubt and a 
 greater nicety of criticism. 
 
 As we do not vouch for the truth of all the 
 stories, but have reason to do so for at least one of 
 them, the first, (which we have read often in au- 
 thentic books,) we have not divided them as usual 
 under heads of their own, but have lumped all to- 
 gether. The concluding one will remind Chaucer's 
 readers of his exquisite story of ' The Three 
 Thieves.'] 
 
 There is a certain French booke (quoth our 
 author) set foorth in our time, entituled ' An In- 
 troduction to the Treatise of the Conformitie of 
 ancient Wonders with Moderne,' &c., in which 
 many notable pilferings are related, and some of 
 them (to my seeming) almost incredible, as well 
 for the bold parts as the cunning tricks of the 
 thceues. I will liere set down some of them, as 
 they are found there. In the time of King Francis, 
 the first of that name, a certaine theefe, appa- 
 relled like a gentleman, as he was dining into a 
 great pouch which John Cardinall of Lorraine 
 had hanging by his side, was espied of the king, 
 being at masse, and standing right ouer against 
 the cardinall. The theefe perceiuing himselfe 
 spied, hold vp his finger to the king, making a 
 sign that he should say nothing and he should 
 see good sport. The king, glad of such nieriment 
 and that he should haue cause to laugh, let him 
 alone, and within a while, after comming to the 
 cardinall, tooke occasion, in talking with him, to 
 make the cardinall goe to his pouch, who missing 
 what he had put therein, begins to wonder : but 
 the king, who had seen the play, was as merrie 
 on the other side. But after the king had well 
 laughed, he would gladlie that the cardinall should 
 haue had againe what was taken from him, as in- 
 deed he made account that the meaning of the 
 taker was ; but whereas the king thought he was 
 an honest gentleman and of some account, in 
 that he showed himselfe so resolute, and held his 
 countenance so well, experience showed that he 
 was a most cunning thiefe, gentlemanlike, that 
 meant not to iest, but, making as if he iested, was 
 in good earnest. Then the cardinall turned all 
 the laughter against the king, who using his 
 wonted oth, swore by the faith of a gentleman, 
 that it was the first time that ever a theefe had 
 made him his companion. 
 
 The other theeuish trick was plaid in the pre- 
 sence of the Emperor Charles the Fift. He upon 
 a day comanding a remooue, while everie man was 
 busied in putting up his stuffe, there entred a good 
 fellow into the hall where the emperour then was, 
 being meanely accompanied and readie to take 
 horse. This theefe hauing made a great reuerence, 
 presently went about the taking downe of the 
 hangings, making great hast, as if he had much 
 business to doe ; and though it was not his pro- 
 fession to set up and fake downe hangings, yet he 
 went about it so nimbly, that he whose charge it 
 was to take them downe comming to doe it, found 
 that somebodie had already eased him of that 
 labour, and (which was worse) of carrying them 
 away. 
 
 But the boldnesse of an Italian theefe was as 
 great, who plaied this part at Rome in the time of 
 Pope Paul the Third. A certaine cardinall hauing 
 made a great feast in his house, and the silver ves- 
 sells being lockt vp in a trunke that stood in a
 
 FIVE STORIES OF THIEVERY. 
 
 53 
 
 chamber next to the hall where the feast had beene, 
 whilst many were sitting and walking in this 
 chamber wayting for their masters, there came a 
 man in with a torch carried before him, bearing 
 the countenance of the steward and hauing a 
 jacket ou, who praied those that sate on the trunke 
 to rise vp from it, because he was to use the same ; 
 which they hauing done, he made it be taken vp 
 by certain porters that followed him in, and went 
 cleane away with it : and this was done while the 
 steward and all the seruants of the house were at 
 supper. 
 
 In the same chapter there be other strange and 
 notable tales of diners theeueries ; but it sufficeth 
 to have pickt out these three, which I take for the 
 most memorable among them. I will here add a 
 fovth, V, hich seemeth incredible, and excelleth all 
 the i' jsi for valour and boldnesse. Sabellicus set- 
 teth it downe with all the circumstances, and it is 
 thus : — A certaine Candiot, called Stamat, being 
 at Venice when the treasure was showed in kind- 
 uesse to the Duke of Ferrara, entred into the 
 chappell so boldly, that he was taken for one of 
 the duLe's domesticall seruants, and wondering at 
 so much wealth, instead of contenting himself with 
 the sight, he resolved from thenceforwarde to 
 commit some notable peece of theeiierie. Saint 
 Mark's church, guilded with pure gold very neere 
 all ouer, is built at the bottom round about, within 
 and without, with peeces or tables of marble. This 
 Grecian theefe, marueilous cunning and nimble, 
 devised to take out finely by night one of the tables 
 or stones of marble against that place of the church 
 where the altar stands, called " the children's 
 altar,"' thereby to make himself an eati'ance to the 
 treasure ; and hauing laboured a night, because 
 the wall could not in that time bee wrought 
 through, he laid the stone handsomely into his 
 place again, and fitted it so well as no man could 
 perceiue any show of opening it at all. As for the 
 stones and rubbish that he tooke out of the wall, 
 he carried it all away so nimbly and so cleanly, 
 and all before day, that he was neuer discovered. 
 Hauing wrought this many nights, bee got at 
 length to the treasure, and began to carle away 
 much riches of diuers kinds. I did once see this 
 treasure, and wondured at it, being admitted 
 amongst the trainc of the ambassador of Fredc- 
 ricke the Emperor. For besides an infinite num- 
 ber of precious stones set in worke, I saw there 
 twelue crownes. and as many brest-plates of golde, 
 set with an innumerable sort of jems, whose 
 brightnesse would have dazzled the eyes both of 
 the bodie and of the minde ; moreouer, pots of 
 aggat and other stones of price, the ears exceed- 
 ingly high esteemed because of their value : also 
 shrines, candlesticks, and manie other imi)lements 
 for altars, which were not only of j)>ire gold, but 
 also garnished with so many stones of worth, that 
 the gold was nothing in comparison thereof. I 
 speak not of the vnicorue's borne, which is infi- 
 nitely estimated, nor the dukes crowne, nor the 
 other peeces of exquisit worke, which this Greek 
 had carried away all by leasure. But (as it is 
 commonly said) adulterie and theft were neuer 
 long time hid ; and because this fault could not 
 be so soon diseouered, it so fell out that the au- 
 thorc tliereof laid it open, and the theefe bewraied 
 himself. He had a compeere in the citie, a gen- 
 tleman of the same isle of Candio, called Zacharias 
 Grio, an hi.nest man, and of a good conscience. 
 
 Stamat one day taking him aside neere to the 
 altar, and drawing a promise from him that bee 
 should keepe secret that which he should tell him, 
 diseouered from the beginning to the end all that 
 he had done, and then carries him to his house, 
 where he shows him the inestimable riches he had 
 stollen. The gentleman, being vertuous and con- 
 scionable, stood amazed at the sight, and quaking 
 at the horror of the offence began to reele, and 
 could no longer stand. Whereupon Stamat (as 
 they say), like a desperat villaine, was about to 
 have killed him in the place ; and as his will of 
 doing it increased, Grio, mistrusting him, stayed 
 the blow by saying, that the extreame joy which 
 he conceiued in seeing so many precious things, of 
 which he neuer thought to haue had any part, had 
 made him (as it were) beside himself. Stamat, 
 content with that excuse, let him alone. Of the 
 other side, Grio receiued in gift of him a precious 
 stone, and of exceeding great value, and is the 
 same that is now worne in the forepart of the 
 duke's crowne. So making as if he had some 
 weightie matler to despatch, forth he goes of the 
 house, and hies him to the palace, where hauing 
 obtained accesse to the duke, he reuealeth all the 
 matter, saying withall that there needed expedi- 
 tion, otherwise Stamat might rouse himself, looke 
 about him, disguise himself, shift lodging, or saue 
 himself otherwayes with the best of his bootie. 
 To giue the more credit to his words he drew forth 
 of his bosome the precious stone that had been 
 giuen him ; which scene, some were sent away 
 with all speed to the house, who laid hold of 
 Stamat, and all that he had stollen, amounting to 
 the value of two millions of gold, nothing thereof 
 being (as yet) remoued. So he was hanged be- 
 tween two pillars; and the informer (besides a 
 rich recompense which he had at that time re- 
 ceiued) had a yearly pension out of the public 
 treasurie for so long time as he lined. 
 
 Petrus lustinianus reciteth the same story after 
 Sabellicus, and withal setteth downe another of our 
 time that fell out in the same citie of Venice. A 
 Neapolitan found meanes, with counterfeit keyes, 
 to vnlock the common treasurer's chamber, and the 
 yron chests that were therein, full of the common 
 treasure, and carried away eight thousand crowns. 
 But in a few days bee was taken, and by sentence 
 of the Tenne, after bee had his right hand cut off, 
 was hanged at an high gibbet set vp of purpose in 
 the place called the Realto, neere to which the rob- 
 bcrie had been done. 
 
 To the aforesaid description of the treasure of 
 Venice set downe by Sabellicus, I thinke not amiss 
 to annexe that which Phillip de Commines, a wit- 
 nesse worthie to bee credited, reportetu to haue 
 himselfe scene. " There is at Venice," saith he, 
 " Saint Mark's church, one of the fairest and best 
 furnislit that a man shall see ; in it lies the treasure 
 BO much s|)oken of all the world ouer; the same 
 consisteth of certaine > eric rich ornaments of that 
 church, of pearles in number fourteen, not polished ; 
 twelue golden crownes, with wliich, in times past, 
 they used to decke and set foorth twelue women. 
 But on a day as they were solemnizing that pompe, 
 it ha])pened that certain theeues took and carried 
 away those women with their crownes, who, being 
 afterwards rescued and recouered, their husbands 
 gave and dedicated these crowns to Saint Mark, 
 and built a cha]K'll, into whi(;h the lords of the 
 counccll enter once euerie ycare, namely, the day
 
 54 
 
 THE LIFE OF A YOUNG JACOBITE SAVED BY MIIS. GARRICK. 
 
 of the recoverie of the women." In a little Italian 
 booke, setting out the memorable things of Venice, 
 wee read that among tlie riches of this treasure 
 there is also the Duke's Cap, made not long ago, 
 which is estimated at above two hundred thousand 
 crowns. Tliis treasure hath been made vp into 
 such a lieape, partly by the spoile of Constantinople, 
 at such time as the French and the Venetians 
 ouercame it, and of other cities conquered, and 
 partly by presents giuen to that commonwealth by 
 diuers princes. There be some that tell an old 
 fable, that this treasure was brought to Venice by 
 foure riche merchants, two of which thinking it 
 vntit the treasure should haue so many owners, 
 resolved to poison the other two, which two (not 
 knowing the determination of their companions) 
 purposed the same likewise of their part, so that 
 they were poisoned all foure, and died without 
 heires : whereupon the Seigniorie of Venice seazed 
 on all the wealth which they had left ; and this 
 (they say) is signified by the four images of por- 
 phirie that stand by the great gate of the common 
 jjalace embracing one another. This the author 
 of that little booke saith. This treasure they vse 
 to set out at shew euery yeare at certaiue solemne 
 feasts, upon the great altar in St. Mark's church ; 
 and I doe not think that in all those countries 
 which we call Christendom, there is any so rich, 
 although that of St. Denys, in France, be very 
 faire, marueilous rare, and of greate value. 
 
 XXXVIII.— THE LIFE OF A YOUNG JA- 
 COBITE SAVED BY MRS. GARRICK. 
 
 [It is proper to state that we have no other 
 authority for the following story than that of the 
 fair unknown who has sent it us ; but we take for 
 granted, from the style of her letter, that she is in 
 every sense of the word " fair ;"' and this is one of 
 the reasons why we have not thought fit to alter 
 it. We need not add how delighted we are with 
 her approbation, nor that we cordially agree with 
 the remarks which accompany her quotation from 
 Burns. 
 
 Mrs. Garrick was brought into the English 
 world under the patronage of Lord Burlington, as 
 a ilademoiselle Violette, a dancer. She had great 
 reputation in her art, and was very handsome. 
 Horace Walpole somewhere manifests the delicate 
 distress he suffered under (poor man), in being 
 asked by a brother patrician in a large party who 
 she was. He was ashamed to confess that she was 
 " a dancer ;" that is to say, that they had a beau- 
 tiful young lady in their company who had talents 
 enough to earn herself a livelihood by charming 
 the world.] 
 
 "June 24,18.34. 
 "Dear Sir, — Be not surprised at so familiar an 
 address from a stranger, for although I may be and 
 am a stranger to you, you are not a stranger to me, 
 but on the contrary an old and well-known friend, 
 with v;hose modes of thought and feeling I am 
 intimately acquainted, although I have never seen 
 your face nor heard your voice. I am not very old, 
 (I may yet call myself two years on the sunny side 
 of thirty), but for by far the greater part of my life 
 I have been an admiring and sympathising reader 
 of yours. * * * * Judge then 
 
 of my joy at hearing of the first appearance of 
 the ' London Journal,' which (even in my remote 
 
 habitation, a little ' nook of mountain ground' in 
 green Erin) I managed to procure immediately, 
 and which it delights me to find every way worthy 
 of the name it bears. # * * 
 
 " After all this preamble, it is time I should get 
 to the real business of my letter, which is to offer 
 you a true story which I think not unworthy a 
 place amongst your ' Romances of Real Life.' I 
 shall give it to you as nearly as I can in the words 
 of the person who related it to me, now some years 
 since, when it made a very strong impression on 
 my mind. 
 
 " My informant, Mr. N., was related on the 
 mother's side to an ancient Catholic family named 
 IVildiny, of the north of England. In the rebellion 
 of 1715 this family were steady in their loyalty to 
 the house of Hanover ; so much so, that when the 
 rebel army approached the town (either Preston or 
 Carlisle) in which they resided, they fled from it 
 with the other loyalists. However, the family 
 mansion being one of the largest in the place was 
 made use of by the rebels as their head-quarters. 
 When the rebels were driven out, Mr. Wilding's 
 mansion was again seized by the triumphant army, 
 and raaugre his representations and the absolute 
 proofs he produced of his loyalty, was totally dis- 
 mantled and much valuable property carried off, 
 whilst his complaints were unheeded, and being a 
 Catholic he could get no redress. 
 
 " Such a reward for loyalty was not likely to 
 increase it in the bosoms of the sufferers: the in- 
 jury rankled in their hearts ; and when the Pre- 
 tender's standard was again hoisted in 1745, among 
 the first who flocked to it was the then head of the 
 family (son to the loyalist of 1715), with his only 
 son, a fine boy of fifteen. 
 
 " The disastrous results of that ill-fated under- 
 taking are well known. Among the prisoners 
 taken and condemned to death was young Wild- 
 ing ; but through the interest of the Earl of Bur- 
 lington, then secretary of state, the young man 
 received a pardon on condition of banishing him- 
 self for life to the North American colonies, where 
 be entered the army and was some years after 
 killed in a skirmish with the Indians, being the 
 last male descendant of his ancient family. 
 
 " These facts were communicated by an old 
 maiden grand-aunt, a sister of young Wilding, to 
 ^Ir. N., when about going for the first time to 
 London, with a strict charge to procure an inter- 
 view with the late Mrs. Garrick, to whose inter- 
 cession with Lord Burlington, whose natural 
 daughter she was supposed to be, the pardon of 
 Wilding was ascribed ; and to assure her that the 
 surviving members and connexions of that family 
 retained the warmest gratitude towards her. Vari- 
 ous circumstances combined to prevent Mr. N. 
 from performing this duty at that time, nor was it 
 till a short time before her death that his interview 
 with Mrs. Garrick took place. He said the old 
 lady appeared scarcely to heed or understand his 
 words, whilst apologising for his visit and explain- 
 ing its cause, until he mentioned the name of 
 Wilding, when her countenance became lit up 
 with sudden animation, and she said, ' Wilding 1 
 O yes ! I remember him as it were but yesterday ; 
 yet it is long, long since : I was scarce more than 
 a child myself;' and she commenced the narrative 
 with a precision and vivacity strongly conti'asted 
 with her former apathy. 
 
 " It was, she said, not long after her arrival in
 
 STORY OF FIRMIEN DA COSTA. 
 
 55 
 
 England, Lord Burlington had, as was his frequent 
 practice, called on her in his carriage to take an 
 airing. As soon as she was seated he ordered the 
 coachman to the Tower, saying carelessly to her, 
 ' I must first go there to see the state prisoners 
 ordered for execution to-morrow : it is a customary 
 form ; if you like, you can come in with me.' She 
 felt shocked at the manner in which he spoke, yet 
 curiosity prevailed, and she entered the Tower with 
 him. The prisoners were summoned, and the 
 usual inquiries made whether there was any in- 
 dulgence they might wish for — any last request. 
 Amongst the number were some of note : the gal- 
 lant and handsome Dawson, the hero of Shenstone's 
 touching ballad, for whom a young heart was then 
 breakii',- and the youthful Wilding. 'I see him 
 no'^y/ Rf.id Mrs. Garrick, kindling as she spoke, 
 ' V- tJti.utiful boy, as he stood calm and unmoved 
 before us. I shuddered as I thought of Lord Bur- 
 lington's fatal words before we entered. Everyone 
 you are to see must die to-morrow, and I vowed 
 inwardly they should not shed that boy's young 
 blood. No sooner were the prisoners removed, 
 than I flung myself at Lord Burlington's feet ; I 
 wept, i implored him to save the youth. Asto- 
 nished at my vehemence, he tried to put me off; 
 but I persisted — I became more urgent — I declared 
 I should never know a moment's peace were he to 
 die. Lord Burlington was moved by the agony of 
 his child, for he was my father,' continued she ; 
 ' he promised, and performed his promise. The 
 pardon was obtained, and I was satisfied.' 
 
 " Such is my story. Mr. N. added his suspicion 
 that Mrs. Garrick's sudden zeal had been caused 
 by a passion for the young captive ; that she had, 
 as the vulgar phrase is, ' fallen in love at first 
 sight.' But 1 reject the inference : I know my 
 sex better ; and I think — you, I hope, will agree 
 with me — that there is a sufficiency of what Burns 
 calls ' the melting blood in woman's breast ' to 
 account for her exertions on principles of pure 
 humanity, called into immediate action by the 
 extremity of the case — and it was a shocking case: 
 a youth, a child almost, condemned to death for 
 merely following the advice and example of his 
 father, when incapable of judging for himself — and 
 perhaps rendered more acute by the callousness of 
 the man who could bring his daughter to witness 
 such a scene. Should you admit the above into 
 your pages, clothing it in your own language, you 
 will give me very great pleasure, 
 
 " I remain, dear Sir, with sincere good wishes 
 for your health and prosperity, and in particular 
 for the success of your present undertaking, 
 " Your constant reader, 
 
 " F. N. L." 
 
 XXXIX.— STORY OF FIRMIEN DA 
 COSTA. 
 
 [This man should have married the heroine of 
 Goethe's story : they would have kept one an- 
 other in order. Firmien had virtues, but accom- 
 panied by a frightful power of sacrificing them to 
 his will and self-love. Under no circumstances 
 would his fiery nature have made living with him 
 a very secure or comfortable business, lie was of 
 the "loaded musket " order : nobody could have 
 been sure whether he would not go oil". His mas- 
 ter was a noble soul.] 
 
 FiKMiEN DA Costa was a Portuguese negro, the 
 property of a respectable and humane merchant at 
 Lisbon. 
 
 This extraordinary slave attending a public 
 spectacle, and stimulated by curiosity, had, with 
 other spectators, trespassed beyond the prescribed 
 boundaries, and, after being repeatedly desired to 
 keep back, was slightly goaded by a soldier with 
 his bayonet. 
 
 Exasperated by this provocation, Firmien de- 
 clared with bitter oaths and execrations that the 
 want of a weapon alone prevented him from laying 
 his assailant dead on the spot : with these, and 
 other expressions of ungovernable passion, he de- 
 parted breathing vengeance. 
 
 Making himself acquainted with the regiment, 
 company, and name of the man who had off'ended 
 him, he a few evenings after decoyed him by a 
 pretended message to a retired spot near his mas- 
 ter's house, and stabbed him to the heart. 
 
 Not satisfied with mere murder, he inflicted deep 
 wounds on various parts of the soldier's body, 
 whispered to the dying man who he was, men- 
 tioned tlie aff'ront he had received as his reason 
 for perpetrating the bloody deed, declared himself 
 satisfied, quitted his master's service, and concealed 
 himself in a distant wood. 
 
 The place in which the dead body was found, the 
 mark on the instrument of death which was lying 
 near it, and the circumstance of the master of the 
 murderer being the last person who had been seen 
 speaking to the soldier, strongly marked him as an 
 object of suspicion. 
 
 It was in vain that the imhappy merchant de- 
 clared his innocence, appealed to the general in- 
 offensive mildness of his character, and pointed 
 out the flight of one of his slaves as a presumptive 
 evidence of the fugitive's guilt : he was committed 
 to prison, and circumstances, in a case where no 
 positive proof could be found, being admitted in 
 its place, was condemned to die. 
 
 The sentence of the law reached the ears of the 
 assassin in his retreat, and the wretch who rather 
 than submit to a trifling injury had, with cir- 
 cumstances of peculiar barbarity, imbrued his hands 
 in the blood of a fellow-creature, could not bear 
 the self-accusation of ingratitude and injustice to 
 a master from whom he had long experienced kind- 
 ness and indulgence. 
 
 Nature, or nature's God, triumphed in his bosom ; 
 yielding to the salutary impulse, he presented 
 himself before a judicial tribunal, and confessed 
 himself the murderer. The judges paused with as- 
 tonishment ; they could scarcely believe that the 
 man who exhibited so transcendant an instance of 
 heroic virtue and strength of mind had recently 
 proved himself a merciless and a blood-thirsty 
 savage : after a reluctant pause, for examination 
 and regret, the defendant was taken into custody. 
 It is not easy to describe the feelings of the mer- 
 chant : although suddenly and unexpectedly rescued 
 from an ignominious death, the joy of deliverance 
 was considerably diminished when he reflected on 
 the guilt of his slave ; when he discovered that the 
 fondest and most faithful of his domestics, attached 
 to him by long servitude and valuable for tried 
 integrity, was an atrocious murderer. Yet a cha- 
 racter of such a cast was not a desirable inmate, 
 nor a safe attendant : the same ungovernable 
 ferocity of passion which hurried him into assassi- 
 nation, on some trifling occasion of petlishness,
 
 56 
 
 CASE OF JOHN AYMFFE. 
 
 ill-temper, or accidental aftVoiit, might have im- 
 pelloil him to destroy his master, his mistress, their 
 children, and the whole of his property. 
 
 jNIany applications were made to save the 
 culprit's life ; but all intercession was in vain, 
 AVith every appearance of triumphant joy, rather 
 than repentant sorrow, the negro was led to 
 execution. 
 
 In a country like Portugal, which affords scanty 
 materials for panegyric, I record with pleasure an 
 e\ami)le of grateful attachment and inflexible, un- 
 (•orrui)ted justice: Da Ct)sta's master, Emanuel 
 Cabral, whose name I omitted mentioning, and on 
 the faith of one of whose descendants I relate the 
 circumstance, would have given half his property 
 to save the offender's life. 
 
 XL.— CASE OF JOHN AYLIFFE. 
 
 [This story is romantic, if only for the excess of 
 meanness exhibited by the wretched subject of it, 
 in his application to Mr. Fox to save his life, at the 
 moment he was defending himself elsewhere at the 
 expense of that gentleman's charactei-. The Mr. 
 Fox in question, afterwards first Lord Holland, 
 was father of the celebrated Fox, and grandfather 
 of the present accomplished nobleman. We take 
 the narrative from the third volume of Mr. Britton's 
 'History of Wiltshire,' — in the preface of which, by 
 the way, we were much interested by the author's 
 candid account of his rise from humble life. Some 
 of the engravings also much interested us, especially 
 that of Mr. Bowles's residence, Bremhill Parsonage, 
 a proper nest for a clerical poet.] 
 
 TocKENHAM, ill the last century, was the birthplace 
 of an individual who was executed for forgery 
 under peculiar circumstances ; and whose fate 
 attracted much of the public attention from his 
 previous connexion with Henry Fox, the first 
 Lord Holland. The following account of this 
 transaction is taken principally from the statements 
 published in the ' Annual Register ' for 1759. 
 
 The parents of John Ayliffe were upper ser- 
 vants to Gerard Smith, Esq. He was early in life 
 placed at Harrow School, and qualified to become 
 a teacher at the free-school of Lyneham, with a 
 salary often pounds a year. While in that situa- 
 tion he married the daughter of a clergyman of 
 Tockenham, with a fortune of five hundred pounds, 
 against the consent of her relatives. This money 
 he spent extravagantly, and about two years after 
 his marriage he was taken into the family of Mrs. 
 Horner, mother of Lady Ilchester, as house- 
 steward ; and subsequently he was employed as an 
 agent for the management of her estates. Tliis 
 lady probably recommended him to Mr. Fox, who 
 procured for him the post of commissary of the 
 musters. He then built himself a house at Bland- 
 ford Forum, in Dorsetshire, and filled it with pic- 
 tures and costly furniture. By this extravagance 
 and by his abortive projects to gain money he 
 dissipated his income, though it was very consider- 
 able, and involved himself deeply in debt. Thus 
 pressed for money, he had recourse to several 
 fraudulent contrivances to relieve himself. He 
 forged a promise of presentation to the rectory of 
 Brinkworth, in the handwriting of Mr. Fox, 
 adding the names of two persons as subscribing 
 Avilnesses. By means of this paper he prevailed 
 on a clergyman to become his security in borrowing 
 
 money, and also to engage to marry a certain 
 young woman. It happened that the marriage 
 had not taken place when Ayliffe's affairs became 
 desperate ; but his failure ruined the unfortu- 
 nate clergyman, who died broken-hearted. After 
 his death the following paper was found in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "July 29, 1759, — wrote the following letter to 
 John Aylifie Satan, Esq. 
 
 *' Sir, — I am surprised you can write to me, 
 after you have robbed and most barbarously 
 murdered me. Oh ! Brinkworth ! — Yours, 
 
 " T. E d." 
 
 In April 1759, Ayliffe committed the forgery for 
 which he suffered. Mrs. Horner, to whom he had 
 been steward, at her death left her property 
 chiefly to Mr. Fox, and requested that gentleman 
 to make some provision for Ayliffe. Accordingly, 
 Mr. Fox executed the lease of an estate in Wilt- 
 shire to him for life, and for those of his wife and 
 son, reserving a rent of only thirty-five pounds, 
 which was much below the real annual value of 
 the property. Ayliffe some time after borrowed 
 money on the security of this lease ; and to make 
 it appear more valuable he copied it on a fresh 
 skin of parchment, altering the reserved rent from 
 thirty-five to five pounds. To this copy he forged 
 the name of Mr. Fox and of those witnesses who 
 had subscribed the real lease. To conceal this 
 transaction from the knowledge of Mr. Fox, he 
 proposed to the persons from whom he borrowed 
 the money an oath of secresy. This was not 
 agreed to, and he was obliged to be satisfied with 
 a promise that Mr. Fox should not be told of the 
 mortgage. But the interest of the money not 
 being regularly paid, the mortgagee felt himself no 
 longer bound to keep the secret ; and he accord- 
 ingly applied to Mr. Fox to pay off the mortgage. 
 This Mr. Fox declined doing ; and in the course 
 of the affair the amount of the reserved rent was 
 mentioned, the deed was produced, and the fraud 
 became manifest. In the meantime, about a 
 month after Ayliffe had forged the lease, he was 
 arrested for sums amounting to one thousand one 
 hundred pounds, and thrown into the Fleet pri- 
 son. During Lis confinement there he produced 
 a deed of gift from Mrs. Horner to himself of four 
 hundred and twenty pounds per annum, and three 
 thousand pounds in money. Mrs. Horner had 
 died towards the close of the year 1757 ; and 
 Ayliffe alleged that she, being unwilling to let 
 Lady Ilchester and her relations know how she 
 had disposed of this property, directed him not to 
 mentiou the donation till after her death. He 
 said he had since concealed the circumstance from 
 Mr. Fox, lest it should hurt his interest with that 
 gentleman. 
 
 Soon after this claim was set up, the forgery of 
 the lease was found out, and a prosecution insti- 
 tuted against Ayliffe for the crime. In the mean- 
 time he affected to represent Mr. Fox's proceed- 
 ings as being instituted with no other view than to 
 extort from him a renunciation of the deed of gift 
 which he ])rofessed to have received from Mrs. 
 Horner. So far did he persist in this diabolical 
 accusation, that at the very time he was supplica- 
 ting Mr. Fox for mercy, he wrote thus to the 
 Secretary of State : — 
 
 " Mr. Fox is now pleased to disown the signing 
 or setting his hand to the lease, alleging it not to 
 be original, though he acknowledged his having
 
 AWFUL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 57 
 
 signed the same lease, so mortgaged as aforesaid, 
 to severiil persons; and for this your petitioner is 
 convicted and sentenced to death." 
 
 At the same time that he sent the above accusa- 
 tion against Mr. Fox, he forwarded the following 
 letter to that gentleman : — 
 
 " Honoured Sir, — The faults I have been guilty 
 of shock my very soul, and particularly those, sir, 
 towards you, for which I heartily ask God and 
 your pardon. The sentence 1 have had pronounced 
 upon me fills me with horrors such surely as never 
 were felt by any mortal. What can I say 1 Oh, my 
 good God! that I could think of anything I could 
 do to induce you to have mercy on me, and prevail 
 on you, good sir, to intercede for my life. I would 
 do anytbii g in the whole world, and submit to 
 anytiiiMS' far my life, either at home or abroad. 
 Fut ' ' id'v sake, good sir, have compassion on your 
 unhappy and unfortunate servant, 
 
 " John Ayliffe." 
 
 " Press Yard, Newgate, Oct. 28th, 1 759." 
 
 Two days before he sent these letters he was 
 tried and convicted at the Old Bailey sessions, and 
 received the usual sentence. 
 
 Mr. Fox throughout the whole affair had 
 treated his ungrateful servant with much kindness 
 and generosity, procuring for him every couve- 
 nience which his situation would admit, and 
 sending him money and provisions, and paying the 
 rent of his apartment in prison. A proof of the 
 excessive depravity of this man is further evinced 
 in a letter be wrote to Mr. Pitt, who had ever been 
 the political antagonist of Mr. Fox. In this he 
 stated that it was in his power to make some dis- 
 closures relative to the conduct of the latter as a 
 minister of state, so much to his disadvantage, that 
 the knowledge of them would leave him entirely 
 at the mercy of Mr. Pitt. This application proved 
 worse than fruitless, as that gentleman was the 
 last person in the world who would have adopted 
 so mean a mode of undermining a rival. He for- 
 warded AylifTe's letter to Mr. Fox, who in justice 
 to his own character left the unfortunate man to 
 his fate. 
 
 Finding his artifices as ineffectiial as they were 
 wicked, Ayliffe then wrote again to Mr. Fox, 
 ottering to make a full confession of his guilt. In 
 reply, that gentleman told him that although he 
 pitied him and forgave him, he was not to expect 
 any advantage from his disclosures ; and that he 
 could only advise him to make his peace with 
 (iod. The culprit, finding his hopes of mercy 
 were at an end, confessed that the deed of gift 
 from Mrs. Horner was a fraud ; and that he had 
 prepared it ready for signing, and slipped it among 
 some leases which Mrs. Horner executed witliout 
 reading. 
 
 Ayliffe suffered the penalty of the law at 
 Tyhurn, November 19th, 1759 ; when he was 
 about thirty-six years of age. 
 
 XLI.— AWFUL OBEDIENCE; OR THE CUP 
 OF POISON TAKEN FOUR TIMES. 
 
 [The account of this affecting tragedy, which 
 api)C'ars to have occurred no long time since, is 
 taken from one of the comprehensive and en- 
 tertaining summaries published by the " Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," entitled 
 'The Hindoos.' A daughter thus sacrificed by an 
 
 otherwise affectionate parent, a sort of Eastern 
 Virginius, would make a striking drama ; only the 
 homely circumstance which constitutes one of the 
 most affecting points in the anguish — the refusal 
 of the stomach to second the poison — would have 
 to be modified. The doses given must be changed 
 into small ones — too small to produce any effect, 
 except perhaps an excited and eloquent wakeful- 
 ness. When actual and dreadful suffering is before 
 us, such homely manifestations of it become 
 nothing : the pettier is absorbed in the greater 
 idea. But human beings, unless given to sarcasm 
 and degradation, do not like to have physical 
 weaknesses deliberately presented to their imagi- 
 nations ; and even then they are apt to take refuge 
 (such as it is !) from the humiliation, in attempt- 
 ing to make a jest of it. A thorough delicacy, or 
 philosophy, in reducing everything to its elements, 
 moral or material, becomes superior to such pollu- 
 tion. And yet there is danger even in that ! So 
 nice and perplexing are the balances of things in 
 this world ; and so surely must all partake the 
 common burdens of liability, till all can be im- 
 proved. But we hasten from these mysteries to 
 our story.] 
 
 KiSHNA KoMAKi Bae, " the virgin princess Kishna," 
 was in her sixteenth year ; her mother was of the 
 Chawura race, the ancient kings of Anhulwara. 
 Sprung from the noblest blood of Hind, she added 
 beauty of face and person to an engaging demean- 
 our, and was justly proclaimed the flower of 
 Rajast'han. The rapacious and bloodthirsty 
 Pat'han, Nawab Ameer Khan, covered with 
 infamy, repaired to Oodipoor, where he was joined 
 by the pliant and subtle Ajit. He was meek in 
 his demeanour, unostentatious in his habits ; 
 despising honours, yet covetous of power : reli- 
 gion, which he followed with the zeal of an ascetic, 
 if it did not serve as a cloak was at least no 
 hindrance to an immeasurable ambition, in the 
 attainment of which he would have sacrificed all 
 but himself. When the Pat'han revealed his 
 design that either the princess should wed Kaja 
 Maun, or by her death seal the peace of Rajwarra, 
 whatever arguments were used to point the 
 alternative, the Rana was made to see no choice 
 between consigning his beloved child to the 
 Rahtore prince, or witnessing the effects of a more 
 extended dishonour from the vengeance of the 
 Pat'han, and the storm of his palace by his 
 licentious adherents : — the fiat passed that Kishna 
 Komari should die. 
 
 But the deed was left for a woman to accom- 
 plish — the hand of man refused it. The harem of 
 an eastern prince is a world within itself: it is the 
 labyrinth containing the strings tliat move the 
 puppets which alaru) mankind. Here intrigue sits 
 enthroned, and hence its influence radiates to the 
 world, always at a loss to trace effects to their 
 causes. Maharaja Dowlet Sing, descended four 
 generations ago from one common ancestor with 
 the Rana, was first sounded to save the honour 
 of Oodijioor ; but, horror-struck, he exclaimed, 
 "Accursed tlie tongue that commands it! Dust 
 on my allegiance, if thus to be preserved !" The 
 Maharaja Jownndas, a natural brother, was then 
 called upon : the dire necessity was explained, 
 and it was urged that no common hand could be 
 armed for the purjiosc. He a('ceptcd the poniard, 
 but when in youlliful loveliness Kishna ai)pcared
 
 58 
 
 TRIAL OF SI'ENCER (JOWPER. 
 
 before him, tlie dagger fell from his hand, and he 
 returned more wretehed tliaii tiie \ietini. Tlie 
 ftital purpose thus revealed, the shrieks of the 
 frantic mother reverberated through the palace, as 
 she implored mercy or execrated the murderers of 
 her child, who alone Avas resigned to her fate. 
 Hut death was arrested, not averted. To use the 
 iihrase of the narrator, " she was excused the steel, 
 the cup was prepared," and prepared by female 
 hands ! As the messenger presented it in the 
 name of her father, she bowed and drank it, send- 
 ing up a j)rayer for his life and prosperity. The 
 raving mother poured imprecations on his head, 
 while the lovely victim, who shed not a tear, thus 
 endeavoured to console her : — " Why afflict your- 
 self, my mother, at this shortening of the sorrows 
 of life'! I fear not to die ! Am I not your daughter 1 
 AVhy should I fear death % We are marked out 
 for sacrifice from our birth ; we scarcely enter the 
 world but to be sent out again ; let me thank my 
 father that I have lived so long.'' Thus she con- 
 versed, till the nauseating draught refused to assi- 
 milate with her blood. Again the bitter potion 
 was prepared, she drained it off, and again it was 
 rejected ; but, as if to try the extreme of human 
 fortitude, a third was administered, and for a third 
 time nature refused to aid the horrible purpose. 
 It seemed as if the fabled charm which guarded 
 the life of the founder of her race was inherited 
 by the virgin Kishna. But the bloodhounds, the 
 Pat'han and Ajit, were impatient till their victim 
 was at rest ; and cruelty, as if gathering strength 
 from defeat, made another and a fatal attempt. A 
 powerful opiate was presented, the kasoomba 
 draught. She received it with a smile, wished the 
 scene over, and drank it. The desires of bar- 
 barity were accomplished. " She slept !" a sleep 
 from which she never awoke. 
 
 XLII.— TRIAL OF SPENCER COWPER, 
 AFTERWARDS JUDGE COWPER, 
 
 GRANDFATHER OF THE POET. 
 
 [No comment need be made upon this singular 
 case, except perhaps that the poor girl, after all, 
 was less in love than she took herself to be ; other- 
 wise she never would have left such a sting in the 
 mind of an honest and well-meaning man. Wil- 
 fulness was predominant over lovingness.] 
 
 Spencer Cowper, a barrister-at-law, of fair cha- 
 racter and honourable family in the reign of 
 King William, and in the full career of a profit- 
 able practice, was accused of murdering the 
 daughter of a wealthy quaker at Hertford ; a 
 charge for which he was tried at the assizes of that 
 place, eleven years after the Revolution. And it 
 must be confessed that there were circumstances 
 in the conduct and behaviour of Mr. Cowper, and 
 other persons associated with him in the indict- 
 ment, which though not sufficient absolutely to 
 fix and bring home the crime upon them, certainly 
 required explanation. 
 
 Repairing to Hertford, as was his custom at the 
 assizes, he had been prevailed on by pressing and 
 repeated invitations from the fair quakeress to 
 dine, and pass a good part of the afternoon and 
 evening at the house of her mother, a respectable 
 widow, with whom she lived. He had been with 
 her almost the whole of the time without a third 
 
 person ; was the last who had been seen in her 
 company ; and at a late hour of the night they had 
 both gone out of doors, while the servant was 
 warming a bed, as she supj)osed for Mr. Cowper. 
 
 The unhappy female returned no more, and the 
 first news her miserable mother heard, after a 
 night of agitation, suspense, and anxiety, was, that 
 the corpse of her daughter had been found floating 
 in a river not far from their dwelling. 
 
 It is not necessary to describe the acute suffer- 
 ings of a parent, or the silent mortification of a 
 fraternity who if they have more than one fault, it 
 is, that with considerable temptations to triumph, 
 they somewhat overvalue themselves in excelling 
 most men in purity of manners. The coroner, 
 after as fair and impartial an inquiry as he was 
 able to make, pronounced it a case of lunacy ; and 
 the family followed their poor kinswoman to the 
 grave, with the hopeless regret that such kind of 
 deaths generally produce. 
 
 But reports unfavourable to the deceased, and to 
 the visitor of her family, were industriously circu- 
 lated by folly or by malice. Certain ignorant or 
 prejudiced bystanders asserted that they saw a 
 dark, circular mark round her neck, as they drew 
 the body from the water, and that the distension 
 wliich generally takes place in drowned bodies was 
 not observed. From these and other circum- 
 stances hastily taken u]), they rashly concluded 
 that the young lady had by no means destroyed 
 herself, but that some unwarrantable method, 
 probably strangling, had been made use of to 
 shorten her life before she was thrown into the 
 river. 
 
 It was also proved that a party of gentlemen, 
 friends and acquaintances of Mr. Cowper, and 
 some of them attendants on the judges of the 
 assize, had arrived at Hertford the night the de- 
 ceased was missing ; that they were heard to make 
 her the subject of their conversation, and to use the 
 following remarkable expression soon after their 
 arrival : — " Her courting days will soon be over: 
 a friend of ours will quickly be even with her." 
 
 It ought further to be mentioned that party po- 
 litics bad for many years run high at this place; 
 that Mr. Cowper's father, and we believe his bro- 
 ther, were at the period in question sitting mem- 
 bers for the town, after a warm and strongly con- 
 tested election : for these and other reasons it was 
 supposed that many circumstances were exagger- 
 ated, and that the opportunity was thought fa- 
 vourable and eagerly seized on by an exasperated 
 minority, to cast an odium on the family and con- 
 nexions of a successful candidate : the quakers 
 also were anxious to remove the stigma of suicide 
 and intrigue from a member of their society. 
 
 Whatever were the motives of the different per- 
 sons concerned, the public mind was highly agi- 
 tated and the populace inflamed. After much 
 cavil and clamour the body was disinterred, and 
 accurately examined by professional men ; who 
 after a long and elaborate discussion determined 
 that there were strong grounds for suspecting Mr. 
 Cowper and his associates of being guilty of 
 murder. The gentlemen were immediately taken 
 into custody, and arraigned at the ensuing assizes. 
 
 The position of a man of unblemished reputa- 
 tion, liberally educated, and by his connexion and 
 profession generally known and respected, thuo at 
 once accused of murder, attended with circum- 
 stances of i)eculiar foulness and aggravation, na-
 
 TRIAL OF SPENCER COWPER. 
 
 59 
 
 turally excited general curiosity and attention, and 
 produced a crowded court. To remove not only 
 from himself but his friends the danger as well 
 as disgrace attached to so shocking a charge, Mr. 
 Cowper brought a number of physicians, surgeons, 
 and anatomists, eminent in their day. Sir Hans 
 Sloaue, Sir Samuel Garth, and a namesake but 
 not relation of the barrister's, a diligent and ac- 
 curate dissector, who ouglit never to be named 
 without pjraise, these and many other gentlemen 
 proved, to the satisfaction of the court, that the 
 arguments adduced by the medical men in support 
 of the prosecution were unfounded and incon- 
 clusive ; that the circumstance of the corpse having 
 little or no water in the stomach did not originate 
 from its being dead previous to falling in, but that 
 it f'"Pi5Uci:tly occurred with suicides who plunge 
 in dL'teiiulned resolutely to die. That the case 
 was very different with those drowned by acci- 
 dents, who in their efforts to emerge, and often to 
 call for assistance, generally struggle for some 
 time and swallow a considerable quantity of 
 water. 
 
 This and much more of scientific theory, ab- 
 struse reasoning, and anatomical explanation, in 
 which judges, jurymen, and all unprofessional 
 men must be governed by the decisions of others, 
 Avas long and fully urged on both sides ; and con- 
 cluded in favour of the opinion that the young 
 woman had tliro-\vn herself into the river. 
 
 In answer to what had been said of a mark 
 round her neck, it was denied by several respect- 
 able witnesses that any such appeared. They 
 agreed that there was a discoloured spot below the 
 ear, and another near the collar-bone, but neither 
 of them circular, or such as a cord drawn tight on 
 the neck would have left : they were accidental 
 bruises, probably produced by the body falling 
 against piles near which it was found, or settle- 
 ments of blood, not unfrequent on such melan- 
 choly occasions. 
 
 After a long and impartial examination of a 
 variety of witnesses, Mr. Cowper was asked what 
 he had to say in his defence. Struggling between 
 the urgency of his case and the laudable delicacy 
 which has been generally observed in anything 
 that collaterally or directly relates to such subjects, 
 he was compelled to confess tliat the unhappy 
 young lady, on account of whose death he ap- 
 peared that day at the bar of a court in which he 
 liad so often pleaded, had long secretly nourished 
 and at length expressed a strong attachment to 
 him, which as a married man and as llie father of 
 a family, he had dissuaded her from giving way to 
 by every means in his power. 
 
 Tiie letters, in justice to himself and the gen- 
 tlemen who, by some strange concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances or some pei-verse misrepresentation 
 had been implicated with him in the charge, he 
 would presently submit to the inspection of the 
 court ; but he wished first to give a ])lain, imvar- 
 nishcd tale of the whole of his conduct with re- 
 spect to the deceased. 
 
 Mr. Cowper then proceeded to observe that 
 when she saw no probability of her passion meet- 
 ing with ap])roval,she became low-spirited, melan- 
 choly, negligent of her dress, and had been heard 
 in different places and by various persons to drop 
 expressions of discontent and despair, puqjorting 
 that her abode in tliis world would l)e of short 
 duration, of v/bich in due time he would bring 
 
 sufficient evidence. The very evening they spent 
 together, he observed, the last evening of her life, 
 the conversation, which he little thought of ever 
 repeating in public, was passed in soothing and 
 he had trusted salutary advice on his part, and in 
 tears and tender reproaches on hers ; and he threw 
 himself he said on the pity of every person pre- 
 sent, of either sex, to spare his entering into fur- 
 ther details on the subject, when he solemnly de- 
 clared that no alternative remained but his quit- 
 ting the house peremptorily and abruptly, with a 
 female endeavouring to convince him that he 
 should not do it, or forgetting the line of conduct 
 which in every respect became him. 
 
 Mr. Cowper tlien appealed to the general tenor 
 of his life and conversation, to which he called 
 many and respectable witnesses. He asked if any 
 reasonable motive could be adduced for his atro- 
 ciously murdering one who had long been his 
 client, the object of his most friendly regard and 
 commiseration, and who without any encourage- 
 ment from him had yielded to a fatal infatuation 
 which had deprived her of life ; one who, but for 
 this fatal weakness, might have been a credit and 
 comfort to her family ? He hoped that the situa- 
 tion in which he stood would not only excuse but 
 justify his making public that which otherwise 
 would never have passed his lips ; and having en- 
 tered into a long, circumstantial, and satisfactory 
 account of many particulars which it is not neces- 
 sary to repeat, and after producing strong vouchers 
 in confirmation of all that he had said, he con- 
 cluded with taking two letters out of his port- 
 folio, which the deceased had addressed to him. 
 These strongly corroborated the defence in every 
 particular. 
 
 Such letters, the more singular from having 
 been written by a quaker, and one too whose ge- 
 neral deportment had been consistent with the 
 prudent manners of the society, raised the curio- 
 sity of the court and excited the attention of the 
 judge, Mr. Baron Hatsell, who desired to look at 
 them. Having perused them as a literary novelty, 
 and seeing a brother of the deceased, he demanded 
 of him what he thought of the handwriting. " It 
 is like my sister's,"' replied the honest sectary, 
 struggling between his love of truth and fraternal 
 affection ; " but the sentiments avowed are so con- 
 tradictory and inconsistent with the whole tenor 
 of her previous life and conversation, thit I hesi- 
 tate in believing them to be hers." 
 
 Tlie same question being put to her mother, the 
 poor lady answered, with the asperity of a ])arent 
 i)ereft of her darling daughter under circumslances 
 so appalling, " Nothing will persuade me that 
 these abominations proceeded from the heart or 
 the pen of Sarah : I believe not a word of all that 
 has been said." Many of the intimate friends 
 however of the family, and several ])ersons un- 
 biassed by the ties of nature, interest, or corjjorate 
 feelings, were reluctantly compelled to confess that 
 the handwriting resembled that of the deceased 
 as nearly as possible, and that to the best of their 
 knowledge and belief they considered her as the 
 writer of the letters in question. 
 
 The persons indicted with Mr. Cowper being 
 called upon to ex])lain their singular conversation 
 (before alluded to) on the night of their arrival at 
 ilertford, replied that Mr. Marshall, a common 
 friend of themselves and Mr. Cow])er, had for- 
 merly paid his addresses to the deceased ; that for
 
 60 
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF FIESCO. 
 
 a certain time she encouraged, but at lenj^th re- 
 fused his oilers ; and that when they understood 
 Mr. Cowper was at her house, their ciiat over their 
 cups was uniruarded concerning her, liaving often 
 joked ]\Ir. INIarshall on the subject ; that the words 
 j)roduced against them they remembered to have 
 made use of; but they only meant, perha])s in a 
 spirit whieli tliey did not pretend to justify, tliat 
 the htirrister ought not to be very scrupulous in his 
 treatment of a woman who had behaved like a jilt 
 and a coquette to her former lover. 
 
 The accused parties were honourably acquitted. 
 
 XLIII.— THE CONSPIRACY OF FIESCO. 
 
 [Besides the reality of this event there is some- 
 thing, however brief, in the conjugal part of 
 Fiesco's history which comes home to the bosom 
 of familiar life ; nor is the trivial accident by which 
 he died witliout its interest, as a circumstance con- 
 tradicting the historical grandeur of his attempt.] 
 
 Giovanni Lodovico di Fiesco was a wealthy, 
 jiowerful, and ambitious nobleman of Genoa, 
 which may be called the land of political expe- 
 riment, as there is scarcely any form of govern- 
 ment which it has not tried. 
 
 After emerging from the yoke of the Romans, 
 the Lombards, and Charlemagne, it has at different 
 times been governed by dukes, by counts, by con- 
 suls, podestas, captains of the people, councils of 
 twelve and of twenty-four, and by doges ; but in 
 spite of every precaution has alternately expe- 
 rienced the evils of family cabals, aristocratic 
 usurpation, and popular insurrection. 
 
 Andrew Doria, a name still mentioned in Genoa 
 with reverence, seemed at length sent by heaven 
 to rescue his country from foreign interference and 
 domestic dissension. It was during this short in- 
 terval of repose (1547) that the subject of our pre- 
 sent article endeavoured to interrupt it, assisted 
 by the intrigues of France and of Alexander Far- 
 nese, who then governed Rome and the Church as 
 Pope Paul III. Most conspiracies have origi- 
 nated from the grievances of an 0])pressed people, 
 or the ruined fortunes of bold bad men and des- 
 perate individuals. But at the moment of that 
 insurrection which I propose to give a short ac- 
 count of, Genoa possessed more real freedom, hap- 
 ])iness, and peace, than it had enjoyed for several 
 centuries, and Fiesco united in an extraordinary 
 degree the precious gifts of fortune, fame, person, 
 and understanding. 
 
 In the prime of life, for he had scarcely reached 
 his twenty-second year, blessed with the affections 
 of a wife whom he tenderly loved, the beautiful, 
 the virtuous, and tender Eleanora, and enjoying 
 the friendship of his fellow-citizens, he was sti- 
 mulated by ambition to aim at supreme power. 
 
 To effect this purpose he joined an ardour, 
 which no obstacle could resist, with a deep policy 
 and premeditating coolness, which baffled or did 
 not excite sus])icion. Having secured men, arms, 
 and galleys, and distributed corn and money under 
 the pretence of a charitable donation, he em- 
 braced every opportunity of displaying himself to 
 the people in splendid attire, and mounted on 
 horses richly caparisoned, gaining the affections of 
 all by gentle manners and graceful familiarity. 
 
 On these occasions, as he conversed with the 
 citizens he would sometimes lament the pride and 
 
 op])ressive conduct of the nobles, and venture to 
 hint that a remedy was not imjiossible ; but, after a 
 short ]iause, recommend patience and submission. 
 Fiesco continued to visit as usual the two 
 Dorias, Andrew and Jeanetin, treating them on 
 all occasions with marked attention and respect. 
 
 To prevent any suspicion being excited by exer- 
 cising his vassals at his country-seat, he com- 
 plained that he had been insulted by the Duke of 
 Placentia, when in fact that prince had promised 
 to assist him with two thousand men, and he was 
 able to muster the same number himself. At the 
 port and on board the galleys he had also many 
 dependants. 
 
 To account for several of his armed galleys en- 
 tering the harbour, he proposed cruising against 
 the Turks. 
 
 The fatal, the guilty secret had as yet been com- 
 municated to three persons only, Calcagno, Sacco, 
 and Verrina, three of his most confidential friends 
 in this unwarrantable proceeding : the two first 
 deliberate, cautious, but determined ; the last 
 haughty, furious, and bloody-minded ; each of 
 them considering the plot in which they were en- 
 gaged as a means of gratifying envy and private 
 revenge, more than the probability of its success, 
 but all devoted to their leader by strong personal 
 attachment and considerable pecuniary obligation. 
 After many consultations the conspirators con- 
 sidered the means they possessed as fully adequate 
 to the object in view, and determined if possible 
 to dispatch the two Dorias without further delay, 
 as the vigilance, abilities, and patriotism of this 
 family were the chief obstacles to their design. 
 
 For this purpose they were invited to a public 
 entertainment at the Fiesco palace : thus a man 
 of rank, education, and considerable moral rec- 
 titude, who a few months before would have 
 started at injuring a fellow-creature in the slightest 
 degree, was stimulated by thirst for power to 
 stain his threshold with the blood of the venerable 
 fathers of his country, and under the guise of hos- 
 pitality to commit assassination. A sudden illness 
 of Andrew prevented the execution of this part of 
 their plan. 
 
 Fiesco thought it necessary to discover the con- 
 spiracy to Paul Pansa, the friend and tutor of his 
 youth, respectable for his age, his learning, and in- 
 tegrity, hoping that he would join and assist their 
 counsels. 
 
 Pansa replied that from the alteration in his 
 looks, manners, and mode of speaking, and from 
 his associating with persons of inferior rank and 
 doubtful reputation, he had long suspected that a 
 dangerous enterprise was in agitation ; that he had 
 forborne, from delicacy, friendship, and respect, 
 to enter on the subject, but although he would 
 not betray, he could not participate in the under- 
 taking. 
 
 The good old man conjured him by the honours 
 of his house, by bis friendship, by his belief in 
 that holy religion whose maxims it had been the 
 business of his life to inculcate and impress on his 
 mind, by those locks which were grey in the ser- 
 vice of his family, and lastly by his love for 
 Eleanora, not to throw away the real and certain 
 happiness he possessed for chimerical and hazard- 
 ous expectations, which if they succeeded could 
 not elevate him to a situation more splendid, ho- 
 nourable, and happy than that in which he was 
 already placed, but if they failed would be pro-
 
 ADAM FLEMING AND HELENA IRVING. 
 
 61 
 
 I 
 
 ductive of death, infamy, and confiscation to all 
 concerned. 
 
 That, to many of his associates, bankrupts in 
 fame as well as fortune, and looking only to what 
 they could get in a general plunder, massacre, and 
 confusion, such considerations were useless ; but 
 that men like himself and a few others, who had 
 something to lose, would do well coolly to weigh 
 the consequences and hazard of so momentous and 
 irretrievable a step. Neither argument nor en- 
 treaty could prevail on Fiesco, and the worthy 
 veteran departed from his palace in tears. 
 
 The evening of the next day was fixed for exe- 
 cuting their purpose, and a cannon fired in the 
 harbour by Verrina was to be the signal that he 
 w-.s ready to co-operate. 
 
 An p^i ^rtainment having been announced, many 
 gucbls icpaired to the palace, which they found 
 crowded with strangers and armed soldiers. The 
 persons invited being conducted to a spacious 
 saloon in a remote part of the building, found the 
 leader and principal conspirators assembled, when 
 Fiesco thus addressed them : — 
 
 " Thi hour at length approaches when you have 
 it in your power to relieve Genoa from the yoke 
 of a tyrannic and haughty nobility : in less than 
 an hour our portion will be honourable death, or 
 the recovery and establishment of our freedom on 
 a glorious and eternal basis. This is the feast to 
 ■which I have invited you. 
 
 " The younger Doria has for several years been 
 endeavouring to secure to himself and family ab- 
 solute power. In order more completely to de- 
 ceive, and that your chains may be indissolubly 
 rivetted, he would establish despotism under the 
 forms of a republic. Considering me as one de- 
 termined to oppose his designs he has resolved to 
 assassinate me, but I have hitherto been preserved 
 by Providence from his stiletto, for the purpose of 
 restoring you to libertj-. 
 
 " You are grievously oppressed by arrogant task- 
 masters, whose pride and hardness of heart will 
 increase, should the Doria family succeed in their 
 wishes. 
 
 " If we succeed in the undertaking to which you 
 are called, I will immediately restore the popular 
 government. So well planned are our precautions, 
 and so eftective the means we have taken, that 
 success and easy victory may be pronounced as 
 certain. 
 
 " The city guards and artificers are wholly de- 
 voted to my will : their number is nearly three 
 thousand. These, with two thousand of my own 
 vassals, and the same number from the Duke of 
 Placentia, wait only for my orders. 
 
 •' Our designs are a profound secret, the enemy 
 is off his guard, the danger, the difficulty, the 
 expense and anxiety have been mine ; to share in 
 the glory, to rescue yourselves from slavery, and 
 enjoy the blessings I offer, is your portion. 
 
 " But as I wish no man to engage who cannot 
 cheerfully co-operate with hand and heart, should 
 any person present be averse to the business in 
 question, let them retire to a tower which adjoins 
 to my palace, where they shall remain in safety till 
 the short struggle is concluded, when 1 jjlcdge my 
 honour that they shall return unmoh^stcd to their 
 families." 
 
 The guests who had been invited, as they ima- 
 gined, to an entertainment, were motionless and 
 silent ; but when they had recovered from the sur- 
 
 prise naturally excited by so unexpected a pro- 
 posal, they declared, with the exception of only 
 two citizens, that they would support the count 
 with their lives and fortunes. The company then 
 partook of a hasty repast, while to each of them 
 his post and duty were assigned. 
 
 A hard, a painful task, still remained for Fiesco : 
 the fever of ambition had not extinguished love : 
 he repaired to the apartment of Eleanora, to which 
 he had invited his friend Pansa for the evening, 
 hoping that his interesting conversation and agree- 
 able manners would prevent her from observing 
 what passed ; for with a degree of cruel kindness 
 he had not yet given her any intimation of the 
 conspiracy. 
 
 Supporting as far as he was able the agitation in 
 his breast, he communicated in a few words to the 
 trembling Eleanora the business of the night. 
 Terrified and distracted she rushed into his arms, 
 conjuring him by every tender tie to abandon his 
 enterprise. 
 
 The thunder of the cannon fired by Yerrina 
 shook the palace and prevented further words. 
 Tearing himself from the friend he loved, and from 
 the wife he adored, Fiesco returned precipitately, 
 exclaiming, " To retract, or even to deliberate, is 
 now too late : success alone can prevent death and 
 destruction : in a few minutes you will be mistress 
 or a widow of Genoa." Placing himself at the 
 head of his companions they instantly sallied forth, 
 the city gates were immediately taken possession 
 of, the galleries of the Dorias secured, and the po- 
 pulace in arms crying out "Fiesco and liberty'." 
 crowded through the streets : the M'ishes of the in- 
 surgents were accomplished. Jeanetin had rushed 
 at the first alarm towards the harbour, but fell a 
 sacrifice to popular fury ; the venerable Andrew, 
 sinking under age and infirmity, was safely con- 
 veyed by his faithful domestics through a postern 
 to his villa, a few miles from the city. The senate 
 assembled to know their fate, but Fiesco, for whom 
 everything had been in motion, was no more. In 
 attempting to get on board a galley, a plank on 
 which he trod being insecurely placed, he fell 
 headlong into the water ; the tide was low, but the 
 weight of his armour, the mud, and the darkness 
 of the night, prevented his extricating himself. 
 
 Thus by an unexpected accident, which a little 
 care would have prevented, perished an extraor- 
 dinary young man, at once the ornament and 
 enemy of his country, and his designs perished 
 with him. His brotliers endeavoured to take his 
 place ; but when the people heard that iheir fa- 
 vourite was dead, they retired in sullen melan- 
 choly to their houses, and tranquillity was imme- 
 diately restored. 
 
 The senate proclaimed a general pardon by 
 sound of trumpet ; and the friends of the republic 
 mingling their tears with those of Andrew Doria 
 for his nephew, and Paul Pansa for his friend, 
 soothed by every means in their power the sor- 
 rows of the widowed Eleanora. 
 
 XLIV.— ADAM FLEMING AND HELENA 
 IRVING. 
 
 [The author of the ' Lounger's Common-place 
 Book' says there have been two songs written on 
 the following adventure, hut that they are bad. We 
 have an impression upon our memory that we
 
 62 
 
 HISTORY OF THE MARCHIONESS DE GANGES. 
 
 have seen a good song npon it, thongh Tve cannot 
 remember where, probably in Mr. Allan Cunning- 
 ham's collection of the ' Songs of Scotland.' "We 
 sliould ho obliged to any correspondent who could 
 tind it for us. The subject, one would think, is 
 too affeetingly true not to have called forth some 
 corresponding strain.] 
 
 Adam Fleming, the son of a little farmer, during 
 the reign of Mary, inheriting from nature an at- 
 tractive person and a vigorous mind, and receiving 
 from the kindness of a maternal uncle an educa- 
 tion superior to what is generally bestowed on 
 persons of his rank in society, had won the aflec- 
 tions of a beautiful and wealthy heiress in the 
 shire of Dumfries. But as it seldom happens that 
 we can enjoy any pleasure or any happiness with- 
 out exciting envy or discontent in those who are 
 less fortunate or less deserving, the preference 
 given to F'leming by Helena Irving before a host 
 of visitors, excited in one of the disappointed can- 
 didates inveterate malignity and vows of ven- 
 geance. Observing that a favourite evening walk 
 of the lovers was on the banks of the Kirtle, a 
 romantic little stream skirted with shrubs and 
 overhanging rocks flowing in a serpentine course 
 near the abbey of Kirkconnel, the villain procured 
 a carbine, and at their accustomed hour concealed 
 himself in a thicket near the place. The fond pair 
 soon approaching, he levelled the instrument of 
 death at his unsuspecting rival, but occasioning as 
 he moved a rustling of the leaves, Helena turned 
 quickly round, saw his deadly purpose, and de- 
 feated it by throwing herself before her lover ; but 
 in preserving him she received the contents of the 
 gun in her own bosom, and sank a bloody and 
 lifeless corse into his arms. 
 
 Neither love nor justice admitted a moment's 
 delay : placing his murdered mistress gently on a 
 a bank Adam pursued the flying, the cowardly 
 assassin, with the fury of a hungry lion, soon over- 
 took him, and seizing the merciless ruffian by the 
 hair of his head planted a dagger in his heart. 
 The report of the piece and the cries of the das- 
 tardly fugitive drawing several peasants to the 
 spot, Fleming, instead of submitting his conduct 
 to the justice of his country, which must have con- 
 sidered it as a justifiable homicide, and without 
 well knowing what he sought, fled towards the 
 sea-coast, where he saw a vessel outward bound. 
 Throwing himself into a boat he went on board, 
 made a confidant of the captain, and sailed with 
 him to Lisbon. 
 
 Careless of life, and probably wishing to shorten 
 it, he entered into the service of the king of Por- 
 tugal, and distinguished himself in a military 
 capacity at some of the distant possessions of that 
 monarch in the Brazils. Receiving, after many 
 years, ample rewards and an honourable dismis- 
 sion, he resolved in the spirit of the times to ex- 
 piate the crime of a murder to which he received 
 such urgent provocation, but for which he could 
 not forgive himself, by a pilgrimage to the Holy 
 Land. Having accomplished his purpose, he was 
 anxious to pass the short space of life which re- 
 mained in his native country, trusting for safety 
 to the mercy or oblivion of his former neighbours. 
 Soon after landing in Scotland he determined to 
 visit the spot where his beloved, his long-lost He- 
 lena was interred. Worn down by years, sorrow, 
 and the toils of war, and naturally agitated by re- 
 
 collecting the circumstances and viewing the place 
 of her death, his debilitated frame was not equal 
 to such emotion. Reaching with difficulty her 
 tomb in the chapel of Kirkconnel, he sunk on the 
 earth which covered her remains, and expired 
 without a groan. 
 
 [This little narrative, which the scrupulous critic 
 may consider as the romantic fiction of a novelist, 
 is founded on fact, supported by the evidence of 
 authentic family documents in the possession of a 
 worthy baronet who resides near the spot, and 
 corroborated by the remains of a monumental in- 
 scription in the chapel, which is now in ruins.] 
 
 XLV.— HISTORY OF THE MARCHIONESS 
 DE GANGES. 
 
 [We take this from the ' Ladies' Pocket Maga- 
 zine* for the year 1825, a neat little publication, 
 with good things in it. We seem as if we had 
 read the story twenty times over elsewhere ; but it 
 is one of those whose frightful truth must always 
 bring it into collections of stories like the present. 
 The offending parties, by the outrageous violence 
 of their passions and the desperate defiance of 
 daylight and witnesses by one of them, were most 
 likely madmen ; at least, had an unhealthy or ex- 
 aggerated organization amounting to madness. The 
 author has attributed something of coquetry to the 
 marchioness, and added that it was " no doubt 
 innocent." But any coquetry, hov.'ever pardon- 
 able to the vanity of youth and beauty, is a very 
 dangerovis thing, and likely to bring heavy sorrows 
 on the light shoulders that think it an ornament, 
 especially if the heart be good, and capable of 
 ultimate reflection. The poor marchioness, by her 
 affecting endeavours to secure her husband's life, 
 appears to have been a woman of great natural 
 tenderness and conscientiousness, and probably 
 thought the endeavours incumbent upon her out 
 of remorse for that very coquetry.] 
 
 This lady, whose misfortunes have been the sub- 
 ject of romances, poems, and melodramas, was born 
 at Avignon, in the year 1 036. Nature and fortune 
 seemed to have united to load her with their 
 favours in her early life, only that she might feel 
 more acutely the horrors of her subsequent fate. 
 When she was little more than thirteen she was 
 married to t'ne Marquis de Castellane, a grandson 
 of the Duke de Villars. On her being introduced 
 at Versailles, Louis XIV., who was then very 
 young, distinguished her amidst the crowd of beau- 
 ties which embellished the most brilliant court in 
 Europe. The exquisite loveliness of the marchion- 
 ess, the illustrious family of her husband, the 
 immense fortune which she had brought him, and 
 the kind attention with which she had been 
 honoured by the king, all conspired to render her 
 the fashion, and she was soon known in Paris by 
 no other appellation than that of the beautiful 
 Provencal. Her first ties were soon broken. The 
 Marquis de Castellane, who was in the naval 
 service, perished by shipwreck on the coast of 
 Sicily. The marchioness, a blooming widow, rich, 
 and without children, quickly saw all the most 
 splendid youths of the court flocking around her 
 and sueing for her hand. Her unpropitious star 
 destined her to give the preference to the youthful 
 Lanede, Marquis de Ganges. She was united to 
 him in the month of July, 1658. Two months
 
 HISTORY OF THE MARCHIONESS DE GANGES. 
 
 63 
 
 after the celebration of the marriage the marquis 
 took his wife to Avignon. Their bliss during the 
 first year of their union was uninterrupted. The 
 Marquis de Ganges had two brothers, the Abbe 
 and the Chevalier de Ganges. Both were so deeply 
 smitten with the charms of their sister-in-law that 
 they instantly became enamoured of her. At the 
 expiration of two or three years, some differences 
 arose between the married couple : on the one 
 side too strong a tendency to dissipation, and on 
 the other a little coquetry, which no doubt was 
 entirely innocent, occasioned this slight disagree- 
 ment. The abbe, who was naturally of an in- 
 triguing disposition, exasperated and reconciled 
 the husband and wife just as it suited his purposes. 
 As his oister-in-law made him her confidant, he 
 hopr^ ti <i; he should ultimately render her favour- 
 able lo his passion ; but as soon as he disclosed it, 
 his love was disdainfully rejected. With the same 
 pretensions, the chevalier made the same attempt, 
 and was just as badly received. Not being able to 
 succeed, the two brothers mutually confided to 
 each other their criminal wishes, and blending 
 together both their resentments they agreed to 
 take joint vengeance. From that period they 
 sought the means of getting rid of their sister-in- 
 law. Poison was administered to the marchioness in 
 milk-chocolate ; but, whether it was that the poison 
 being put in with a trembling hand was not suffi- 
 cient in quantity, or that the milk blunted the effect 
 of it, she sustained but little injury from it. The 
 crime however did not pass undiscovered. To 
 put a stop to the rumours on this subject, which 
 were current in the city, the marquis proposed to 
 his wife to spend the autumn on his estate of 
 Ganges. The marchioness consented, which seems 
 rather extraordinary ; but in human events there 
 are always some circumstances which are inex- 
 plicable. It appears that the marchioness had 
 forebodings of her fate ; for in a letter to her 
 mother, dated from the castle of Ganges, she de- 
 clared that she could not traverse the gloomy 
 avenues of that melancholy residence without a 
 feeling of terror. Her husband, who had accom- 
 panied her thither, left her with his two brothers 
 and returned to Avignon. Not long before her 
 quitting that city, the marchioness had come into 
 possession of a considerable inheritance ; and it is 
 a fact that proves that she suspected the family 
 into which she had entered, and perhaps even her 
 husband, that she made a will at Avignon, by 
 which in case of her death she confided her pro- 
 perty, till her children were of age, to Madame de 
 Rossan, her mother. This will became the j)retext 
 of an inveterate persecution of the marchioness by 
 her brothers-in-law. They so strongly and perse- 
 veringly pressed her to revoke it, that she was at 
 last weak enough to consent. They had no sooner 
 carried their point than they made a second at- 
 tempt to poison her, but with no better success 
 than before. The monsters had however gone 
 too far to allow of their receding. Being one day 
 obliged to keep her bed by indisposition, the 
 marchioness saw her brothers-in-law enter the 
 room. In one hand the abbe had a pistol, and in 
 the other a glass of poison : the chevalier had a 
 drawn sword under his arm. " You must die, 
 madam," said the abbe ; " choose, whether by pistol, 
 sword, or poison." The marchioness, in a state 
 bordering on distraction, could not believe her 
 senses : she sprang out of bed, threw herself at the 
 
 feet of her brothers, and asked what crime she had 
 committed. " Choose !"' was the only answer which 
 the assassins made. Seeing that there was no hope 
 of assistance, the unfortunate lady took the glass 
 which the abbe presented to her, and swallowed 
 the contents while he held the pistol to her breast. 
 This horrible scene being finished, the monsters 
 retired and locked the victim into the room, pro- 
 mising to send to her a confessor, the spiritual aid 
 of whom she had requested as a last favour. She 
 was now alone ; her first thought was to escape ; 
 her next was to ti-y various means of removing 
 from her stomach the poison which she had been 
 forced to take : in the latter she partly succeeded, 
 by putting one of the locks of her hair down her 
 throat. Then, half-naked, she threw herself into 
 the court-yard, though the window was nearly 
 eight yards from the ground. But how was she 
 to escape from her murderers, who would speedily 
 be aware of her flight, and were masters of all the 
 outlets from the castle 1 The unfortunate mar- 
 chioness implored the compassion of one of the 
 servants, who let her out into the fields through a 
 stable-door. She was quickly pursued by the 
 abbe and chevalier, who represented her as a mad 
 woman to a farmer in whose house she had taken 
 refuge. It was here that the crime was to be con- 
 summated. The chevalier, who hitherto had ap- 
 peared less ferocious than his brother, followed 
 her from room to room, and having come up with 
 her in a remote apartment, the villain gave her two 
 stabs in the breast and five in the back, at the 
 moment that she was trying to get away. The 
 blows were so violent that the sword was broken, 
 and part of it remained in the shoulder. The cries 
 of the miserable lady brought the neighbours to 
 the j)lace, and the abbe, who had stayed at the 
 door to prevent any help from coming to her, 
 entered the house with the crowd. Enraged to see 
 that the marchioness was not yet dead, he pre- 
 sented his pistol to her breast, but it missed fire. 
 The spectators, who had hitherto been terrified, 
 now rushed to seize the abbe ; but by dint of hard 
 struggles he effected his escape. Madame de 
 Ganges lived nineteen days after this event, and 
 did not expire till she had publicly implored the 
 divine mercy for her assassins. On her body being 
 opened, the bowels were found to be corroded by 
 the effect of the poison. Her husband was present 
 during her last moments. There were very strong 
 presumptions against him ; but the marchioness, 
 still compassionate amidst the severest sufferings, 
 did all that lay in her power to clear him from 
 suspicion. The parliament of Toulouse lost no 
 time in instituting judicial proceedings against the 
 criminals, and by a decree which was issued on 
 the 21st of August, 10(57, the Abbe and the Cheva- 
 lier de Ganges were outlawed, and sentenced to be 
 broken en the wheel. After having had his pro- 
 perty confiscated, and been degraded from the rank 
 of nobility, the marquis was condemned to per- 
 ])etual banishment by the same decree. The che- 
 valier found shelter in Malta, and was subsequently 
 killed in an engagement with the Turks. As to 
 the abbe, he sought an asylum in Holland, and 
 there under a fictitious name he passed through 
 a variety of adventures, which might furnish the 
 subject of a romance. It is much to he regretted 
 that two such execrable wretches should have 
 escaped the ])unishment which was so justly awarded 
 to them by the jjarliamcnt of Toulouse.
 
 61 
 
 ADVENTURES OF RIPERDA. 
 
 XLVL— ADVENTURES OF RIPERDA. 
 
 [This account of Ripcrda may to some look 
 too much like a page out of history ; yet surely a 
 Dutchman who hecomes a Spanish Catholic mi- 
 nister, and dies a bashaw, may be considered a 
 curiosity, in the more fantastic sense of the word. 
 Riperda was truly what is called an adventurer ; 
 that is to say, a man formed only to go on from 
 one adventure to another, without obtaining any 
 settled and noble success. He was of a class of 
 men, whose brains, very clever for the most part, 
 apj)ear to want a portion common to the rest of 
 mankind, and necessary to keep them in equili- 
 brium. A bit of them seems broken off, or omitted ; 
 and so the poor creature keeps turning about from 
 project to project, and creed to creed, like the con- 
 vert described by Butler : — 
 
 A convert's but a fly, that turns about 
 After his head's pulled oft", to Bud it out.] 
 
 Riperda was a native of Groningen towards the 
 close of the seventeenth century, for the materials 
 of whose singular life and adventures we are in- 
 debted to the late Dr. Campbell, and for many 
 new facts to the ingenious rector of Bemerton 
 (Archdeacon Cose). 
 
 The last writer, admitted to sources of informa- 
 tion which few private men can have any access to, 
 has, in his ' Apology for Sir Robert Walpole,' per- 
 formed the task committed to his care in a dexter- 
 ous and pleasing manner. 
 
 It must be confessed that when the transactions 
 of ministers and statesmen are to be delineated 
 and laid before the public, a writer is placed in a 
 situation peculiar and delicate ; more particularly 
 when those individuals to whom he is indebted for 
 important papers are immediate descendants from 
 the illustrious persons whose history he writes. 
 
 To investigate characters and decide on measures 
 when party zeal, inflamed resentments, and family 
 prejudice have not had time to cool, has been 
 aptly compared by Horace to treading on ashes 
 beneath which unextinguished fire is concealed. 
 In such cases an author has a difficult part to act ; 
 to avoid the bias of gratitude and private interest ; 
 to speak not only truth, but the whole truth ; to 
 avoid exciting the malignity of powerful enemies, 
 but at the same time to preserve unblemished his 
 integrity and literary reputation with the public. 
 
 Riperda, the subject of my present page, inhe- 
 riting from nature activity and acuteness, and 
 uniting to a warm imagination a more than mode- 
 rate confidence in his own abilities, applied with 
 indefatigable industry to literature and science. 
 
 After a well-planned and well-executed educa- 
 tion, under the superintendence of his father, who 
 was descended from a good family in the province 
 where he resided, the young man passed the earlier 
 part of his life in the army, in which he deserved 
 and obtained promotion. 
 
 His military progress added a general knowledge 
 of the world and agreeable manners to his more 
 solid acquirements ; but he suffered no pursuit, 
 either of business or of pleasure, to interrupt the 
 cultivation of his mind. His morning hours were 
 sacred ; and while his associates in winter-quarters 
 were lost in the stupifying indolence of superfluous 
 sleep, or in recovering from a nocturnal debauch, 
 the more diligent Dutchman was trimming his 
 early lamp. 
 
 He exerted himself more peculiarly in procuring 
 
 information on every subject directly or remotely 
 connected with manufactures and trade ; he made 
 himself acquainted with the population and the 
 wants of the diflerent powers in Europe ; with the 
 natural produce and raw materials each country 
 yielded, and the various commodities they were 
 under the necessity of providing from their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 Having formed himself precisely for managing 
 the concerns of a mercantile country, soon after 
 the peace of Utrecht he was appointed envoy from 
 the United Provinces to the court of Madrid, for 
 the purpose of negociating a commercial treaty 
 with the king of Spain. 
 
 This complicated business he conducted with so 
 much address, and turned his book knowledge, 
 which men of business are apt to think so lightly 
 of, to so much account, that he attracted the favour 
 of Cardinal Alberoni, who, from being a curate in 
 the Duchy of Parma, had by fortunate and well- 
 improved incidents gained the patronage of the 
 Princess Ursiui, and was at the moment prime 
 minister of Spain. 
 
 At Madrid he found Mr. Doddington, who was 
 sent on a similar business by his master the king 
 of England. 
 
 The English envoy, better skilled in borough 
 arrangements than the intricacies of foreign poli- 
 tics, derived so much benefit from the correct 
 official statements and the authentic documents of 
 Riperda, that he received many warm acknowledg- 
 ments from Lord Townshend, at that time a cabinet 
 minister at the court of London. 
 
 These flattering circumstances first occasioned 
 the subject of our present article to meditate esta- 
 blishing himself in Spain ; he was induced to this 
 project by remembering that it required no very 
 consummate abilities to pass for a deep politician 
 at Madrid, where many foreigners had been ad- 
 vanced to high honours and confidential trusts, 
 who had no other recommendation than a good 
 voice, a dexterous finger, a pleasing countenance, 
 or a handsome leg. 
 
 Finding the Protestant religion a considerable 
 impediment to his advancement, he publicly abjured 
 the faith in which he had been educated, and was 
 eagerly admitted into the Catholic church. 
 
 This change of opinion, or of profession, so 
 favourable to his political career, does not appear 
 to have improved his morals ; for in a pecuniary 
 transaction Riperda was accused of imposing on 
 Mr. Doddington. This ill-timed incident lost him 
 Alberoni's favour, and he was soon after dismissed 
 from the lucrative post of superintendent of a royal 
 manufactory, to which he had been appointed. 
 
 The Dutchman always repelled this degrading 
 accusation with spirit, insisting that the money 
 received, ten thousand pistoles, was no more than 
 a moderate reward for the important diplomatic 
 benefits he had conferred, by advice and communi- 
 cation, on the infant statesman, that being the 
 appellation he bestowed, — alluding, I apprehend, 
 rather to his want of experience than of years. He 
 asserted that part of the cash had been actually 
 expended in obtaining secret intelligence for the 
 Englishman. Who shall decide when statesmen 
 disagree 1 Sometimes in these collusions a spark 
 of truth, useful to honest men, is struck out. 
 
 Riperda observed that on this occasion he had 
 acted towards the unfledged envoy as a prudent 
 physician would treat an illiberal and parsimonious
 
 ADVENTURES OF RIPERDA. 
 
 6.5 
 
 patient, who insidiously picked out his opinions 
 and advice during accidental conversations, with- 
 out offering a fee : he had paid himself. 
 
 It is not easy now to decide on the positive 
 criminality or relative equity of this transaction: 
 it must however be confessed that internal evi- 
 dence, deduced from the subsequent conduct of 
 Riperda, and the left-handed characteristic cunning 
 of his countrymen, who generally overreach them- 
 selves, tell rather against him. 
 
 But this obliquity of conduct does not appear to 
 have retarded his political progress : he joined the 
 enemies of Alberoni, and, in the place from which 
 he had been dismissed, having been kindly noticed 
 by the royal family, was frequently consulted by 
 the princ-,j,al secretary, Grimaldo ; and, what in 
 Speiu is an object of the greatest importance, 
 R:;- Ja Ltecame a favourite with the king's con- 
 fessor. 
 
 In this advantageous position he intrigued and 
 caballed against the cardinal ; contributed power- 
 fully towards his dismission ; and dazzled by the 
 bright prospect which opened before him, confiding 
 in superior abilities, or his personal influence with 
 the king, he was ambitious of succeeding the ex- 
 minister. 
 
 But when his appointment was proposed in 
 council, strong representations were made against 
 the placing at the head of his majesty's govern- 
 ment an alien and a new convert from heresy, 
 whose integrity was already suspected. 
 
 A further discussion was delayed by Philip's 
 abdicating the Spanish throne ; but when the royal 
 seceder resumed his cro'wn, Riperda was still his 
 confidential favourite, and ingratiated himself more 
 particularly with the queen, by promoting a mar- 
 riage between Don Carlos and an archduchess of 
 the House of Austria. 
 
 On this occasion he was sent ambassador to the 
 Emperor of Germany, and during his mission to 
 Vienna acquired considerable popularity, as well 
 by the unqualified warmth of his declarations in 
 favour of German connections, as by the hospi- 
 tality of his table, the splendour of his retinue, and 
 the punctuality of his payments. 
 
 A new system of politics, different views, and 
 probably the pecuniary enibarras with Mr. Dod- 
 dington, gradually estranged him from his former 
 attachment to England, and he poured forth a foul 
 stream of virulent invective against this country, 
 for hesitating to fulfil her engagements, one of 
 which he positively insisted was an immediate and 
 unqualified cessation of the important fortress of 
 Gibraltar. 
 
 In reply, it was acknowledged that the subject 
 had been pressed by the Spanish minister, and a 
 promise made to take it into consideration ; hut 
 when the outrageous statesman was informed that 
 in Great Britain the will of a sovereign, or the 
 wishes of his minister, are impotent and ineffec- 
 tual without parliamentary concurrence, he burst 
 into passionate, vehement, and unbecoming ex- 
 pressions ; threatened that he would land twenty 
 thousand men in Scotland, send home the Elector 
 of Hanover, and place the lawful sovereign, a 
 legitimate descendant of King James II., on the 
 English throne. 
 
 Having concluded with the emperor a treaty by 
 which the king and queen of Spain were highly 
 gratified, he hastened to Madrid, where he was 
 received with rapturous acknowledgments, but lie 
 
 treated his friend Grimaldo with ungrateful cold- 
 ness, and the day after his arrival was appointed 
 to succeed him as principal secretary of state : he 
 transacted business at the council board and with 
 foreign ambassadors, thus enjoying the uncon- 
 trolled authority of Alberoni, without the name of 
 prime minister. 
 
 But it was soon found, with all his predominating 
 address and eminent talents, that he was unfit for 
 the high office he filled ; that he was vain, turbu- 
 lent, and insolent ; without regularity, prudence, 
 moderation, or consistency of conduct ; in a word, 
 that he possessed great powers and attainments, 
 but wanted prudence and common sense. 
 
 The king, by more frequent intercourse, soon 
 saw the deficiency of Riperda in these indis- 
 pensable requisites, and in a short time he ceased 
 to be a favourite. 
 
 It is not improbable that the minister became 
 giddy from the height to which he was elevated : 
 being hated by the officers of state who were 
 obliged to attend him, and detested by the people, 
 his situation was awkward and perilous ; yet at a 
 crowded levee he had the folly or the assurance 
 to exclaim, "I know that the whole kingdom is 
 irritated against me, but their malice I defy ; safe 
 under the protection of God, the blessed Virgin, 
 and the goodness of my intentions." 
 
 The general aversion every day increasing, and 
 Riperda's imprudence keeping pace with his un- 
 popularity, it was found necessary to remove him ; 
 his dismission, according to the usual court eti- 
 quette, being called a resignation, and his temper 
 smoothed by a liberal pension. 
 
 But this pacific treatment had no effect in quiet- 
 ing the exasperated Dutchman ; his angry passions 
 raged with unabated fury, and he vowed eternal 
 vengeance against a country so blind to his merits. 
 
 Being possessed of secrets which the English 
 ministry were anxious to become acquainted with, 
 he opened a clandestine intercourse with the Eng- 
 lish ambassador, Stanhope, his former friend, Dod- 
 dington, having been recalled. 
 
 "The curses of the people, artfully fomented by 
 his enemies, were by this time not only deep but 
 loud ; he was fearful of an attack on his person, 
 and he fled to that gentleman's house. 
 
 His intrigues with England and other hostile 
 designs being now discovered, he was dragged from 
 his retreat, taken into custody, and imprisoned in 
 the castle of Segovia. 
 
 Taking advantage of the infirmity or neglect of 
 his keepers, and assisted by a female domestic, 
 who first pitying had then loved him, he bribed a 
 nocturnal sentinel, and by means of a rope ladder 
 effected his escape. 
 
 With these companions, and after a long, anxious, 
 raid fatiguing journey, he reached Oporto, and 
 embarked without delay for England, where he 
 was received with respect and attention by the 
 king's ministers. 
 
 But when Sir Robert Walpole had gained from 
 the fugitive every necessary information, he was 
 gradually neglected, and as is the case with all 
 betrayers of their trust, at last despised, even by 
 those who had derived advantage from his 
 treachery. 
 
 A man like Riperda, who had directed national 
 councils and had been listened to by kings, who 
 abounded in pride, and swelled with indignation, 
 could not but feel this degraded situation most 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 THE FIRST FEMALE ACCOUCHEUR. 
 
 acutely. After two years passed in the English 
 metropolis, in unavailing impatience, passion, and 
 regret, but %rith undiminished hatred against every- 
 thing Spanisli, he -withdrew to Holland. 
 
 In that republic lie found an agent from Bar- 
 bary, who being acquainted with his story, con- 
 ceived that his thirst for vengeance might be pro- 
 ductive of important advantages to the sovereign 
 by whom he was employed. 
 
 This person was an envoy from that barbarian 
 whom we condescend to call the Emperor of Mo- 
 rocco. He assured Riperda that all his efforts in 
 Europe would be ineflectual, in consequence of 
 the important changes which had recently taken 
 place iu continental politics ; but that on the 
 borders of his master's territories in Africa he 
 might annoy his enemies and gratify his revenge 
 most effectually : that he would there possess the 
 advantage of a geographical position, in which to 
 defeat the Spaniards would be to exterminate 
 them, and that he would receive ample rewards 
 from a grateful ally, stimulated by the hereditary 
 impulse of eternal hatred and national antipathy. 
 
 Riperda heard and was convinced : revenge, the 
 most infernal but the most seducing of all our 
 crimes, quickening all his measures and smoothing 
 every difficulty : with the two companions of his 
 flight he sailed for Africa, and after a prosperous 
 voyage announced his arrival and the object of his 
 views to Muly Abdallah, who eagerly accepted his 
 services. 
 
 The Dutchman, who, like his countrymen, for a 
 productive cargo would have trod on the cross at 
 Japan, embraced the Mahometan faith, adopted 
 the dress, conformed to the manners, and gained 
 the esteem of that African chief. 
 
 In less than two mouths he was advanced to the 
 post of prime minister, and shortly after appointed 
 commander-in-chief of his forces, with unusual 
 discretionary power. 
 
 The new general, animated by the spur of the 
 occasion, lost no time in improving the army- 
 placed under his guidance by every means in his 
 power. 
 
 He represented to Abdallah the insufficiency of 
 the desultory and irregular modes of attack gene- 
 rally practised by the Moors, which, although 
 at their first onset they sometimes break down all 
 before them, are, if they fail, generally productive 
 of irrecoverable confusion, slaughter, and defeat. 
 
 With the emperor's permission, Riperda — for so 
 I continue to call him although the renegado had 
 assumed another name — with the emperor's per- 
 mission rigidly enforced the severe maxims of 
 European tactics, silent and prompt obedience, 
 irresistible energy, patient and cool dexterity, 
 which, at the mouth of a cannon, the mounting a 
 breach, or the springing of a mine, convert an 
 otherwise unmanageable mob into a compact magic 
 machine, various m form, but of tremendous 
 power : a widely spread line, a hollow square, a 
 wedge^ a column, or a ])latoon. 
 
 Thus improved and thus directed, the barbarians 
 attacked the Spaniards, and irrecoverably defeated 
 them : their leader was created a bashaw, and died 
 at Tetuan, in extreme old age, some time in the 
 year 1737. 
 
 Such was Riperda : -with a strong mind, and 
 talents improved by assiduous cultivation, placed 
 on elevated ground, and possessing a considerable 
 share of book learning, and no small portion of 
 
 general and local information, he missed the high 
 road to happiness : all his parts and all his acquire- 
 ments did not guard him against obliquity and 
 crooked policy, which in this, as in most instances, 
 generally defeat their own purpose. He has added 
 to the many instances which pointedly prove, after 
 all the contrivances of cunning, and the deep stra- 
 tagems of finesse, that honesty is the best policy; 
 that her ways arc ways of pleasantness, and all her 
 patlis are peace. 
 
 XL\II.— THE FIRST FEMALE 
 ACCOUCHEUR. 
 
 (From the Lounger's ConDnonplace Book.") 
 
 Agnodice, an Athenian female, appears to have 
 been endued with a considerable portion of keen 
 sensibility towards the afflictions and calamities of 
 others: with this amiable disposition she imited 
 qualities which persons of that laudable description 
 do not always possess, — good sense to direct, and 
 consummate resolution for carrying into execution 
 the singular efforts she made to alleviate the suf- 
 ferings of her fellow-creatures ; and which, in the 
 path chosen by her benevolence, could not be exer- 
 cised without difficulty and danger. 
 
 This excellent woman saw with concern num- 
 bers of her own sex dying or undergoing extreme 
 and frequently unnecessary risk and protracted 
 pain in childbirth, because they dreaded calling in 
 professional assistance, or resorted to it when too 
 late ; for, at the period to which I refer, there was 
 a positive law in Athens, that men only should 
 study and practice this or any other branch of the 
 medical art. 
 
 Agnodice could not rest contented till she found 
 a remedy for this evil, which struck at the root of 
 population, laid a cruel tax on the first great law 
 of nature, and overwhelmed with torture, agony, 
 and death the fairest, the most modest, and often 
 the worthiest of women ; whilst certain help was 
 loudly called for and really administered to vicious 
 audacity and callous unconcern. 
 
 Inspired by the importance of her object and 
 animated by the humanity of her purpose, she 
 alleged a call from a sick friend at a considerable 
 distance to account for her absence, and, procuring 
 the dress of a man, attended as a pupil at the 
 schools where the knowledge she wished for was 
 dispensed. 
 
 As improvement is generally rapid when the 
 desire for it is ardent. Agnodice soon acquired the 
 necessary qualifications, and, in the assumed cha- 
 racter and dress of a man, afforded substantial 
 relief to many women who had been deterred by 
 modesty, by fear, and other motives, from apply- 
 ing to male professors ; the secret of her being 
 a woman having been previously imparted to 
 those whose situation rendered her assistance 
 necessary. 
 
 But the gratitude of her patients or the selfish- 
 ness of her opponents, who found they were losing 
 business, led to a discovery of this meritorious im- 
 posture. 
 
 They circulated reports injurious to the charac- 
 ter of the young practitioner, and ignorant of the 
 truth insisted that he was frequently called in, 
 when, in fact, no medical aid was necessary, and 
 that dangerous and illicit intercourse was carried 
 on under the convenient plea of asking advice. 
 Agnodice was tried before the Areopagus, a
 
 A LESSON TO VULGAR MISTAKE. 
 
 67 
 
 court so called from their assembling on a hill of 
 that name near Athens, and by a party of envious 
 husbands and jealous rivals this excellent and 
 intrepid woman was condemned to die ; an un- 
 just and inhuman sentence which would have 
 been carried into execution, if the prisoner had 
 not convinced her judges, in a way I will not 
 describe, that it was impossible she could have 
 been guilty of the crime alleged against her. 
 
 Disappointed in their purpose, her adversaries 
 next endeavoured to destroy her for having vio- 
 lated an express law, mentioned at the beginning 
 of this article, which prohibited her sex from 
 studying any branch of the medical profession. 
 On this charge, the law being positive, her judges 
 p?.v.seu, when the court was immediately filled 
 vT'tH a. crowd of women, many of whom had 
 received comfort, and many of them life, from her 
 welUtimed aid. 
 
 They boldly and loudly appealed to the feelings, 
 the reason, and the interests of the person they 
 addressed. After a short debate Agnodice was 
 honourably acquitted, and the obnoxious law 
 revoked. Such was the salutary triumph of 
 merit and good sense over selfishness and absurd 
 prejudice. 
 
 Since the period at which the transaction I have 
 related took place, the opinions of the world on 
 this subject appear to have taken an opposite 
 direction ; the art which Agnodice took so gene- 
 rous and effectual a method of acquiring, is now 
 almost universally practised by men. 
 
 Yet it has been doubted whether in nine cases 
 out of ten — so kind a guardian have we in the 
 superintending providence of God — whether in 
 nine cases out of ten, nature, witli trifling aid, 
 does not conduct the business with safety ; but 
 the fear, perhaps a natural one in the breast of 
 each woman that she may be that unfortunate 
 tenth, has secured, and still secures to the modern 
 accotichcicr a large and profitable proportion of 
 patients. 
 
 XLVIII A LESSON TO VULGAR 
 
 MISTAKE ; 
 
 OR, FARCE ENDING IN TRAGEDY. 
 
 [A book lately appeared, entitled ' Recollec- 
 tions of the Eighteenth Century,' purporting to be 
 written by the Marchioness de C'requy, an old 
 lady of whom the startling fact is told us that 
 she had her hand kissed, wlun a child, by Louis 
 XIV., and the same hand kissed, at the age 
 of eighty-five, by Napoleon, when First Con- 
 sul '. We say that the book " purports " to be 
 written by the marchioness, because our lively 
 neighbours have established a regular manufactory 
 of pretended Biographies and Recollections, which 
 are got up with such extraordinary tact and re- 
 search, that it is often impossible to distinguish 
 between a false book of the kind and a true. We 
 must confess, that the ])rescnt work, though it con- 
 tains some piquant anecdotes, does not ajjpear to 
 us one of the best of its sort, whether true or false. 
 The marchioness is fairly " mad with aristocracy," 
 and instead of being tlic kind, elegant, and judi- 
 cious personage described by the editor, and often 
 to be found in her class of life, seems as if she had 
 written on purpose to exhibit the class as consist- 
 ing of little else but those who disgrace it, or a 
 
 heap of vulgar spite, pretension, and absurdity : 
 the book really looks as if some libellous revolu- 
 tionist had composed it with that view- The fol- 
 lowing story is an exception, however, to its gene- 
 ral character ; and whether genuine or not as to the 
 alleged parties, is too probable in other respects 
 to be refused a place in our list. Such fatal ab- 
 surdities, in various shapes, have too often occurred 
 in real life. J 
 
 There happened not far from Montvilliers (says 
 Madame de Crequy) an event which I do not think 
 useless to relate to you, were it only to warn you 
 against some sorts of pastimes, to which persons 
 of bad taste sometimes give themselves up in 
 the country. I mean to speak of those sort of 
 amusements which consist in playing tricks and in 
 bufi'oonery. 
 
 Monsieur de Martainville, a young counsellor at 
 the parliament of Normandy, and newly married, 
 had collected in his castle twenty persons, who 
 were to pass the vacation there, and among the 
 number there were several officers of the neigh- 
 bouring garrisons. They bored holes in the walls 
 and the ceiling to run through packthreads, which 
 they had fastened to the curtains and coverlids : they 
 dug holes in the ground and hid them with the 
 grass, that they might trip up the horses and their 
 riders, which must have been very agreeable to the 
 horsemen : they put salt into your coffee, pepper 
 into your snuff, colocynth juice at the edge of your 
 tumbler. Burgundy peas into your shirts, and 
 chopped horse-hair into your sheets. You may 
 imagine that there were cray-fish and frogs in all 
 the beds of the castle ; for it is a fundamental idea 
 in all provincial fun, and always, I have been told, 
 the first thought which comes into the heads of 
 these charming country wits. Others could never 
 go and see the new-married couple without their 
 finding themselves assailed by all this vulgar fun 
 and impertinent brutality, which made their castle 
 a sort of receptacle for all the mischievous people 
 in the neighbourhood. La Martainville expected 
 at their house the widow of the intendant Alen^on, 
 who was called Madame Herault de Sechelles, and 
 who was going to the baths of Barege by very easy 
 day"s journeys : she had entreated permission to 
 rest for some days at Martainville. It is right to 
 tell you that she was recovering from an inflam- 
 mation on the chest, that she had 60,000 francs 
 a-year, and that the Martainvilles were her prin- 
 cipal heirs. She was an old-fashioned woman, 
 very delicate, tiresome, and susceptible to a 
 degree. She was one of those genuine inten- 
 dantes who are used to the adulation of a village, 
 and who never take the trouble of taking up their 
 cards at reverses ; from whence the Cardinal 
 Fleury always said to the young king, who played 
 without ever thinking of it, " Madame I'lnten- 
 dante, it is your turn to take up the cards." 
 
 " Ah now," said De Martainville to the harpies 
 then around him, "do not play tricks during the 
 stay of our aunt de Sechelles. Be very prudent 
 and very serious, gentlemen and ladies ; do not 
 forget she is my relation with a succession." They 
 liad removed I do not know what president's lady, 
 that they might prepare the best apartment for this 
 illustrious invalid. They had placed in the cham- 
 ber that they had allotted for her all tlie most con- 
 venient furniture, as well as all the china and the 
 rarest Dresden porcelain of the house. They had 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 taken care to keep hot, and dressed to a turn, a 
 large boiled chicken, with pigeons stewed -with 
 barley, and ijuails with lettuces, without reckoning 
 the Iresh eggs in cold water and the Alicant wine 
 in hot water : in short, the kitchen and the servants 
 had remained under arms for more than a week, 
 and yet ^ladame did not arrive! They began to 
 be uneasy at it in the family, and the rest of the 
 company to be out of patience. It is to be told 
 also, that the master of the house had never seen 
 this aunt of his wife, and that she had not seen her 
 old relation since she was five or six years old, 
 which gave rise to the idea of playing a trick. 
 
 There was among this facetious band a little 
 Mous. de Clermont d'Amboise, who wished some 
 years afterwards to marry me, but the gratitude I owe 
 him cannot prevent me from telling you he was a 
 nasty-looking, little, yellow, sneaking wretch. 
 They thought of disguising him as an old lady ; 
 another officer was to be dressed as a lady's maid ; 
 and, above all things, they had taken care to con- 
 ceal the preparations for these disguises, which 
 were only to be known to three or four people, 
 but which were divulged by a waiting woman to a 
 spark of the society. They planned trick upon 
 trick, and they concluded to mystify the mystifiers. 
 Therefore, while they were on tenter-hooks to 
 receive them, and bowing and cringing in the best 
 manner, arrived the real intendante, on whom they 
 precipitated themselves like an avalanche ; they 
 tore oft' her furbelowed gown, her starched frill, 
 her mob cap, her wig; in short, they maltreated 
 her so cruelly that it is horrible to think of! 
 The unfortunate woman was so mortally terrified 
 that she could neither cry, nor utter a single word 
 — but in what she heard there were perfidious 
 revelations: — 
 
 "Greedy ostrich, tiresome intendantC' — old aunt 
 with a succession. Ah! you wish to go to the 
 baths to tire out your heirs. Here are mineral 
 waters, there are shower baths." And it was 
 blows and buckets of water which came over her 
 whole body, in the midst of the most frightful 
 noise and confusion. 
 
 After a quarter of an hour of such ducking, and 
 of the worst treatment (she had sunk under the 
 blows and lay senseless on the ground), they per- 
 ceived that the gave no sign of life. They brought 
 a light ; they did not know the little De Clermont, 
 and the result of the investigation was that the 
 poor woman was almost dead. Every one fled 
 from the castle except her relations, who tore their 
 hair, and whom she could not face without a sen- 
 timent of terror and profound horror. She died of 
 it the third day ; and as she had never made any tes- 
 tamentary bequests, it was found that her property 
 naturally fell to the Martainvilles, which compro- 
 mised them so much in the public opinion and 
 before their brethren of the robe, that they made a 
 judicial disposition on this abominable mistake, 
 and Monsieur de Martainville saw himself obliged 
 to give up his profession. As he was very honour- 
 able and his wife was delicacy itself, they would 
 not touch any part of the succession of Madame de 
 Sechelles, which ihey gave up to their collaterals. 
 They some time after sold their fine manor of 
 Martainville, and they even quitted the name for 
 that of their barony of P'rancheville, which their 
 family still bears. Madame de Maiutenon has 
 said that good taste always supposes good sense, 
 and that is the moral of this anecdote. 
 
 XLIX.— HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 {From the Lounger's Commonplace Book.") 
 
 Felix Peretti, the son of a peasant at Montalto, 
 a village in the Papal territory of Ancona, dis- 
 covered at an early age quick parts and a re- 
 tentive memory ; but the poverty of his parents 
 obliged them to part with him when only nine 
 years old, and he was placed in the service of a 
 neighbouring farmer. 
 
 In this situation Felix did not satisfy his em- 
 ployer. He was perpetually finding fault with the 
 lad for his unhandiness in husbandry work, and 
 observing that correction served only to augment 
 his apparent stupidity he dismissed him from the 
 house, the barn, and the stable, to what was consi- 
 dered as a more servile and degrading sjiecies of 
 occupation — the taking care of a numoer of hogs 
 on an adjoining common. 
 
 In this solitary place, deserted and forlorn, his 
 back still smarting with repeated stripes, his eyes 
 overflowing with tears, he was surprised by a 
 stranger at his elbow, inquiring which was the 
 nearest way to Ascoli. 
 
 This person was a Franciscan, who travelling to 
 that place had lost his way ; in fact, the poor boy 
 was so absorbed in grief that he did not observe 
 any one approaching till he heard the voice of the 
 friar, who had spoken to him several times before 
 he could procure an answer. 
 
 Affected by his melancholy appearance, he na- 
 turally asked the cause, and received an account 
 of his hopeless condition, related in a strain of good 
 sense and vivacity (for, on speaking to him, he re- 
 sumed his natural cheerfulness), which surprised 
 the holy father, when he considered his age and 
 wretched appearance. 
 
 "But I must not forget that you are going to 
 Ascoli," said Felix, starting nimbly from the bank 
 on which he was sitting ; then, pointing out the 
 proper road, he accompanied the friar, who was 
 charmed at finding so much untaught politeness in 
 a little rustic. 
 
 Considering himself as sufficiently informed, he 
 thanked the boy, and would have dismissed him 
 with a small present, but he still continued running 
 and skipping before him, till Father Michael asked 
 in a jocose way if he meant to go with him quite 
 to the town 1 
 
 " Not only to Ascoli, but to the end of the 
 world," said Felix, unwilling to quit his com- 
 panion. " Ah, sir !" continued the lad, after a 
 short pause, in a tone of voice and with one of 
 those looks which make their way at once to our 
 hearts: "Ah, sir! if you or any worthy gentleman 
 would but get me the place of an errand boy, or 
 any other employment in a convent, however 
 laborious, where I could procure a little learning 
 and get away from those filthy hogs and the owner 
 of them, who is little better, I would try to make 
 myself useful, and should be bound to pray for and 
 bless you as long as I live." 
 
 " But you would not take the habit of a reli- 
 gious order 1" said the PVanciscan. " Most wil- 
 lingly," replied Felix. 
 
 " You are little aware of the hardships, the fast- 
 ings, the toil, the watchings, and the labour which 
 you would undergo." 
 
 " I would endure the pains of purgatory to 
 become a scholar," was the boy's singular reply. 
 Finding him in earnest, and surprised at his
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 G9 
 
 courage and resolution, he permitted the stripling 
 to accompany him to Ascoli, where he introduced 
 him to the society of Cordeliers he was going to 
 visit, informing them at the same time of the cir- 
 cumstance which first introduced him to this new 
 acquaintance. 
 
 The superior sent for the boy, put many questions 
 to him, and was so well pleased that he imme- 
 diately admitted him. He was immediately in- 
 vested with the habit of a lay-brother, and appointed 
 to assist the sacristan in sweeping the church and 
 lighting the candles. In return for these and other 
 services he was taught the responses and instructed 
 in grammar. 
 
 In ac -.airing knowledge the little stranger was 
 louiid to unite a readiness of comprehension with 
 ii .T?iug application : his progress was so rapid 
 that in 1534, being then only fourteen years old, 
 he entered on his noviciate, and after the usual 
 time was admitted to make his profession. 
 
 On taking deacon's orders he preached his 
 first sermon to a numerous congregation, it being 
 the Feast of the Annunciation, when he soon con- 
 vinced his hearers that the man who was instructing 
 them possessed no common share of abilities. 
 
 The service being concluded, a prelate then 
 present thanked Felix publicly for his discourse, 
 encouraged him to persist diligently in his studies, 
 and congratulated him as well as the society of 
 which he was a member on the fairness of his 
 prospects. 
 
 He was ordained a priest in 1545, took the 
 degrees of bachelor and doctor with considerable 
 credit, and being chosen to keep a divinity act 
 before the whole chapter of his order, father 
 Montalto (that being the name he now assumed) 
 so distinguished himself that he secured the esteem, 
 and afterwards enjoyed the patronage and protection 
 of two cardinals, Carpi and Alexandrino. 
 
 The time indeed was now come when a friend 
 was necessary to defend him against the numerous 
 enemies his acrimonious violence had created ; for, 
 as Montalto advanced to notice and celebrity, 
 impetuosity of temper and impatience of contra- 
 diction became prominent features in his charac- 
 ter : his air and manners were dominating and 
 dictatorial. 
 
 At this period of his life he is described (by a 
 contemporary, who, I suspect, had felt his reproof) 
 as one of those troublesome people who, presum- 
 ing on what I have called the aristocracy of 
 intellect and the insolence of good design, fancy 
 they can set the world to rights, and consider 
 themselves as authorised to censure without 
 respect of persons, and to amend without regard 
 to consequences, whatever they see amiss in church 
 or state. 
 
 It cannot be denied, that at the time of which I 
 speak, the reins of government, ecclesiastical as well 
 as civil, were held with a careless and slackened 
 hand ; that ])ublic and private morals were noto- 
 riously cnrru|)t and proHigate through the whole 
 extent of tiie pajial doininicjiis ; that Koine was a 
 nest and a j)lace of refuge for everything base and 
 villainous in Italy ; tliat the roads, and even the 
 streets of the great city, could not be passed after 
 night without incurring the danger of robbery and 
 murder. 
 
 But men in public stations, however culj)able 
 their dereliction of duly, when they recollected 
 that the present reformer of abuse less than twenty 
 
 years before was a poor peasant, an object of cha- 
 rity and commiseration, could not prevail on them- 
 selves to submit to his censures without resistance 
 and indignation ; but the hour was rapidly ap- 
 proaching when Montalto possessed the power as 
 well as inclination not only to reprove but to 
 punish evil-doers. 
 
 By the interest of Cardinal Alexandrino, who 
 saw and understood the unbending sternness of 
 his disposition, he was appointed to an office which 
 seemed congenial with such a temper — inquisitor- 
 general at Venice. 
 
 But the unqualified harshness of his manners, 
 and the peremptory violence with which he exe- 
 cuted his duty, soon raised a storm in that jealous 
 republic, and he would have suffered personal vio- 
 lence from the enraged Venetians, had he not 
 saved himself by a precipitate flight. 
 
 A few months after, he visited a country sensible 
 of the value of such a character, and where such 
 zeal was duly appreciated. Cardinal Buoucom- 
 ])agno being appointed legatus a latere, in plain 
 English ambassador, from the pope to his Catholic 
 majesty, Montalto accompanied him into Spain as 
 his chaplain and inquisitorial consultor. 
 
 In this capacity he was received at Madrid with 
 great cordiality, and gave such proofs of the 
 warmth of his zeal, that on the cardinal's recall 
 ecclesiastical honours and preferment were re- 
 peatedly offered, if he would establish himself in 
 that country ; but the palace of the Vatican, the 
 city on seven hills, imperial Rome, was the object 
 on which the shepherd of Ancona had fixed an 
 unaverted eye. 
 
 The legate, Buoncompagno, had quitted Spain 
 only a few hours, when he met a messenger dis- 
 patched from Rome with news of the pope's death : 
 this was John de Medicis, who governed the church 
 almost seven years under the title of Pius IV. 
 
 Montalto was strongly interested in this intel- 
 ligence, as he had every reason to expect that his 
 patron. Cardinal Alexandrino, would be elected 
 pontiff. 
 
 In this hope he was not disappointed, and on 
 his arrival at Rome his friend, now exalted to an 
 ecclesiastic throne under the name of Pius V., re- 
 ceived liim with kindness, and immediately ap- 
 pointed him general of his order, a post in which 
 Montalto did not forget to punish those whom he 
 had before admonished. 
 
 In less than four years from the elevation of 
 Cardinal Alexandrino he was made a bishop, re- 
 ceived a com])etent pension, and was ultimately 
 (1570) admitted into the College of Cardinals. 
 
 Being now arrived within a short distance of 
 the mountain top, which for more than forty years 
 he had been arduously and laboriously attcmjiting 
 to climb, he found a firm and safe resting-place on 
 which to rest his foot. 
 
 It cannot be denied that his reflections on this 
 occasion must have been in the highest degree 
 solacing and trimnphant : from poverty, contein[it, 
 and oj)i)ression, from a life of labour unrequited, 
 and with an ardent thirst for knowledge, which 
 at a certain time it seemed impossible for him 
 ever to gratify, he was suddenly placed at the 
 fountain-head of learning and information ; the 
 treasures of ancient and modern literature were 
 diKj)layed before his eyes ; he was raised to per- 
 sonal, and, what was still more flattering, to an 
 intellectual eminence, which was generally ac-
 
 ro 
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 knowleilged and felt : he was exalted to a post 
 which ill those days placed him on an equalitj- 
 witli kings. 
 
 But with so many rational sources of exultation, 
 with so much to hope, tliere was still much to 
 fear : his new associates, generally speaking, were 
 men of talents, well educated, and with the proud 
 blood of the Medici, the Caraifa, the Farnese, the 
 Colonna, and the Frangipani fomilios swelling 
 their veins : many of them not only of illustrious 
 descent, but endowed with a considerable share of 
 deep political sagacity as statesmen, and all alike 
 wishing for, yet anxiously concealing their wishes, 
 to succeed to the chair of St. Peter. 
 
 With competitors of this description it must be 
 confessed that Montalto had a difficult and trying 
 part to act. Being convinced that a severe as- 
 suming character was not likely to succeed, he 
 gradually suppressed every angry passion, and art- 
 fully disguised the foibles and imperfections of his 
 temper under a convenient mask of mildness, affa- 
 bility, and unconcern. 
 
 One of his nephews on a journey to Rome to 
 see his uncle being murdered, the cardinal, now a 
 new man, instead of aiding in the prosecution of 
 the offender interceded for his pardon : he did not 
 encourage visits from his relations, several of whom 
 hearing of his advancement repaired to Rome, but 
 lodged them at an inn, and dismissed them the day 
 after their arrival with an inconsiderable present, 
 strictly charging them to return to their families 
 and trouble him no more, for that he now found 
 his spiritual cares increasing every day ; that he 
 was dead to his relations and the world ; but as 
 old age and infirmities came on, he perhaps might 
 send for one of them to wait upon and nurse him. 
 
 On the death of his friend Pius Y. he entered 
 the conclave with the rest of the cardinals, but did 
 not appear to interest himself in the election ; and 
 on being applied to by any of the candidates or 
 their friends replied, " that the sentiments of so 
 obscure and insignificant a man as he was could 
 be of no importance ; that having never before 
 been in a conclave he was fearful of making a false 
 step, and left the affair to his brethren, who were 
 persons of great weight and experience, and all of 
 them such worthy characters that he was quite at 
 a loss which to vote for, and wished only he had 
 as many voices as there were members of the 
 Sacred College." 
 
 Cardinal Buoncompagno being elected, and 
 having assumed the name of Gregory XIII., the 
 subject of our present article did not forget to pay 
 court to him ; but soon found he was no favourite, 
 having offended his holiness when legate in Spain, 
 by refusing to remain at Madrid as he desired. 
 
 Montalto now became a pattern of meekness, 
 modesty, and humility : he lived frugally in a 
 small house without ostentation. This best spe- 
 cies of prudence and economy, which enabled him 
 to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, by re- 
 trenching his own superfluities, procured him the 
 character of a friend to the poor : he also sub- 
 mitted patiently to every species of injury or in- 
 dignity, and was remarked for treating his worst 
 enemies with tenderness, condescension, and for- 
 giveness. 
 
 In the meantime he had so far deceived the 
 majority of the cardinals, that they considered him 
 as a poor, weak, doating old fellow, incapable of 
 doing either good or harm, and by way of ridicule 
 
 they called him the Ass of La IMarca : the district 
 round Ancona, to a certain extent, being called 
 the ]\Iareh of Ancona. An evident alteration 
 took place in the appearance of his health : he felt, 
 or afl'ected to feel, violent internal pains, which, 
 not being always accompanied with external ap- 
 pearances, afford no positive proof of the existence 
 of disease to the senses, and we are generally 
 obliged to take the word of those who say they 
 feel them. 
 
 He applied for advice to medical men in various 
 quarters of the city, describing what he felt, which 
 (having secretly gathered the information from 
 books) they described as alarming symptoms, pro- 
 duced by causes which in all probability would 
 shorten his days ; public prayers were offered up 
 for his recovery, and the intercession of all devout 
 christians and good men earnestly requested. 
 
 At intervals he would appear in a state of con- 
 valescence, but considerably changed ; of a pale 
 countenance, thin, bent in body, and leaning pain- 
 fully on his staff: by a few persons, who suspected 
 the duplicity of his conduct, these untoward ap- 
 pearances were said to be produced by the frequent 
 use of nauseating medicines, nocturnal watchings, 
 and rigid abstinence. 
 
 But with all his apparent sufferings and affected 
 indifference to public men and public measures, 
 his eyes and ears were open and intent on every 
 transaction, public as well as private. By means 
 of apt emissaries, many of whom were domestics 
 with cardinals and ambassadors, he made himself 
 acquainted with every event either directly or re- 
 motely connected with his ambitious views. 
 
 Considering auricular confession as a convenient 
 instrument to forward political intrigue, and his 
 reputation as a learned divine being firmly esta- 
 blished, he attended whenever his health would 
 permit to hear confessions, and was resorted to by 
 crowds of all ranks. 
 
 In this post he procured great help towards his 
 aggrandisement, and is said to have extracted 
 secrets on which he afterwards grounded many 
 judicial punishments. 
 
 At this propitious moment (1585), and at a time 
 when the College of Cardinals was torn by oppo- 
 site interests and divided by contending factions, 
 at this auspicious moment died Gregory XIII. 
 
 Montalto accompanied the cardinals into the 
 conclave, and immediately shutting himself in his 
 chamber was scarcely spoken to or thought of: if 
 at any time it was necessary as a matter of form, or 
 for the purpose of calculating numbers, to consult 
 him, his door was found fast, and a message was 
 sent that he would wait on their eminences the 
 moment his coughing and violent pain were abated ; 
 but earnestly entreating them to proceed to business, 
 as the presence of so insignificant a person as him- 
 self could not be necessary, and he hoped they 
 would not disturb a man sinking under disease, 
 whose thoughts were placed on another world. 
 
 At the end of fourteen days, three powerful 
 parties, each of whom had considered themselves 
 as certain of choosing their own pope, found their 
 views defeated in consequence of the votes being 
 equally divided. 
 
 Impatient of delay, and hoping that a vacancy 
 would soon take place if they elected the old Ass 
 of La Marca, whom every man thought he could 
 manage as he pleased, they unanimously concurred 
 in electing him.
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 71 
 
 The moment he was chosen, Montalto threw 
 away the staif on which he liad hitherto supported 
 himself, then suddenly raising his head, and expand- 
 ing his chest, he surprised every one present by 
 appearing at least a foot taller. 
 
 Coming forward with a firm step, an erect and 
 dignified air, he thanked them for the high honour 
 they had conferred upon him, the duties of which 
 with God's good grace he would to the utmost of 
 his power conscientiously perform. 
 
 As he passed from the conclave the people ex- 
 claimed, *' Long live the pope — plenty, holy father, 
 plenty — ^justice and large loaves." "Pray to God 
 for plenty, and I will give you justice," was his 
 answer 
 
 Impatient to exercise the rights of sovereignty, 
 h' 1 .'.ic;ed his triple crown to be immediately pro- 
 duced, and placed it on a velvet cushion in the 
 room where he sat : he was also desirous of being 
 immediately crowned and enthroned, but being 
 informed that his authority and prerogatives were 
 in every respect as firmly established and as ex- 
 tensive before as after the ceremony of coronation, 
 he reluctantly consented to a short delay for the 
 necessary preparations. 
 
 The humility and complaisance he had for so 
 many years assumed immediately vanished ; those 
 predominating passions, which had been suppressed 
 by interested views and political dissimulation, re- 
 gained their ascendancy and burst forth with aug- 
 mented fury. So great an alteration in his conduct 
 and manners, as well as health, was a bitter dis- 
 appointment to those cardinals who, to serve their 
 own purposes had assisted in the elevation of Mon- 
 talto, who now assumed the name of Pope Sixtus V. 
 
 It was not merely his refusing them the least 
 share or appearance of authority ; it was not only 
 the loss of patronage and influence they had to 
 lament ; but the mortification of being overreached 
 and defeated by the old man who for more than 
 fourteen years had been the object of their ridicule 
 and contempt : he had met them on their own ground, 
 and conquered them with their own weapons. 
 
 If at any time they hesitated in concurring with 
 the vigorous and salutary measures of his govern- 
 ment, and ventured to expostulate and represent 
 the inconsistency of his former conduct and pro- 
 fessions, he instantly silenced them, and observed : 
 " That feeling himself much improved in health 
 and spirits, he was able, by God's assistance, and 
 would endeavour to govern the church without 
 their help or advice ; that he was their sovereign, 
 and would be obeyed." 
 
 The day before his coronation, the governor of 
 Rome and the keeper of the Castle of St. Angelo 
 waited on Sixtus to inform him that it had been the 
 custom for every new pope to grant an universal 
 jail delivery, and a free pardon to all oflenders : 
 they wished to know his pleasure. 
 
 He eagerly asked for a list of the malefactors in 
 custody : they gave him a paper filled with names, 
 as on these occasions, expecting what would take 
 place, the prisons were crowded with a number of 
 miscreants who in consecfuence of murder, robbery, 
 and other crimes, had the sword of the law hanging 
 over their heads. 
 
 By surrendering themselves they all hoped and 
 expected, according to long-established custom, to 
 procure indemnity for past offences, and security, 
 on being released, for persevering in their criminal 
 courses. 
 
 *' Mercy on us !" exclaimed his holiness : " what 
 a nest of villains have we here! But are you not 
 aware, Mr. Governor, and you, Mr. Jailer, of the 
 glaring impropriety of your conduct in pretending 
 to talk of pardon and acts of grace ; leave such 
 matters to your sovereign. Depending on your 
 never repeating this impertinent interference with 
 my powers and prerogatives, I for once will pardon 
 it ; but instantly go back to your charge and see 
 that good care be taken of those you have in prison, 
 for as I hold my trust from God, if one of your 
 prisoners escape, I will hang you on the highest 
 gibbet I can procure. 
 
 " It Avas not to protect delinquents, and encou- 
 rage sinners that Divine Providence placed me in 
 the chair of St. Peter. To pardon men notoriously 
 and flagrantly wicked, who glory in their crimes 
 and only wait for liberty that they may again 
 practice their enormities, would be to share their 
 guilt. 
 
 " I see you have four criminals under sentence 
 of death for abominable crimes, and in whose 
 favour I have applications and petitions from all 
 quarters : their friends, I have no doubt, think they 
 are doing right, but I must not forget my duty. 
 
 " It is therefore my pleasure," continued Sixtus, 
 in an elevated tone and with a severe look, " It is 
 my will and pleasure that to-morrow, at the hour 
 of my coronation, two of them suffer by the axe, 
 and two of them by the halter, in different quarters 
 of the city: we shall then do an act of justice 
 pleasing to the Almighty, and take off many of 
 those idle and disorderly people who at public 
 ceremonies generally occasion so much riot and 
 confusion." 
 
 His orders on this occasion were literally obeyed. 
 
 The day after the ceremony, many of the nobility 
 and gentry waited on the pope to congratulate him, 
 but he said, " his was a 2'ost of toil and duty — that 
 he had not time for compliments,'" and with these 
 words he was on the point of retiring, but a master 
 of the ceremonies informed him that a crowd of 
 cardinals, nobles, ambassadors, senators, and 
 wealthy citizens demanded an audience. 
 
 The greater part of them having relations, friends, 
 or dependants, who in consequence of their crimes 
 had fled from justice and joined banditti, but had 
 lately surrendered themselves on the prospect and 
 probability of a general and universal liberation, 
 their expectations in this respect were disappointed, 
 as tiie pope had positively declared that not a single 
 oft'ender should be pardoned. 
 
 The deputation represented to Sixtus in strong 
 language the indecency of so sanguinary a proceed- 
 ing, at a season which had been generally devoted 
 to mirth and rejoicing, and were proceeding to 
 further arguments in the hope of prevailing on him 
 to retract his resolution. 
 
 But the person they addressed could restrain 
 himself no longer: commanding silence, on pain of 
 his displeasure, he thus addressed them with angry 
 looks and in a loud voice : — 
 
 "I am surprised at the insolence of your repre- 
 sentations, and your apparent ignorance of the 
 obedience which ought, in all cases, to be paid to 
 the orders of a sovereign prince. When the govern- 
 ment of our holy cliurch was committed to Saint 
 Peter by Christ, it surely was not his design that 
 the successors of the holy apostle should be tutored 
 and directed by their subjects. 
 
 " But if vou do not or will not do your duty, I
 
 72 
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 am resolved to practise mine : I hope and trust 
 that I shall not, like my predecessors, sutTer law 
 and justice to sleep; by which means the ecclesi- 
 astical states have been readored, and are notori- 
 ously become, the most debauched, and in every 
 respect the wickedest spot on the surface of the 
 globe — a bye-word to the scorner and the heretic 
 — a reproach to the faith we profess. 
 
 " Retire (raising his arm and voice as he re- 
 peated the word, seeing the cardinals did not appear 
 to move), retire, and instead of wishing to obstruct 
 law and justice, endeavour to co-operate with me 
 in cleansing this filthy Augean stable ; for as to the 
 criminals in question, no motive of any kind shall 
 ever induce me to pardon one of them ; each 
 offender shall undergo without fear, favour, par- 
 tiality, or resentment, the punishment attached by 
 law to the crime he has committed ; and I shall 
 make strict inquiry after all those who have patro- 
 nised and encouraged them, whom I cannot but 
 consider as participators in their guilt, and will 
 also punish." The different prisoners suffered the 
 sentence of the law. They departed in silent dis- 
 may ; and a few months after, as his holiness was 
 repairing to St. Peter's on the day of a public fes- 
 tival, a crowd as was customary assembled to see 
 kim pass : the people on this occasion were so 
 numerous, and pressed so closely, that the Swiss 
 guards, who always attend the pope, were under the 
 necessity of making way with their halberts. 
 
 Among the multitude there happened unfortu- 
 nately to be the son of a Spanish grandee, who 
 having arrived only that morning at Rome, had not 
 time nor opportunity to secure an unmolested spot 
 for viewing the procession. 
 
 This gentleman standing foremost was pushed 
 back somewhat rudely. The enraged Spaniard, 
 following the poor Swiss into the church, murdered 
 him as he fell on his knees at the foot of the altar, 
 and endeavoured to fly for refuge to the house of 
 the Spanish ambassador: he was pursued by two 
 comrades of the deceased and taken into custody. 
 
 Intelligence of this barbarous and sacrilegious 
 act quickly reached the ears of Sixtus. After the 
 service of the day was concluded, the governor of 
 Rome also waited on his holiness as he was going 
 to his coach, to know his pleasure and wait for 
 instructions how to proceed. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Sixtus, " and what do you think 
 ought to be done in a case of flagrant murder 
 thus committed before ray face, and in the house 
 of God V' 
 
 " I have given orders," said the officer, "for in- 
 formations being taken and a process being com- 
 menced." 
 
 " A process !" replied the pope ; " what occasion 
 can there be for processes in a crime like this, com- 
 mitted before hundreds of witnesses?" 
 
 " I thought your holiness would choose to ob- 
 serve due form of law," answered the governor ; 
 " particularly in this instance, as the criminal is 
 the only son of a person of consideration, in high 
 favour with his Catholic majesty, and under the 
 protection of his ambassador." 
 
 " Say not a word to me of consideration and 
 protection. Crime levels every distinction ; his 
 rank and education should have taught him better. 
 It is our pleasure that he shall be hanged before 
 we sit do\^^l to dinner." 
 
 The trial of the prisoner being soon gone through, 
 and a gallows erected in the interval on. a spot 
 
 where the pope could see it from the saloon in 
 which he was sitting, he did not quit the apart- 
 ment till he saw the Spaniard brought forth and 
 sus])ended : he then retired from the window and 
 went to dinner, repeating witli a loud voice a 
 favourite passage from the Psalms : — " / shall soon 
 destroy all the ungodly in the land, and root out evil- 
 doers from the city of the Lord '" 
 
 Such was the conduct of the little peasant of 
 Ancona when elevated to supreme power. He 
 became a rigid but impartial censor of public de- 
 faulters and private transgressors. He ordered the 
 public functionaries throughout his dominions to 
 send him, each of them, a list of every person in 
 their neighbourhood who was notorious for de- 
 bauchery, drunkenness, or other vicious habits. 
 First inquiring into the truth of their information, 
 he sent for and privately reproved them ; but if this 
 warning was not attended to, he severely punished 
 the offender. Having deeply impressed a convic- 
 tion of his inexorable regard to justice, persons 
 exercising authority under him performed the duties 
 with scrupulous exactness. 
 
 The various remarkable instances in which this 
 extraordinary man exerted his powers in suppress- 
 ing vicious enormity would, if introduced in this 
 place, extend our present article to a length incon- 
 sistent with the nature of this publication. 
 
 "With respect to women, a violation of their chas- 
 tity by force or by fraud, with or against their 
 consent, he never pardoned ; and even a slight 
 deviation from public decorum did not go un- 
 punished ; a subsequent marriage on either of these 
 occasions he did not consider as a satisfaction to 
 justice. 
 
 This delicacy, so scrupulously severe, he carried 
 to an excess in many instances inconsistent with 
 human infirmity, or the wishes and often the happi- 
 ness of the injured women, who in several instances 
 had their husbands torn from, their embraces and 
 committed to the galleys for follies and indiscre- 
 tions committed before marriage. 
 
 He determined to put a stop to a depraved 
 custom then generally prevalent in his dominions 
 among the elevated and wealthy classes of society, 
 that of marrying a mistress to a dependant, for 
 the purpose of procuring an ostensible parent for 
 their illegitimate offspring, and carrying on securely 
 an adulterous intercourse. 
 
 The first example of this kind was that of a 
 person from whom his holiness had experienced 
 many acts of kindness before he was created a 
 cardinal. After a momentary struggle, he sent for 
 his former friend privately, and warmly censuring 
 him for his conduct, he warned him of the conse- 
 quence of persevering in the unlawful connexion, 
 assured him that his duty as a magistrate was 
 paramount to his feelings as a friend, and advised 
 him either to remove the female or to quit his 
 dominions. A few months after, Sixtus ordered 
 secret spies to watch the parties, and finding that 
 the person he had reproved still continued the 
 criminal attachment, probably presuming on the 
 indulgence of former friendship, he ordered the 
 offenders, the husband and wife, to be hanged with- 
 out delay : three domestics acquainted with the 
 illicit proceeding he ordered to be publicly whipped, 
 for not giving information. 
 
 It had been usual for the people to exclaim 
 "Long live the Pope!" whenever he passed, but 
 finding that this mode of acclamation prevented his
 
 HISTORY OF FELIX PERETTI. 
 
 73 
 
 dropping in unexpectedly at the courts of justice 
 and public offices, he forbade the custom. On two 
 unlucky rogues, who from obstinacy or inadver- 
 tency disobeyed this injunction, he ordered the 
 strapado to be inflicted immediately on the spot : 
 this effectually prevented a repetition. 
 
 Assassinations and duels had disgraced the reigns 
 of all his predecessors, and rendered Rome and 
 Italy unsafe. 
 
 To arrest, and if possible remove an evil pro- 
 ductive of public danger and private distress, he 
 published an edict, forbidding on pain of death any 
 persons, whatever their rank, drawing a sword or 
 even having in their possession any instrument of 
 death as *hej passed the streets, except his own 
 magistrates and officers. Bystanders who did not 
 pre- •:, ?.ud seconds who encouraged duelling, he 
 instantly sent to the galleys. A few instances of 
 rigid severity effectually removed the grievance. 
 
 Anything like revenge or bearing malice he 
 would not endure. A barber, quarrelling with one 
 of his neighbours, held up his hand in a threaten- 
 ing manner, and with a significant motion of his 
 head had been heard to say, " If ever he comes 
 under my hands, I will do his business." This being 
 repeated to the pontiff, he ordered the speaker of 
 the obnoxious words to be taken into custody ; then 
 directing all the barbers in Rome to be collected 
 in one of the squares, the offender underwent a 
 long and severe whipping before them. 
 
 His holiness observing that tradesmen suffered 
 seriously and often became bankrupts in conse- 
 quence of long credit and bad pay, to the great 
 injury of commerce and frequently of the public 
 revenue, quickly produced an important reform- 
 ation on a point which loudly calls for amend- 
 ment in Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 A hint to his officers that he wished to collect 
 information on the subject was sufficient. A trades- 
 man, in all probability previously instructed, made 
 complaint, that having applied to a person of dis- 
 tinction for payment of a debt which had been long 
 due, and of which he stood in urgent need, the 
 debtor had violently resented it, withdrawn his own 
 custom from the poor man's shop, and persuaded 
 many others to do the like, telling the person he 
 injured, in an insolent manner, '" That gentlemen 
 paid their debts only when they pleased." 
 
 Sixtus sent for both parties, ordered the money 
 to be instantly paid, with interest from the time of 
 its being due, and committed the fraudulent debtor 
 to prison. 
 
 At the eame time a proclamation was issued, 
 directing all the merchants and tradesmen to send 
 his holiness a list of their book debts, with the 
 names of those from whom the money was due : 
 he directly paid the whole, taking the debts on him- 
 self, which in consequence of the general alarm, 
 were quickly discharged. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the sub- 
 ject of our present article exercised a rigid and 
 inexorable despotism ; but exerting it in most in- 
 stances with impartial justice and for salutary 
 purposes, his power was submitted to with less 
 reluctance. He is called by a writer of that period 
 a terror and a scouryc ; but it was to evil-doers, to 
 the profligate, the incorrigible, and the corrupt. 
 Most rational men, 1 believe, would prefer living 
 under an absolute monarch of such a cast than 
 under the easy sway of a lax moralist, a generou? 
 libertine, or one of those devilish good kind of 
 
 fellows who are commonly described as no man's 
 enemy's but their own ; a character which cannot 
 exist, — as it is impossible he can be a friend to 
 others, who is in a state of constant hostility with 
 himself. At all events, the great interests of so- 
 ciety's public happiness and private peace are most 
 effectually preserved by a prince like Montalto. 
 
 In his transactions with foreign princes Sixtus 
 uniformly preserved a dignified firmness, from 
 which he never relaxed. Very early in his reign 
 he was involved in a dispute with Philip II., king 
 of Spain, who though the most superstitious of 
 bigots to the Catholic faith, was a constant object 
 of the pope's hostility ; while the heretic Elizabeth, 
 queen of England, was a character he warmly ad- 
 mired, and never mentioned without enthusiastic 
 admiration. 
 
 Speaking of her on a certain occasion to an 
 English catholic who visited Rome, he observed, 
 " A queen like yours deserves to reign ; she governs 
 her kingdom with energy and wisdom ; respected 
 abroad, and loved or feared at home, her subjects 
 enjoy the benefits of a vigorous and successful ad- 
 ministration. If such a woman were to become 
 my wife, we might people the world with a race of 
 Scipios, Caesars, and Alexanders." 
 
 Yet in his public capacity, as head of the Catholic 
 church, he found it necessary to publish a bull of 
 excommunication against Elizabeth, when Philip 
 meditated an invasion of England with his invincible 
 Spanish Armada. 
 
 At the same time he privately informed her of 
 the proceedings and intrigues of Philip against her, 
 earnestly recommending her majesty to prepare for 
 a vigorous defence. 
 
 The subsequent defeat and disappointment of the 
 Spanish king in this attempt, commenced with so 
 much threatening arrogance and carried on at so 
 enormous an expense, is known to most readers, 
 and was highly gratifying to Sixtus. 
 
 The imprisonment and execution of Mary Queen 
 of Scots, an event which produced a strong and 
 universal sensation through Europe, has in modern 
 times excited a long and animated controversy. 
 Various have been the opinions on the justice of 
 Elizabeth's proceedings. 
 
 As weak states, in contests of a more important 
 kind, find it necessary sometimes to call in the aid 
 of powerful allies, I may be permitted to observe, 
 that the pontiff Sixtus was often heard to say, " Had 
 I been king of England, I would have acted pre- 
 cisely in the same manner." 
 
 When he was first informed that the unfortunate 
 Mary was beheaded, he rose suddenly from his seat 
 and traversed the apartment in much apparent 
 agitation, but not the agitation of regret, for throw- 
 ing himself into a chair, lie exclaimed, " O happy 
 queen of England ! how much art thou to be envied, 
 who hast been found worthy of seeing a croNvned 
 head prostrate at thy feet !" 
 
 These words were evidently spoken with refer- 
 ence to Philip, king of Spain, whose name was 
 never mentioned in his presence without producing 
 angry looks. 
 
 .Sixtus could never submit with patience to a 
 ceremony annually performed by the Spanish am- 
 bassador: this was the presenting a Genet to his 
 holiness, by way of acknowledgment that his master 
 held the kingdom of Na])les of the j)ope. 
 
 On one of these occasions, rising hastily from his 
 throne, he said in a loud voice to Count Olivarez,
 
 74 
 
 MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE AT THE MAURITIUS. 
 
 " Our predecessors must certainly liave been in a 
 vorv complaisant mood, when they agreed to accept 
 from your master's ancestors a poor pitiful hack, 
 in return for a rich and flourishing kingdom. I 
 hope soon to put an end to this mummery, and 
 to visit the kingdom of Naples as its lawful 
 sovereign." 
 
 But circumstance and situation were not f\ivour- 
 able to his executing this purpose, which was the 
 fond wish of his heart. 
 
 Such was Sixtus V., who directed the officers of 
 his palace to give audience on every occasion to 
 the poorest man in his dominions ; who listened 
 with condescension to the unfortunate, the widow, 
 and the orphan ; but punished with inexorable 
 severity criminal delinquency, respecting neither 
 person, rank, nor wealth ; who was moderate in 
 his enjoyments, of pure morals, and correct in 
 private life. The revenues of the state, almost an- 
 nihilated by the rapacious anticipation of his pre- 
 decessors, he restored to more than double their 
 former nominal amount. In the public treasury, 
 which was exhausted at the time of his election, 
 his successor found five millions in gold ; his per- 
 sonal expenses were tritiiug, but his private charities 
 amounted every year to a considerable sum ; on 
 these occasions he sought for and generally found 
 patient, meek, and unassuming merit struggling 
 with adversity : the perverse and importunate men- 
 dicant who begged by day and thieved at night, he 
 ordered out of the city with reproof and frequently 
 with stripes. So salutary were his edicts, and so 
 undeviating and rigid the impartiality with which 
 he enforced them, that his judges and police officers 
 confessed that their places were become sinecures. 
 Such was Sixtus V., who if the qualities we describe 
 are the first and most indispensable duties of a 
 monarch, deserves to be classed with the first and 
 most glorious of kings, and to be numbered with 
 the greatest benefactors of mankind. 
 
 He was deficient, it must be confessed, in the mild 
 acts of gentle persuasion ; he was a stranger to the 
 suavitcr in tnodo ; but to such a pitch was the wick- 
 edness and enormity of his subjects carried, that a 
 governor of a mild character would have been dis- 
 obeyed and despised. But he possessed a quali- 
 fication more essential, and exactly calculated for 
 the times in Avhich he lived, the fortiter in re ; an 
 eagle-eyed acuteness to search after and to see cri- 
 minality and fraud however concealed or disguised, 
 together with unabating energy, and an unconquer- 
 able resolution to resist and punish them. 
 
 L.— MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE AT THE 
 MAURITIUS. 
 
 [From ' Recollections of Seven Years' Residence 
 at the Mauritius, by a Lady,' — a truly feminine 
 book, full of natural feeling and description, and 
 evincing a liberal spirit of allowance for other 
 countries, in spite of party education.] 
 
 A YOUNG married gentleman lived on an estate in 
 a very retired and lonely part of the country, at a 
 great distance from town. At that time the island 
 was covered with thick forests and impenetrable 
 jungles. Estates were far apart and divided from 
 each other by deep ravines, high mountains, rapid 
 rivers, or pathless woods : communication was verv 
 
 difficult in consequence ; narrow footpaths, and 
 devious tracks over the mountains and along the 
 brink of precipices, were the only medium of inter- 
 course between the inhabitants, instead of the fine 
 broad roads over which the carriages of the English 
 now roll so smoothly. This gentleman's family 
 consisted only of his wife, her sister, and himself : 
 both the ladies were very beautiful and attractive. 
 It happened unfortunately that some troops were 
 stationed in the neighbourhood of the estate, com- 
 manded by a man of the most infamous clmracter. 
 The army of revolutionized France was of a very 
 different order from that which Conde and Tureime 
 had led into the field ; and of that army the regi- 
 ments stationed at the colonies were the worst 
 specimens, and composed of the most abandoned 
 characters. The colonel of the military party sta- 
 tioned near this estate was of this description, but 
 had plausible manners and handsome features ; yet 
 it was said that there was a certain fearful expres- 
 sion in his eyes, which seemed to tell of evil passions 
 and wicked deeds. 
 
 It was the misfortune of the young Madame B — 
 to attract the attention of this bad man : he soon 
 took an opportunity of declaring his sentiments to 
 her. Shocked and alarmed, she shrunk with horror 
 from the passion she had inspired in this desperate 
 and daring man, of whom she always had an un- 
 conquerable dread. After his declaration she 
 shunned his presence, but refrained from mention- 
 ing the circumstance to her husband, fearing that the 
 impetuosity of his feelings would hurry him to a 
 meeting with the colonel, which would doubtless 
 prove fatal to him, and thereby throw her com- 
 pletely in the power of their mutual enemy. 
 
 The colonel conthiued to visit at the estate, and 
 was always attended by a junior officer, who being 
 the professed admirer of this lady's sister became a 
 frequent guest, and it was not considered extra- 
 ordinary that the colonel should accompany his 
 friend. The unhappy lady in the meantime en- 
 dured great uneasiness of mind, and confided to 
 an elderly female friend, who sometimes came to 
 visit her, the cause of her disquiet ; adding that 
 she had a presentiment of some approaching evil, 
 which she could not banish from her mind. 
 
 Some urgent business obliging her husband to 
 go to town for a day or two, the lady alarmed at 
 the thought of being at the estate without him, 
 expressed a wish that she and her sister should 
 accompany him. He strongly opposed her desire, 
 alleging that the fatigue of the journey would be 
 injurious to her, as she was then expecting to be a 
 mother. In vain she urged her entreaties ; he at 
 first laughed at her extraordinary wish to visit the 
 town, and then felt surprised at the more than 
 common grief she evinced at parting for so short a 
 time. Bidding her keep up her spirits, he gaily 
 bade her adieu, and as he told his friend aftei-- 
 wards, saw her on turning his head to look back 
 weeping bitterly where he had taken leave of her. 
 
 When his swift-footed bonniquet had borne him 
 through the avenue of trees, and turned into the 
 narrow road he was to travel along, he looked 
 back at her for the last time : it was, indeed, the 
 last time — he never saw her again. 
 
 On the evening of his departure she was parti- 
 cularly anxious and uneasy, and started at every 
 sound (as her favourite maid afterwards related), 
 and expressed a desire that the house should be 
 shut up at a much earlier hour than usual, and
 
 ORIGIN OF MALLETT'S " EDWIN AND EMMA." 
 
 75 
 
 that every one should retire to bed, requesting her 
 sister to sleep with her that night. As she was 
 not naturally fearful, her restlessness and evident 
 terror excited the surprise of her sister and her 
 maid. On being rallied on her timidity she burst 
 into tears, saying that a great calamity she was 
 sure was hanging over her, and she should never 
 see her husband again. All these terrors and fore- 
 bodings were attributed to weakness of nerves and 
 the delicacy pf her situation at the time, and it was 
 agreed that they should go to bed : before she re- 
 tired to her room, however, she carefully examined 
 every door and window, to be sure of all being 
 secured. 
 
 Towards the morning of the following day the 
 blacLs on the estate, aroused by the outcry of the 
 watchman, beheld their master's house a blaze of 
 flames, and by sunrise a heap of ruins alone was 
 seen where that happy dwelling once stood. All 
 efforts to extinguish the fire had been in vain ; it 
 had been burning too long, and had too surely 
 penetrated into every part of the mansion before 
 it was discovered, for any endeavour to prevail 
 against itj A slave was dispatched to town with 
 the dreadful tidings for his master, whose anguish 
 at hearing the misfortune that had befallen him 
 may be more easily imagined than described. It 
 was at first supposed that the fire had accidentally 
 happened, and that the two ladies had been burned 
 to death in the house ; but a small silk shoe, which 
 was at once recognised as belonging to Madame, 
 having been found in a narrow path leading to the 
 river, it was then conjectured that some horrible 
 act of violence had been perpetrated, and that the 
 two females had been murdered in some part of 
 the ground. Search was made for the bodies, but 
 they were never found. 
 
 After a careful investigation of the matter, it was 
 discovered that the waiting-maid, who slept in the 
 room adjoining her mistress's apartment, had ad- 
 mitted a soldier into the house, who was imme- 
 diately followed by two other men wrapped up in 
 cloaks. The woman, not expecting the two latter, 
 and seeing them approach her ladys room, was 
 about to scream out, when the soldier seized her, 
 and throwing a thick great coat over her head pre- 
 vented her from moving or speaking, and hurried 
 her into the house. "When at length he released 
 her from his grasp, she saw the building in flames. 
 Such was her account : she protested that she had 
 no knowledge of the intentions of the men who 
 accompanied the soldier, and expressed the great- 
 est grief at the catastrophe. Her assertions, how- 
 ever, were not credited, and she was taken into 
 custody : the soldier was also taken up, and con- 
 fessed having entered the house at the command 
 of Colonel , who with another officer had ac- 
 companied him. The colonel denied the charge, 
 but the man most solemnly declared the truth of 
 what he affirmed, at the same time acknowledging 
 his guilt, and expressing great contrition for what 
 he had done in obedience to liis officer's com- 
 mands. No doubt of the colonel's guilt remained 
 in the minds of any : so much evil was known, and 
 so much more suspected of him, that all were 
 ready to believe the evidence against him ; yet 
 such was the general fear entertained of the mili- 
 tary, and so little was justice understood or at- 
 tended to, that this man was acquitted, and the 
 far less guilty accomplice of his crime was exe- 
 cuted, calling on heaven to testify to the truth of 
 
 his allegation, and accusing the colonel of having 
 drawn him into sin and then leaving him to his 
 fate : the woman also suffered death. Finding the 
 law did not punish the author of his misfortunes as 
 he deserved, the unhappy husband challenged his 
 enemy to combat, and as was to be expected in so 
 unequal a combat, he fell beneath the blows of the 
 practised swordsman. 
 
 The mystery of this transaction has never been 
 cleared up, and it remains unknown how the un- 
 fortunate females met their death. 
 
 LI.— ORIGIN OF MALLETT'S "EDWIN 
 AND EMMA." 
 
 [This touching ballad, the author of which had a 
 genuine faculty for that sort of ivriting, far superior 
 to what he probably thought his superior composi- 
 tions, has been somewhat neutralized in its effect 
 by its trite repetition from the pages of Enfield's 
 'Speaker;' though to complain of such results 
 from those publications would be doing them great 
 injustice, since you cannot at once make a good 
 thing common, and yet expect it to retain among 
 its other beneficial consequences a perpetual no- 
 velty. But grown people, when their attention is 
 freshly excited, may read well-known productions 
 with a new relish, and in this hope we have re- 
 peated the story on which it is founded. Jlallet's 
 account of the heroine's death is not so affecting 
 as the real circumstance— her suddenly scream- 
 ing out, at hearing the death-bell of her lover, 
 " that her heart was burst " — but it is not wanting 
 in pathos, especially the first line, and there is a 
 vein of natural elegance throughout the poem.] 
 
 Extract of a letter from the Curate of Bowes, in 
 Yorkshire, to Mr. Copperthwaite, at Marrick. 
 
 * * * " As to the affair mentioned in your's, 
 it happened long before my time. I have there- 
 fore been obliged to consult my clerk and anotlier 
 person in the neighbourhood for the truth of that 
 melancholy event. The history of it is as follows : — 
 
 " The family name of the young man was 
 Wrightson ; of the young maiden, Railton. They 
 were both much of the same age — that is. growing 
 up to twenty. In their birth there was no dis- 
 parity, but in fortune, alas ! she was his inferior. 
 His father, a hard old man, who had by his fortune 
 acquired a handsome competency, expected and 
 required that Iiis son should marry suitably ; but 
 as ' amor vincit omnia,' his heart was unalterably 
 fixed on the pretty young creature already named. 
 Their courtship, which was all by stealth, iniknown 
 to the family, continued about a year. When it 
 was found out, old Wrightson, his wife, and parti- 
 cularly their crooked daughter Hannah, flouted ai 
 the maiden, and treated her with notable con- 
 temjjt ; for they iield it as a maxim, and a rustic 
 one it is, ' that blood was nothing without groats.' 
 
 "The young lover sickened, and took to his bed 
 about Shrove Tuesilay, and died the Sunday seven- 
 night after. 
 
 " On the last day of his illness he desired to see 
 his mistress. She was civilly received by the mo- 
 ther, who bid her welcome — when it was too late. 
 But her daughter Hainiah lay at his back to oit 
 them off from all opi)ortunity of exchanging their 
 thoughts.
 
 GOETHE'S ADVENTURE WITH HIS DANCING-MASTER'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 " At her return home, on hearint^ the hell toll 
 out for his dei)arture, slie screamed aloud tliat her 
 heart was hurst, and expired some moments after. 
 "The then curate of Bowes * inserted it in his 
 register that 'they hoth died of love, and were 
 buried in the same grave, March 15, 1714.' 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours, &c." 
 
 LII.— GOETHE'S ADVENTURE WITH HIS 
 DANCING-MASTER'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 {From his Autobiography.) 
 
 [Goethe is charged with having given too self- 
 complacent an account of the various attachments 
 to him when he was young ; and what is less easy 
 to he excused with having encouraged, and then 
 broken them up with a little too much facility, and 
 like a man of the world. His admirers say on the 
 other hand, that all this only fell within the natural 
 course of events in the life of such a man ; and 
 that whatever weakness may have been mixed 
 w-ith it at the time, it was turned to better account 
 by him ultimately than could have been done by 
 others, and became part of that universality of 
 experience which made him so great a writer. We 
 leave the readers of his Autobiography to judge for 
 themselves, being equally loth to speak lightly of 
 what might have caused much distress to others, 
 and to offend the laurels of a head which grew old 
 in wisdom and renown, not, in all probability, with- 
 out its sufficient portion of regret, as well as self- 
 reconcilement. Inthe tragic-comic instance before 
 us, whatever may be the poet's self-complacency in 
 relating the adventure at all, the case does not appear 
 to tell against him as in others ; and, where there 
 is a doubt, the charitable conclusion is much 
 oftener the just one than prejudice is willing to 
 suppose.] 
 
 Whilst I employed myself in various studies and 
 researches, I did not neglect the pleasures incident 
 to youth. At Strasburg, every day and hour offers 
 to sight the magnificent monument of the minster, 
 and to the ear the movements and music of the 
 dance. My father himself had given my sister and 
 me our first lessons in this art. We had learned 
 the grave minuet from him. The solos and pas- 
 de-deux of the French theatre, whilst it was with 
 us at Frankfort, had given me a greater relish for 
 the pleasures of dancing; but from the unfortunate 
 termination of my love affair with Margaret, I had 
 entirely neglected it. This taste revived in me at 
 Strasburg. On Sundays and holidays, joyous troops, 
 met for the purpose of dancing, were to be seen 
 in all directions. There were little balls in all 
 the country-houses, and nothing was talked of 
 but the brilliant routs expected in the winter. 
 I was therefore apprehensive of finding myself out 
 of my element in company, unless I qualified 
 myself to figure as a dancer; and I accordingly 
 took lessons of a master recommended by one of 
 my friends. He was a true French character, 
 cold and polished. He taught with care, but 
 without pedantry. As I had already had some 
 practice, he was not dissatisfied with me. 
 
 * Bowes is .1 small villa^'t- in Yorkshire, where in former 
 limns the Earls of Richmond had a ca'jtk'. It stands on tlie 
 edfje of that vast and mountainous tract, named by tlie 
 neiglit)ouring peojile Sfanemore, which is always exposed 
 to wind and weather, dusoUite and solitary throu^iiout. — Cam. 
 Britt. 
 
 He had two daughters who were both pretty, 
 and the elder of whom was not twenty. They 
 were both good dancers. This circumstance 
 greatly facilitated my progress, for the awkwardest 
 scholar in the world must soon have become a 
 passable dancer with such agreeable partners. 
 They were both extremely amiable ; they spoke 
 only French. I endeavoured to appear neither 
 awkward nor ridiculous to them, and I had the 
 good fortune to please them. Their father did not 
 seem to have many scholars, and they lived very 
 much alone. They several times asked me to stay 
 and converse after my lesson, which I very readily 
 did. I was much pleased with the younger one : 
 the manners of both were very becoming ; the 
 elder, who was at least as handsome as her sister, 
 did not please me so much, although she took more 
 pains to do so. At the hour of my lesson she was 
 always ready to be my partner, and she frequently 
 prolonged the dance. The younger, although she 
 behaved in a friendly manner towards me, kept a 
 greater distance, and her father had to call her to 
 take her sister's place. 
 
 One evening, after the dance, I was going to 
 lead the elder to the apartment, but she detained 
 me. " Let us stay here awhile," said she ; " my 
 sister, I must own to you, is at this moment engaged 
 with a fortune-teller, who is giving her some intel- 
 ligence from the cards respecting an absent lover, 
 a youth extremely attached to Emily, and in whom 
 all her hopes are placed. My heart," continued 
 she, " is free ; I suppose I shall often see the gift 
 of it despised." On this subject I paid her some 
 compliments. "You may," said I, "consult the 
 oracle, and then you will know what to expect. 
 I have a mind to consult it likewise : I shall be glad 
 to ascertain the merit of an art in which 1 have 
 never had much confidence." As soon as she 
 assured me the operation was ended, I led her 
 into the room. We found her sister in good 
 humour : she behaved to me in a more friendly 
 manner than usuaL Sure, as she seemed to be, of 
 her absent lover, she thought there was no harm in 
 showing some attentions to her sister's, for in that 
 light she regarded me. 
 
 We engaged the fortune-teller, by the proinise of 
 a handsome recompense, to tell the elder of the 
 young ladies and me our fortunes also. After all 
 the usual preparations and ceremonies, she shuffled 
 the cards for this beautiful girl ; but, having care- 
 fully examined them, she stopped short, and refused 
 to explain herself. " I see plainly," said the 
 younger of the girls, who was already partially 
 initiated into the mysteries of this kind of magic, 
 " there is something unpleasant, which you hesitate 
 to tell my sister." The other sister turned pale, 
 but recovering herself, entreated the sibyl to tell 
 her what she had seen inthe cards, without reserve. 
 The latter, after a deep sigh, told her that she 
 loved but was not beloved in return ; that a third 
 stood between her and her beloved ; with several 
 other tales of the same kind. The embarrassment 
 of the poor girl was visible. " Let us see whether 
 a second trial will be more fortunate," said the 
 old woman, again shuffling and cutting the cards, 
 but it was still worse this time. She wished to 
 make a third trial, in the hopes of better success, 
 but the inquisitive fair one could bear it no longer, 
 and burst into a flood of tears. Her beautiful 
 bosom was violently agitated. She turned her 
 back on us and ran into the next room. I knew
 
 GOETHE'S ADVENTURE WITH HIS DANCING-MASTER'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 ■not what to do ; inclinntion retained me with her 
 sister, compassion urged me to follow the afflicted 
 one. " Console Lucinda," said the former ; " go 
 to her." " How can I console her," said I, 
 *' without showing her the least signs of attach- 
 ment? I should he cold and reserved. Is this 
 the moment to be so °i Come with me yourself." 
 — " I know not," replied Emily, " whether mj' 
 presence would be agreeable to her." We were, 
 however, goiug in to speak to her, but we found 
 the door bolted. In vain we knocked, called, and 
 intreated Lucinda : no answer. " Let us leave 
 her to recover herself," said Emily ; " she will see 
 no one." What could I dol I paid the fortune- 
 teller liberally for the harm she had done us, and 
 withdrew. 
 
 I durst not return to the two sisters the next 
 day. 
 
 On the third day Emily sent to desire me to 
 come to them without fail. I went accordingly. 
 Towards the end of the lesson, Emily appeared : 
 she danced a minuet with me ; she never dis- 
 played so much grace, and the father declared he 
 hacl never seen a handsomer couple dancing in his 
 room. After the lesson, the father went out, and 
 I inquired for Lucinda. " She is in bed," said 
 Emily, " but do not be uneasy : when she thinks 
 herself ill, she suffers the less from her afflictions ; 
 and whatever she may say, she has no inclination 
 to die, it is only her passion that torments her. 
 Last night she declared to me that she should 
 certainly sink under her grief this time, and 
 desired that when she should be near her end, 
 the ungrateful man Avho had gained her heart, for 
 the purpose of ill-treating her, should be brought 
 to her." "I cannot reproach myself with having 
 given her any reason to imagine me in love with 
 her," I exclaimed ; " I know one who can very 
 well testify in my favour on this occasion." " I 
 understand you," answered Emily : " it is neces- 
 sary to come to a resolution to spare us all much 
 vexation. Will you take it ill if I entreat you to 
 give over your lessons 1 My father says you have 
 now no further occasion for them ; and that you 
 know as much as a young man has occasion to 
 know for his amusement." " And is it you, 
 Emily, who bid me banish myself from your pre- 
 sence V " Yes, but not merely of my own accord. 
 Listen to me : after you left us the day before 
 yesterday I made the fortune-teller cut the cards 
 for you ; the same fortune appeared thrice, and 
 more clearly each time. You were surrounded by 
 friends, by great lords — in short, by all kinds of 
 happiness and pleasure ; you did not want for 
 money ; women were at a certain distance from 
 you : ray poor sister, in particular, remained afar 
 off. Another was nearer to you, and I will not 
 conceal from you that I think it was myself. After 
 this confession you ought not to take my advice amiss. 
 I have promised my heart and hand to an absent 
 friend, whom I have hitherto loved above all the 
 world. What a situation would be yours, between 
 two sisters, one of whom would torment you with 
 her passion, the other with her reservcl and all 
 this for nothing — for a momentary attachment; 
 for even had we not known who you are, and the 
 hopes you have, the cards would have informed 
 us. Farewell," added she, leading me to the 
 door ; " and since it is the last time we shall see 
 each other, accept a mark of friendship which I 
 could not otherwise have given you." At these 
 
 words she threw her arms round my neck, and gave 
 me a kiss in the most tender manner. 
 
 At the same instant a concealed door opened, and 
 her sister, in a pretty morning undress, rushed to- 
 wards us and exclaimed, " You shall not be the 
 only one to take leave of him." Emily let me go. 
 Lucinda embraced me and held me closely to her 
 bosom. Her beautiful black hair caressed my face. 
 She remained some time in this situation, and thus 
 I found myself between the two sisters in the dis- 
 tressing predicament that Emily had warned me 
 of. At length Lucinda quitting her hold of me, 
 fixed her eyes on me with a serious air, then 
 walked up and down the room with hurried steps, 
 and at length threw herself upon a sofa. Emily 
 approached her, but Lucinda pushed her back. 
 Then commenced a scene which I still recollect 
 with pain. It was not a theatrical one, — there was 
 but too much truth in the passion of this young 
 and lively Frenchwoman. 
 
 Lucinda overwhelmed her sister with reproaches. 
 " This," said she, " is not the first heart favourably 
 disposed towards me that you have deprived me 
 of. It was the same with that absent friend whom 
 you drew into your snares before my eyes! You 
 have now robbed me of this one without relin- 
 quishing the other. How many more will you 
 take from mel I am frank and artless; people 
 think they know me well, and therefore they neglect 
 me. You are calm and dissembling ; they think 
 to find something wonderful in you ; but your 
 outward form covers a cold and selfish heart, which 
 only seeks victims." 
 
 Emily had seated herself near her sister : she 
 remained silent. Lucinda, growing warmer, en- 
 tered into particulars to which it did not become 
 me to listen. Emily endeavoured to pacify her 
 and made me a sign to retire. But jealousy has 
 the eyes of Argus ; and this sign did not escape 
 Lucinda's notice. She arose, came towards me, 
 looked me in the face with a pensive air and said, 
 "I know you are lost to me. I renounce all pre- 
 tension to you : but as to you, sister, he shall no 
 more be yours than mine." Saying this, she em- 
 braced me again, pressed my face to her's, and 
 repeatedly joined her lips to mine. " And now," 
 she cried, " dread my malediction. Woe on woe, 
 eternal woe to her who shall first press those lips 
 after me ! Embrace him now if you dare ! I am 
 sure that heaven has heard me. And you, sir, 
 retire without delay." 
 
 I did not wait for a repetition of the command ; 
 and I left them with a resolution never more to 
 set foot in a house, where I had innocently done 
 so much mischief. 
 
 LIIL— A TRAGEDY OF THE WAR IN 
 SPAIN. 
 
 {From the Memoirs of the Duchess D'Abrantes.) 
 
 A REGIMENT was Sent from Burgos against a Gue- 
 rilla j)arty, under the Marquis of Villa Canipo, and 
 orderoil to treat the Spaniards with the most rigor- 
 ous severity, especially the inhabitants of Arguano, 
 a little village near the famous forest of Covellcda, 
 whose deep shades, intersected only by narrow 
 footpaths, were the resort of banditti and guerillas. 
 A princijial feature of the whole Spanish war was 
 the celerity Avith which all our movements were 
 notified to the insurgent chiefs, and the difficulty
 
 A TRAGEDY OF THE WAR IN SPAIN. 
 
 we experienced in procaring a spy or a guide ; 
 while these, whou I'ouml, proveil almost unilbrmly 
 treacherous. The batt;ilioii had to march throuf^h 
 a frightful country, climbing rugged rocks and 
 crossing frozen torrents, always in dread of un- 
 foreseen and sudden dangers. They reached the 
 Tillage, but perceived no movement — heard no 
 noise. Some soldiers advanced but saw nothing — 
 absolute solitude reigned. The officer in command, 
 suspecting an ambush, ordered the utmost circum- 
 spection. The troops entered the street, and ar- 
 rived at a small opening where some sheaves of 
 wheat and Indian corn and a quantity of loaves 
 were still smoking on the ground, but consumed 
 to a cinder, and swimming in floods of wine which 
 had streamed from leathern skins that had evi- 
 dently been purposely broached, as the provisions 
 had been burnt, to prevent their falling into the 
 hands of the French. 
 
 No sooner had the soldiers satisfied themselves 
 that after all their toils and dangers no refreshment 
 was to be obtained, than they roared with rage — 
 but no vengeance was within reach ! All the inlia- 
 bitants had fled ! — fled into that forest where they 
 might defy pursuit. 
 
 Suddenly cries were heard issuing from one of 
 the deserted cottages, amongst which the soldiers 
 had dispersed themselves in hopes of discovering 
 some food or booty : they proceeded from a young 
 woman holding a child a year old in her arms, 
 whom the soldiers were dragging before their lieu- 
 tenant. " Stay, lieutenant," said one of them, 
 " here is a woman we have found sitting beside an 
 old one who is past speaking : question her a little." 
 
 She was dressed in the peasant costume of the 
 Soria and Rioja mountains, and was pale but not 
 trembling. 
 
 "Why are you alone here1" asked the lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 " I stayed with my grandmother, who is para- 
 lytic, and could not follow the rest to the forest," 
 replied she haughtily, and as if vexed at being 
 obliged to drop a word in presence of a French- 
 man ; " I stayed to take care of her." 
 
 " Why have your neighbours left the village 1" 
 
 The Spaniard's eyes Hashed fire : she fixed on 
 the lieutenant a look of strange import, and an- 
 swered, " You know very well : were they not all 
 to be massacred?" 
 
 The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. "But 
 why did you burn the bread and wheat, and empty 
 the wine-skins 1" 
 
 " That you might find nothing. As they could 
 not carrj- them ofi^, there was no alternative but 
 burning them." 
 
 At this moment shouts of joy arose, and the sol- 
 diers appeared carrying a number of hams, some 
 loaves, and, more welcome than all, several skins 
 of wine — all discovered in a vault, the entrance of 
 which was concealed by the straw that the old 
 woman was lying on. The young peasant darted 
 on them a look of infernal vengeance, while the 
 lieutenant, who had pondered with anxiety on the 
 destitute and sinking condition of his troops, re- 
 joiced for a moment in the unexpected supply. 
 But the recent poisoning of several cisterns, and 
 other fearful examples, putting him on his guard, 
 he again interrogated the woman. 
 
 " Whence come these provisions 1" 
 
 " They are all the same as those we burnt : we 
 concealed them from our friends." 
 
 " Is your husband with yonder brigands V' 
 " My husband is in heaven," said she, lifting up 
 her eyes : " he died for the good cause — that of 
 God and King Ferdinand." 
 
 " Have you any brother amongst them V 
 " I have no longer a tie, exce[)t my poor child ;" 
 and she pressed the infant to her heart. The poor 
 little creature was thin and sallow, but its large 
 black eyes glistened as they turned to its mother. 
 
 " Commander," exclaimed one of the soldiers, 
 " pray order divisions of the booty, for we are very 
 hungry, and devilish thirsty." 
 
 " One moment, my children, listen," said he, 
 eyeing the young woman with suspicious inquisi- 
 tion : " these provisions are good, I hope 1 " 
 
 " How should they be otherwise 1" replied the 
 Spaniard, contemptuously ; " they were not for 
 you." 
 
 " Well, here's to thy health then, Demonia," said 
 a young sub-lieutenant, opening one of the skins 
 and preparing for a draught ; but his more prudent 
 commander still restrained him. 
 
 " One moment. Since this wine is good, you 
 will not object to a glass." 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! as much as you please :" and 
 accepting the mess-glass offered by the lieutenant, 
 she emptied it without hesitation. 
 
 "Huzza! huzza!" shouted the soldiers, de- 
 lighted at the prospect of intoxication without 
 danger. 
 
 " And your child will drink some also," said 
 the lieutenant : " he is so pale, it will do him 
 good." 
 
 The Spaniard had herself drank without hesi- 
 tation, but in holding the cup to her infant's lips 
 her hand trembled : the motion, however, was uu- 
 perceived, and the child also emptied his glass. 
 Thereupon the provisions speedily disappeared, 
 and all partook both of food and wine. Suddenly, 
 however, the infant was observed to turn livid, its 
 features contracted, and its mouth convulsed with 
 agony gave vent to piteous shrieks. The mother 
 too, though her fortitude suppressed all complaint, 
 could scarcely stand, and her distorted features 
 betrayed her sufferings. 
 
 " Wretch," exclaimed the commandant, " thou 
 hast poisoned us!" 
 
 " Yes," said she, with a ghastly smile, falling to 
 the ground beside her child, already struggling 
 with the death-rattle, " Yes, I have poisoned you. 
 I knew you would fetch the skins from their 
 hiding-place : was it likely you would leave a 
 dying creature undisturbed on her litter 1 Yes, yes : 
 you will die, and die in perdition, while I shall go 
 to heaven." 
 
 Her last words were scarcely audible, and the 
 soldiers at first did not comprehend the full horror 
 of their situation ; but as the poison operated, the 
 Spaniard's declaration was legibly translated in her 
 convulsed features. No power could longer re- 
 strain them : in vain their commander interposed ; 
 they repulsed him, and dragging their expiring vic- 
 tim by the hair to the brink of the torrent, threw 
 her into it, after lacerating her with more than a 
 hundred sabre strokes. She uttered not a groan. 
 As for the child, it was the first victim. 
 
 Twenty-two men were destroyed by this exploit, 
 which I cannot call otherwise than great and he- 
 roic. The commander himself told me he escaped 
 by miracle. 
 
 The persuasion that the bed of death would be
 
 LIVING UNDERGROUND. 
 
 disturbed in search of booty was indeed holding us 
 as savages, and such was the impression produced 
 by the man who could command, " Let no sanc- 
 tuary deter your search." By such means were the 
 populace from the beginning exasperated against 
 us, and especially by the oppressions of General 
 
 D If the inhabitants of Arguano had not 
 
 receired information that they were to be massa- 
 cred, they would not have taken the lead in 
 massacre. 
 
 Such were the people amongst whom I dwelt. 
 When this tale was related to me, on the eve of 
 my departure from Burgos, I shuddered in con- 
 templating the murderous war of people against 
 people ! I trembled for the first time since my en- 
 trance into Spain : I was become tiniid. Alas ! it 
 was not on my own account, but I was again ap- 
 proau:;:ijg the great crisis of maternity, and amidst 
 what perils, good God ! was my child destined to 
 see the light. 
 
 LIV.— LIVING UNDERGROUND. 
 
 [From • Memoirs of George and Lady Grissel 
 Baillie, by Lady Murray,' the tribute of a loving 
 daughter to the memory of loving parents, a book 
 most honourable to all parties. Grissel is Gr/selda, 
 the heroine's name in the beautiful story of Chaucer 
 and Boccaccio, whose patience has become a pro- 
 verb. It is often found among the British gentr^y 
 of old times, and therefore must have been fre- 
 quently inherited and introduced among families 
 who had little pretensions to the virtue ; but in the 
 present instance it seems to have illustrated a fa- 
 mily quality.] 
 
 Lady Grissel Baillie (says her daughter) was 
 born at Redbraes Castle, December 25th, 1665 ; 
 was married there, September 17th, 1692; and died 
 at London, December 6th, 1746. She was buried 
 close by my father's side, in the monument at Mel- 
 lerstain, on her birthday, Christmas, 25th of De- 
 cember, in the same manner she had directed 
 my father's funeral, according to his own orders, 
 near relations, near neighbours, and her own te- 
 nants only, being present: a day never to be forgot 
 by her family, as it brought her into the world who 
 was so great a blessing to it, and also hid and 
 buried her from us. 
 
 She was the eldest of eighteen children my 
 grandmother bore, except two who died infants. 
 My Lady Torphichen, the youngest, is now the 
 only one alive, and sixteen years younger than my 
 mother : she was called after her mother, and 
 from her infancy was the darling and comfort of 
 her parents, having early occasion to be trusted 
 and tried by them. In the troubles of King 
 Charles II.'s time she began her life with many 
 afflicting, terrifying hardships, though I have often 
 heard her say she never thought them any. At 
 the age of twelve she was sent by her father to 
 their country-house at Edinburgh (a long journey), 
 when my grandfather Baillie was first imprisoned 
 (my grandfathers being early and intimate fri(m(ls, 
 connected^ by the same way of thinking in religion 
 and politics), to try if by her age she could get 
 admittance into the prison unsuspected, slip a 
 letter into his hand of advice and information, and 
 bring back what intelligence she could. She suc- 
 ceeded so well in V)oth, that from tliat time I reckon 
 her hardships began, from the confidence put in 
 her and the activity she naturally had, far beyond 
 
 her age, in executing whatever she was intrusted 
 with. 
 
 Soon after that her father was confined fifteen 
 months in Dumbarton Castle, and was then set at 
 liberty without ever being told for what he was 
 pent up all that time ; and till he went to Holland 
 she was the active person that did all, by my grand- 
 mother's directions, whom affliction and care of 
 her little ones kept at home, being less able to 
 make journeys, and would have been more nar- 
 rowly watched and sooner suspected than one of 
 my mother's age. 
 
 After persecution began afresh, and my grand- 
 father Baillie was again in prison, her father thought 
 it necessary to keep concealed, and soon found he 
 had too good reason for so doing, parties being 
 continually sent out in search of him, and often to 
 his own house, to the terror of all in it ; though 
 not from any fear for his safely, whom they ima- 
 gined at a great distance from home : for no soul 
 knew where he was but my grandmother and my 
 mother, except one man, a carpenter called Jamie 
 Winter, who used to work in the house, and lived 
 a mile off, on whose fidelity they thought they 
 could depend, and were not deceived. The fre- 
 quent examinations and oaths put to servants, in 
 order to make discoveries, were so strict, they durst 
 not run the risk of trusting any of them. By the 
 assistance of this man they got a bed and bed- 
 clothes carried in the night to the burying-place, a 
 vault underground at Polwarth Church, a mile 
 from the house, where he was concealed a month, 
 and had only for light an open slit at one end, 
 through which nobody could see what was below. 
 She went every night by herself, at midnight, to 
 carry him victuals and drink, and stayed with him 
 as long as she could, to get home before day. In all 
 this time my grandfiither showed the same constant 
 composure and cheerfulness of mind that he con- 
 tinued to possess till his death, which was at the 
 age of eighty-four : all which good qualities she 
 inherited from him in a high degree. Often did 
 tliey laugh heartily in that doleful habitation at 
 different accidents that happened. She, at that 
 time, had a terror for a churchyard, especially in 
 the dark, as is not uncommon at her age from idle 
 nursery stories, but when engaged by concern for 
 her father she stumbled over the graves every 
 night alone, without fear of any kind entering her 
 thoughts but for soldiers and parties in search of 
 him, which the least noise or motion of a leaf put 
 her in terror for. The minister's house was near 
 the church : the first night she went, his dogs kept 
 up such a barking as put her in fear of a discovery ; 
 my grandmother sent for the minister next day, 
 and upon pretence of a mad dog got him to hang 
 all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting 
 victuals to carry him without the servants suspect- 
 ing : the only way it was to be done was by steal- 
 ing it off" her" plate at dinner into her lap. Many 
 a diverting story she has told about this, and other 
 things of a like nature. Ilor father liked sheep's 
 head, and while the children were eating their 
 broth she had concealed most of one in her laj) ; 
 when her brother Sandy (the late Lord March- 
 mont) had done, he looked up with astonishment 
 and said, " Mother, will ye look at Grissel : while 
 wc have been eating our broth, she has eat up the 
 whole sheep's head!" This occasioned so much 
 mirth among them, that her father at night was 
 greatly entertained by it, and desired Sandy might
 
 80 
 
 SINGULAR OUTRAGE IN A DUEL. 
 
 have a share of the next. I need not multiply 
 stories of this kind, of which I know many. His 
 great comfort and constaiit entertainment (for lie 
 had no light to read hy), was repeating Buchanan's 
 psalms, which he had hy heart from beginning to 
 end, and retained them to his dying day. Two 
 years before he died, which was in the year 1724, 
 I was witness to his desiring my mother to take up 
 that book, which amongst others always lay upon 
 his table, and bid her try if he had forgot his 
 psalms by naming any one she would have him 
 repeat, and by casting her eye over it slie would 
 know if he were right, though she did not under- 
 stand it ; and he missed not a word in any place 
 she named to him, and said they had been the 
 great comfort of his life, by night and day, on all 
 occasions. 
 
 He retained his judgment and good-humour to 
 the last. Two or three years before he died, my 
 mother was at Berwick with him, where he theu 
 lived, and many of her relations came there to see 
 her before she went to London. As mirth and 
 good-humour, and particularly dancing, had been 
 always one characteristic of the family when so 
 many of us were met, being no fewer than fourteen 
 of his grandchildren and children, we had a dance. 
 He was then very weak in his limbs and could 
 not walk down stairs, but desired to be carried 
 down to the room where we were, to see us, which 
 he did with great cheerfulness, saying, " Though 
 he could not dance with us, he could yet beat time 
 with his foot," which he did, and bid us dance as 
 long as we could : that it was the best medicine 
 he knew, for at the same time that it gave exercise 
 to the body, it cheered the mind. At his usual 
 time of going to bed he was carried upstairs, and 
 we ceased dancing for fear of disturbing him ; but 
 he soon sent to bid us go on, for the noise and 
 music, so far from disturbing him, would lull him 
 to sleep : he had no notion of interrupting the in- 
 nocent pleasures of others, though his age hindered 
 him to partake of them. His exemplary piety and 
 goodness were no bar to his mirth. 
 
 She often said her natural temper was warm and 
 passionate, hut from the time I could observe her 
 there appeared nothing but meekness, calmness, 
 and resignation, and she often reproved us for the 
 contrary. Our saying " We could not help it" was 
 no satisfying answer to her, who told us she had 
 been the same and had conquered it. 
 
 Her duty and affection as a wife was unpa- 
 ralleled. I have by me, writ in a took with her 
 own hand, amongst many other things, " The best 
 of husbands, and delight of my life for forty-eight 
 years, without one jar betwixt us, died at Oxford 
 (where he went for the education of his grandsons), 
 the 6th of August, 1738, and was sent home to his 
 burying-place at INIellerstain.'' 
 
 I have often heard her declare, that they never 
 had the shadow of a quarrel or misunderstanding, 
 no, not for a moment ; and that to the last of his 
 life she felt the same ardent and tender love and 
 affection for him, and the same desire to please 
 him in the smallest trifle, that she had at their first 
 acquaintance. Indeed her principal and sole de- 
 light was to watch and attend to everything that 
 could give him pleasure or make him easy. He 
 never went abroad but she went to the window to 
 look after him ; and so she did that verj- day he 
 fell ill, the last time he was abroad, never taking 
 her eyes from him as long as he was in sight. 
 
 LV.— SINGULAR OUTRAGE IN A DUEL. 
 
 [If the present ' Romance of Real Ijife ' cannot be 
 said to be equally " short and sweet," it may be al- 
 lowed, like Sir Toby's challenge, to be " curst and 
 brief." AVe take it from the ' Bubbles of the Brun- 
 nens,' the author of which has prefaced it with one 
 of those characteristic remarks, which with an air 
 of somewhat superfluous nicety of fine sense, end 
 in generally giving us really good wholesome doc- 
 trine, and showing a great deal of liumanily. Our 
 autlior's account of the duel, iu which a man 
 stoops to take his nose ofT the ground, reminds us 
 of the fantastic story in Ariosto, of the magician 
 who had the privilege of picking up his head again 
 when any one cut it oti", and whom we always 
 fancy adjusting it, by a tenure of the nose, just as a 
 gentleman with finger and thumb elegantly adjusts 
 his cocked hat. — (See ' Orlando Furiosn,' canto 
 XV., St. 65, &c.) Let us not mention the fine Ita- 
 lian poet, however, without doing justice to that 
 wonderful spirit of verisimilitude by which he ren- 
 ders his most fantastic stories delightful. The ma- 
 gician has a fatal lock of hair on his head, which 
 if once cut off, puts an end to the resumability of 
 the head. Astolfo, in the course of the fight with 
 him, which takes place on horseback, contrives, 
 after cutting off his head, to get possession of it, 
 and keep it by dint of flight, the headless magician 
 pelting after him in vain. The knight not know- 
 ing how to discover the lock scalps the head at 
 once to save time : its face suddenly turns pale as 
 the scalping passes the fatal point, and Astolfo 
 galloping behind him sees the pursuing trunk fall to 
 the ground. This is the way in which great poets 
 write what some people think foolish things. The 
 foolish things have finer things in them than such 
 critics would ever dream of.] 
 
 " It is seldom or never (says our bather at the 
 Brunnens) that I pay the slightest attention to 
 dinner conversation, the dishes ninety-nine times 
 out of a hundred being, in my opinion, so very 
 much better. However much against my will I 
 overheard some people talking of a duel, which I 
 will mention, hoping it may tend to show by what 
 disgusting fiendlike sentiments this practice can be 
 disgraced. 
 
 " A couple of Germans having quarrelled about 
 some beautiful lady, met with sabres in their hands 
 to fight a duel. The ugly one, who was of course 
 the most violent of the two, after many attempts 
 to deprive his hated adversary of his life, at last 
 aimed a desperate blow at his head, which though 
 it missed its object yet fell upon and actually cut 
 ofi" the good-looking man's nose. It had scarcely 
 reached the ground when its owner feeling that his 
 beauty was gone, instantly threw away his sword, 
 and with both arms extended eagerly bent for- 
 wards with the intention to pick up his own pro- 
 perty and replace it ; but the ugly German no 
 sooner observed the intention than darting for- 
 wards, with the malice of the devil himself, he 
 jumped upon the nose, and before its master's face 
 crushed it and ground it to atoms 1" 
 
 LYL— A PRIVATE GENTLEMAN RESISTS 
 BEING MADE A KING. 
 
 [We take this narrative of one of Lucien Buona- 
 parte's throne-refusing encounters with his brother 
 from the ' Memoirs of Madame d'Abrantes,' who
 
 A PRIVATE GENTLEMAN RESISTS BEING MADE A PRINCE, 
 
 81 
 
 said she had heard corresponding statements of it 
 from two quarters, both in perfect accordance. 
 That such passages, some time or other, must have 
 taken place between the brothers is clear enough ; 
 and the core of the romance remains unquestion- 
 able, viz. that Lucien did prefer his independence 
 and his poetry to a crown — with what judgment 
 we have all seen by the event : his romance turned 
 out to be the highest proof of his good sense. His 
 world of books contained, after all, a larger and 
 nobler world than Napoleon could hope to con- 
 quer; and there, among his treasures, he was found 
 still ruling his magical domain of fancy and domes- 
 tic peace, while the soldier was in his narrow grave. ] 
 
 We werf ' iformed one morning that the emperor 
 haa set o't at four o'clock on a journey, the object 
 anu .i. stiMation of which were alike impenetrable. 
 Yet Italy was the only direction which he could 
 have taken; and in fact the principal, though 
 latent, motive of this journey was a reconciliation 
 with Lucien. The emperor was at length con- 
 vinced, or rather he had never doubted, that of all 
 his brothers Lucien alone could understand and 
 act in concert with him ; but Lucien was far from 
 condescending, and the emperor, who knew his 
 character, was resolved himself to see and converse 
 with him : the brothers consequently gave each 
 other the meeting at Mantua. 
 
 Lucien arrived about nine at night in a travel- 
 ling carriage with M. Boyer, cousin-german of his 
 first wife, and the Count de Chatillon, a friend 
 who resided with him. "Do not put up, I shall 
 probably return to-night," said Lucien, as he 
 alighted to join his brother. 
 
 1 have heard the particulars of this extraordinary 
 interview from two quarters, both in perfect ac- 
 cordance. 
 
 Napoleon was walking in a long gallery with 
 Prince Eugene, Murat, and Marshal Duroc. He 
 advanced to meet his brother, and held out his 
 hand with every appearance of cordiality. Lucien 
 was atlected : he had not seen the emperor since 
 the day of Austerlitz, and far from being jealous of 
 the resplendent blaze of his brother's glory, as it 
 now passed before his mental vision, his noble 
 heart heaved with tumultuous joy. For some mo- 
 ments he was incapable of speaking : at length 
 having expressed to Napoleon his pleasure in this 
 meeting, the emperor made a signal, and the rest 
 of the party withdrew. 
 
 " Well, Lucien," said Napoleon, " what are your 
 projects 1 Will you at last go hand in hand with 
 mer 
 
 Lucien regarded him with astonishment, for en- 
 quiries about his projects, addressed to him who 
 never indulged in any, appeared most strange. 
 
 " I form no projects." replied he, at length : 
 "as for going hand in hand with your majesty, 
 what am I to understand by it'!" 
 
 An immense map of Europe lay rolled up on a 
 table before them ; the emperor seized it by one 
 hand, and throwing it open with a graceful action, 
 said to Lucien — 
 
 " Choose any kingdom you please, and I pledge 
 you my word as a brother and an emperor to give 
 it you, and to maintain you in it, for I now ride 
 over the head of every king in Europe. Do you 
 understand me ■?" 
 
 He stopped, and looked exjiressively at Lucien. 
 
 " Lucien, you may share with nie that sway 
 
 which I exercise over inferior minds. You have 
 only to pursue the course that I shall open to you 
 for the establishment and maintenance of my sys- 
 tem, the happiest and most magnificent ever con- 
 ceived by man ; but to ensure its execution I must 
 be seconded, and I can only be seconded by my 
 own family. Of all my brothers, only yourself and 
 Joseph can efficiently serve me : Louis is an obsti- 
 nate fool, and Jerome a mere child without capa- 
 city. My hopes then rest chiefly in you : will you 
 realize them V 
 
 " Before this explanation is carried further, I 
 ought to advertize you," said Lucien, " that I am 
 not changed : my principles are still the same as 
 in 1799 and 1S03. What I was on my curule chair 
 on the I8th Brumaire, I am at this moment beside 
 the emperor Napoleon. Now, brother, it is for 
 you to consider how you will proceed." 
 
 " \'ou talk absurdly," said Napoleon, shrugging 
 his shoulders ; " new times should give a new 
 direction to the ideas. You have chosen a proper 
 opportunity, truly, to come here and rave of your 
 Utopian republic. You must embrace my system, 
 I tell you : follow ray path, and to-morrow I make 
 you the chief of a great people. I acknowledge 
 your wife as my sister ; I crown her as well as you. 
 I make you the greatest man in Europe next to 
 myself, and I restore you my entire friendship, my 
 brother," added he, lowering the emphatic tone 
 in which he had just uttered the preceding sen- 
 tences to that soft and caressing accent I have 
 never heard but from bis lips, and which makes 
 the heart vibrate to its mellow and powerful chords. 
 This man was altogether seducing. Lucien loved 
 him : he started as lie listened, and grew pale. 
 
 " I do not sell myself," said he, in an agitated 
 voice. " Hear me, my brother, listen to me, for 
 this is an important hour to both of us, I will 
 never be a prefect : if you give me a kingdom I 
 must rule it according to my own notions, and 
 above all in conformity with its wants. The people 
 whose chief I may be shall have no cause to exe- 
 crate my name : they shall be happy and respected ; 
 not slaves, as the Tuscans and all the Italians are. 
 You yourself cannot desire to find in your brother 
 a pliant sycophant, who for a few soft words would 
 sell you the blood of his children ; for a people, 
 after all, is but one large family, whose head will 
 be held responsible by the King of kings for the 
 welfare of all its members." 
 
 The emperor frowned, and his whole aspect 
 proclaimed extreme dissatisfaction, 
 
 " Why then come to me V said he at last, an- 
 grily ; "for if you are obstinate, so am I, and you 
 know it — at least as obstinate as yovi can be. 
 Humph ! republic ! You are no more thinking of 
 that than I am ; and besides, what should you de- 
 sire it for ■? You are like Joseph, who betiiought 
 himself the other day of writing me an inconceiv- 
 able letter, coolly desiring 1 would allow iiim to 
 enter upon kingly duties. Truly nothing more 
 would be wanting than the re-est;iblishment of the 
 papal trilmte." 
 
 And shrugging his shoulders, he smiled con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 "And wliy not," said Lucien, "if it conduced 
 to the national interests'! It is an absurdity, I 
 grant ; but if it was beneficial to Naples, Joseph 
 would be quite right in insisting upon it." 
 
 A variety of emotions ra])idly succeeded each 
 other on Napoleon's countenance. He paced the 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 HONEST ULTllA-DEVOTION. 
 
 g:allery with a hurrie-d step, ropoatint; in an accent 
 that evinced strong intcinal perturbation, " Always 
 the same ! always the same I" Then turning sud- 
 denly to his brother, and stamping on the marble 
 tloor, he exclaimed with a thundering voice, — 
 
 " But once more, sir, why then did you come to 
 meet me '? AVhy these endless contentions'? You 
 ought to obey me as your fother, the head of your 
 family ; and by heavens, you shall do as I please." 
 Lucien was now growing warm, and all the dis- 
 cretion he had summoned to his aid was beginning 
 to evaporate. 
 
 " 1 am no subject of yours," cried he in Iiis turn ; 
 " and if you think to impose your iron yoke upon 
 me, you are mistaken ; never will I bow my head 
 to it : and remember — hearken to my worils, re- 
 member what I once told you at Malmaison." 
 
 A long alarming, almost sinister silence, suc- 
 ceeded this burst of generous indignation. The 
 two brothers faced each other and were separated 
 only by the table on which lay that Europe, the 
 sport of Napoleon's infatuatetl ambition. He was 
 very pale, his lips compressed, the almost livid 
 complexion of his cheek revealing the tempest 
 within, and his eyes darting glances of fury at 
 Lucien, whose noble countenance must have shown 
 to great advantage in this stormy interview, which 
 was to decide his future fate ; nor his alone, but 
 perhaps that of Europe, for who shall conjecture 
 what might have happened had this really superior 
 man been king of Spain, of Prussia, or of Poland. 
 The emperor was the first to break silence ; he had 
 mastered his passion, and addressed his brother 
 with calmness : — 
 
 " You will reflect on what I have told you, 
 Lucien ; night brings counsel. To-morrow I hope 
 to find you more reasonable as to the interests of 
 Europe at least, if not your own. Good bye, and 
 good night to you, my brother." 
 
 He held out his hand. Lucien, whose heart was 
 susceptible to every kindly impression, and whose 
 reflections at that moment were of a nature power- 
 fully to awaken them, took his brother's offered 
 hand and grasped it aff'ectionately between both of 
 his, as he reiterated " Good bye, and a good night 
 to you, my brother — Adieu." 
 
 "Till to-morrow 1" said the emperor. 
 Lucien shook his head and would have spoken, 
 but was unable ; then opening the door he rushed 
 from the apartment, re-ascended the carriage where 
 his friends awaited him and immediately quitted 
 Mantua. 
 
 The brothers met no more till the hour of Napo- 
 leon's adversity. 
 
 The scene at Malmaison, to which Lucien al- 
 luded in this interview, took place shortly before 
 the empire was proclaimed, when Napoleon's in- 
 tentions were already kno^vn to his family, and 
 disappointed in finding himself deceived in his 
 calculations on making Lucien one of his powerful 
 lieutenants, served to widen the breach which the 
 latter's marriage had produced. Lucien, who had 
 hoped to see the happy daj-s of the forum restored, 
 and could now only look for those of Augustus, 
 was vehement in his reproaches ; accused the 
 emperor of being faithless to him, and of violating 
 his word ; in sliort, the discussion ended in an open 
 quarrel. 
 
 " You are determined to destroy the republic !" 
 said the enraged Lucien ; " Well, assassinate her 
 then — mount your throne over her murdered re- 
 
 mains and those of her children — but mark well 
 what one of those children predicts : this empire, 
 which you are erecting by force and will maintain 
 by violence, will be overthrown by violence and 
 force, and you yourself will be crushed thus !" and 
 seizing a screen from the mauteliiiece he crushed 
 it impetuously in his hand, which trembled with 
 rage. Then, as if still more distinctly to mark his 
 resentment, he took out his watch, dashed it on the 
 ground, and stamped upon it with the heel of his 
 boot : " Yes, crushed — ground to powder, thus." 
 
 LVIL— HONEST ULTRA-DEVOTION. 
 
 Nicholas Ferrar, the son of a London merchant, 
 at the conclusion of the sixteenth century (says the 
 'Lounger,') inherited from his mother a delicate 
 constitution but a vigorous mind, and eagerly de- 
 voted his early life to literary occupation. Reli- 
 gious books being first put into his hand made an 
 impression on his mind which never was removed, 
 and when only six years old he was able to repeat 
 by heart a considerable portion of the ' Old and 
 New Testaments,' the ' English Chronicle,' and 
 'Fox's Book of Martyrs.' At the age of eight he 
 was placed under the tuition of a worthy clergy- 
 man near Newbury, in Berkshire, whose discipline 
 was so successful, or the aptness of his scholar so 
 great, that being considered as qualified for an 
 university, he was sent when thirteen years old to 
 Clare Hall, in Cambridge, where Dr. Linsell, after- 
 wards bishop of Peterborough, became his tutor. 
 To use the words of Mr. Ferrar "s right reverend 
 biographer (for he was not only instructed, but his 
 life has been written by a bishop), it was soon 
 observed that Ferrar's candle was the first lighted 
 and the last extinguished in that college. This 
 sedentary drudgery was not likely to improve a 
 tender habit, and being under the necessity of 
 applying for medical advice, his physician recom- 
 mended travelling, in the hope of calling off for a 
 time his unceasing application to books. The 
 Princess Elizabeth, one of the daughters of King 
 James I., who had married the Count Palatine, 
 being at that moment on her way to Germany, Mr. 
 Ferrar was permitted to join the suite of her high- 
 ness, and accompanied them part of the way. 
 They landed in Holland, and after accompanying 
 his countrymen to the borders of Germany, as he 
 proposed going considerably to the north of the 
 Palatinate, he took his leave ; visiting Munster, 
 Hanover, and Cassel, leaving no place till all that 
 was to be seen or heard had been explored. At 
 Leipsic, finding his health better, he remained 
 several months, again applied to his books, and to 
 qualify himself for making further progress as well 
 as profit in travelling, improved himself in the 
 modern languages. 
 
 He now resolved to see Italy, not indeed by the 
 direct road, but visiting such places as were likely 
 to gratify his curiosity or afford opportunities of 
 improving his mind and adding to his knowledge. 
 He continued a few days at Dresden, and made a 
 considerable deviation, for the purpose of visiting 
 Prague, Ratisbon, Augsburg, Munich, Saltzbourg, 
 Innspruck, and Trent. At that period Europe was 
 under considerable dread of that awful scourge 
 the plague, and Mr. Ferrar was obliged, near the 
 Italian frontier, to undergo the precautionary 
 secession, something similar to quarantine. It
 
 HONEST ULTRA-DEVOTION, 
 
 83 
 
 was at that season of the year when the Chris- 
 tian church enjoins for a certain period fasting and 
 prayer, as a salutary and impressive memorial of 
 the patience, trials, and forbearance of Jesus Christ. 
 Our pious traveller passed the greater part of the 
 forty days during Lent in abstinence and devout 
 meditation on a mountain almost covered with 
 rosemary and wild thyme, descending regularly 
 every evening to make a moderate meal on fish. 
 This temporary solitude first gave Mr. Ferrar a 
 relish for mental abstraction and contemplative 
 devotion, imparted a peculiar tincture to his faith, 
 his conduct, and his manners, and ultimately de- 
 cided the singular manner in which he passed the 
 after part of his life. These impressions were also 
 further zl nfirmed by his narrowly escaping a sud- 
 den and - iolent death : this mercy he never forgot, 
 bu;. .'tl>-i''nly fixed it on his mind by an anniversary 
 practice of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. 
 
 Having sufficiently guarded against the dangers 
 of pestilential affection to himself, or communi- 
 cating it to others, a precaution in many respects 
 troublesome, tedious, and vexatious, but against 
 which 7)0 man ought to object, Mr. Ferrar passed 
 on to the once-renowned but decayed university of 
 Padua. He here attended a course of medical lec- 
 tures, which qualified him to be useful afterwards 
 to his country neighbours. After a stay of four 
 months he quitted Padua precipitately, terrified by 
 real or imaginary dangers from certain Jesuits, who 
 with the pope, the devil, and the pretender, were 
 once the bugbears, the raw-bead and bloody-bones 
 of England, and probably not without reason. 
 
 He repaired without delay to Rome, and after 
 seeing whatever was worthy of notice in the eccle- 
 siastical metropolis or its environs, made a retro- 
 grade movement to the mercantile seaport of 
 Leghorn, and in a few days embarking in a felucca 
 crossed that part of the ^Mediterranean which is 
 called the Sea of Genoa, and landed at Marseilles. 
 After remaining in that city three weeks, he re- 
 embarked in an English vessel for the Spanish 
 port of St. Sebastian. Being disappointed in his 
 expectation of a pecuniary remittance at this place, 
 he walked to Madrid, where he heard that his 
 mother, now a widow, was involved in trouble. In 
 the eagerness of filial affection he took the earliest 
 opportunity of sailing for England ; and after a five 
 years' absence from his native country, landed at 
 Dover, with a constitution considerably amended, 
 and large additions of information, learning, and 
 science. 
 
 Mr. Ferrar could not restrain the pious grati- 
 tude and patriotic rapture he felt. The instant he 
 jumped on shore he fell on his knees on the beach, 
 returned thanks to the Almighty for that protect- 
 ing providence which had sheltered him from perils 
 by land and perils by sea, and then kissed his 
 native soil. IBy the established goodness of bis 
 character and a large share of natural sagacity, he 
 was enabled to extricate his family from their 
 difficulties, which had been produced or augmented 
 by a litigious attorney. In 1624 he was chosen a 
 member of the House of Commons, and in this 
 capacity took an active part against the treasurer 
 Sir Lionel Cranfield, who, from the humble station 
 of a custom-house officer, had by his fiscal projects 
 80 ingratiated himself with King James, that he 
 gave him a lord treasurer's staff and created him a 
 peer of the realm. Sir Lionel had been accused 
 by his enemies, 1 know not liow justly, of cor- 
 
 ruptly conniving at certain injurious monopolies. 
 But Mr. Ferrar, in parliament or on his travels, in 
 his closet or the world, never lost sight of what 
 appears to have been at a very early period the 
 favourite wish and purpose of his heart — religious 
 retirement, and the devoting himself wholly to 
 God — forgetting, as too many of his predecessors 
 in the same path have done, that those exertions 
 should seem to be most pleasing to the Creator 
 which imitate his attributes and are productive of 
 social utility. In this plan of retirement he was 
 powerfully aided by his mother, who felt and in- 
 dulged similar propensities, and being possessed of 
 the house and manor of Little Giddijig, in Hunt- 
 ingdonshire, had apt means in her hands of putting 
 into execution this favourite purpose. 
 
 As the first step, Mr. Ferrar procured himself to 
 be ordained by Dr. Laud ; then taking leave of 
 London, and finally adjusting every affair likely to 
 require his presence in tfie metropolis, he prepared 
 to depart with his mother, his elder brother, his 
 sister, her husband, a Mr. Colet, and their fifteen 
 children, of whom six sons and three daughters 
 were married. This religious colony, consisting, 
 with the servants, of upwards of forty persons, 
 quitted London, and by easy journeys repaired to 
 Little Gidding. 
 
 The house, which had for many years been in 
 the occupation of a farmer, they found in a ruinous 
 and neglected state — the garden a wilderness — 
 pigs had been kept in a pleasure-house, and the 
 church was converted into a barn. Provoked at 
 what he considered as profane misapplication, Mr. 
 Ferrar would not sleep till he saw the house of 
 God cleared of its contents, and actually performed 
 divine service in it by candlelight before the 
 family retired to rest. It was afterwards completely 
 repaired within and without. 
 
 To make a large roomy mansion, which had been 
 so long left to decay, a fit habitation for a large 
 and respectable family, was a work of time, labour, 
 and expense ; even to subsist them required some 
 skill, efibrt, and contrivance. For this purpose 
 the land, which in those days produced an annual 
 rent of five hundred pounds, was kejit in hand, and 
 agricultural superintendence was assigned to such 
 individuals of the family as were qualified for the 
 task by knowledge, health, age, and inclination. 
 Timber in the meantime was cut down, and other 
 necessary materials procured, capacious barns, &c. 
 were erected, and the whole of the premises com- 
 pletely repaired ; additional household stuff was 
 purchased, and a sufficient stock of fuel and other 
 stores laid in. But no occupation was jjcrmitted 
 to interfere with the purpose of Mr. Ferrar's re- 
 tirement. The whole family were expected to 
 attend public worship every morning, Mr. Ferrar 
 officiating himself; and to prevent this duty inter- 
 fering with those of the house and farm, the house 
 rose at five during the winter, and at four o'clock 
 in summer time. Part of the house was appro- 
 priated to the ])urposcs of a school, to which mas- 
 ters were assigned ; and here the children of the 
 family, and those of the neighbourhood who would 
 conform to rule, were taught to read and write, 
 grammar and arithmetic, and the duties and prin- 
 ciples of religion. Occasional amusement was not 
 prohibited them; little prizes being sometimes 
 given to those who excelled in learning ; also to 
 those who could run, jump, swim, and drive an 
 arrow nearest to the mark. 
 
 g2
 
 H4 
 
 HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS, MADAME D'AUBAND. 
 
 The young women of the house were clothed 
 alike iu black stuff; and sucli time as was not em- 
 ployed in church or domestic duty was dedicated 
 to the infirm, aged, and diseased : for which pur- 
 pose medicines and all conveniences for dispensing- 
 them were at liand, Mr. Ferrar being qualified to 
 give advice and directions in administering the 
 medicines employed. Tiie female jwrt of the 
 f.imily employed themselves ;it the proper season 
 iu distilling cordial waters, and working carpets 
 and cushions for the church and parlours. As a 
 hint to such as sometimes visited Little Gidding, 
 the following inscription was placed in the hall at 
 which every one entered: — "He who by gentle 
 reproof and kind remonstrance strives to make us 
 better, is welcome ; but he who goeth about to dis- 
 turb us in that which ought to be the chief business 
 of every Christian, is a burthen while he stays, and 
 his own conscience shall witness against him when 
 he departs." 
 
 On another conspicuous panel appeared these 
 words: — " He who is willing to be a cheerful par- 
 ticipator with us in that which is good, confirms 
 us in the same, and acts as a friend ; but he who 
 bitterly censures us when absent, and makes a 
 show of approbation when in our presence, incurs 
 the double guilt of flattery and slander, and violates 
 the bond of Christian charity." 
 
 The laws of hospitality were not forgotten by 
 Mrs. Ferrar or her son, many of the nobility, 
 clergy, and other travellers calling on them. King 
 Charles I., on his march to the north, visited them ; 
 and the Bishop of Lincoln was sometimes their 
 guest. 
 
 Watching, a very ancient discipline in the Chris- 
 tian church, if not contemporary with its rise, was 
 looked upon by Mr. P'errar as an indispensable 
 part of his religious duty. To this end he had 
 different oratories for the sexes, in which, from 
 nine till past twelve, he and others took their turns 
 in repeating psalms, passages of scripture, and oc- 
 casionally singing to the organ, which was set in 
 a low stop, that notice miglit not be excited nor 
 the house disturbed. There, for many years, lived 
 this singular character, and in his last moments, 
 elevated by hope or deranged by debility, he in- 
 sisted on having had celestial communication. 
 
 By his relations he was called seraphic, and ac- 
 counted little less than a saint : by a late writer 
 he is termed an useless enthusiast, and Little Gid- 
 ding an Armenian 2sunnery : the papists said he 
 was a puritan, and the puritans abused him as a 
 papist. To make Mr. Ferrar's example the rule 
 of life would be absurd, though it were to be 
 wished that, among the majority of persons of his 
 rank and condition, so much could be found of 
 that piety pleasing to God, and so little of that 
 depravity which brings misei-y and degradation to 
 man. In another point of view, Mr. Ferrar was 
 to be praised : although he practised ceremonies, 
 &c., which some may consider as absolutely en- 
 joined by the christian faith, he did not regard 
 them in the light of what had been called by the 
 old controversialists works of supererogation, which 
 might authorise or wipe away practical transgres- 
 sion ; he did not one jot relax in his endeavour to 
 he what he was, a man pure in morals and of strict 
 integrity, a dutiful son, an affectionate brother, a 
 kind neighbour, and an honest man. Happy 
 would it be for the world, if all who like him have 
 fasted and prayed would imitate the correctness 
 
 of his life ; and still happier, if those wlio set at 
 nought all ritual observance would prove by a 
 discharge of their social duties that human virtue 
 stands in need of no aid from revelation to stimu- 
 late us by hope and fear to salutary exertion. 
 
 LVIIL— HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS 
 MADAME D'AUBAND. 
 
 ( Frofn ' Recollections of Seven Years in the 
 Mauritius.') 
 
 Charlotte Christina Sophiade "Wolfenbuttel, 
 wife of Czarovitz Alexis, son of Peter I., was unfor- 
 tunately an object of aversion to her husband, 
 although beautiful and amiable. In a fit of passion, 
 he gave her one day a blow which caused her to 
 be prematurely confined with a dead child. The 
 Countess of Koningsmark, who attended on the 
 princess, being aware that if she recovered she 
 would only be exposed to further acts of violence, 
 determined to declare that she had died. The 
 czarovitz, to whom this was agreeable news, or- 
 dered her immediate interment ; couriers were 
 dispatched to inform the czar of the event, and all 
 the courts of Europe went into mourning. The 
 princess escaped to America with an aged domestic 
 who passed for her father, and a female attendant. 
 While she was living in privacy in Louisiana, an 
 officer of the name of D'Auband, who had seen 
 her in Russia, recollected her, and made her an 
 offer of his services. Soon after they heard that 
 the czarovitz was dead, and D'Auband then en- 
 gaged to conduct the princess back to Russia ; but 
 she found herself happier in a private station, and 
 declared her intention of remaining in retirement. 
 The old domestic dying about this time, she was 
 without any protector, and D'Auband, who had 
 been long attached to her, offered her his hand ; — 
 she accepted it. Thus she, who had been destined 
 to wear the imperial diadem, became the wife of a 
 lieutenant of infantry. 
 
 The princess had no reason to regret her second 
 marriage ; — happy in the affection of a man she 
 had wedded from choice, she lived in uninter- 
 rupted peace and comfort ten years, without a 
 wish to mingle again in the splendid scenes where 
 she had known only misery ; but D'Auband fell 
 into ill health, and his wife, anxious above all 
 things for his recovery, proposed that they should 
 go to France to procure the best medical advice, 
 and to try the effect of a change of climate. They 
 accordingly embarked for his native land, and soon 
 after he was restored to health. He then solicited 
 an employment in the Isle of France, where he 
 was appointed major. The princess, however, 
 previous to quitting France had been recognised 
 by the Marshal de Saxe, who, after having called 
 on her and heard the story of her adventures, 
 informed his king of tlie discovery he had made. 
 His majesty desired his minister of marine to write 
 to the governor of the Mauritius, directing that 
 every mark of distinction should be showered on 
 Monsieur and Madame D'Auband, and that they 
 should always be treated with the highest con- 
 sideration. These orders, we are told, were punc- 
 tually obeyed ; the princess lived in tranquil hap- 
 piness in that island until 1747, when her beloved 
 husband died : she then returned to Paris, where 
 she lived to a great age. What a change of fortune 
 did this lady experience '. and how exactly the
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF OSTENTATION. 
 
 85 
 
 reverse was the change of Madame de Maintenon, 
 who, from the condition of a private individual, a 
 desolate widow, became the first female at the 
 brilliant court of Louis XIV., and eventually was 
 elevated to the dignity of queen, although not pub- 
 licly acknowledged as such ! She who was born in a 
 prison, and whose early years were passed in 
 poverty and obscurity, was afterwards the dispenser 
 of honours and emoluments ! — to whom statesmen, 
 generals, authors, applied for places and for pen- 
 sions ! She, too, passed part of her life in a distant 
 colony, but that was before she had known splen- 
 dour and rank. The Russian princess went into 
 exile, after having experienced the insufficiency of 
 exalted station to confer happiness ; the morning 
 of her days passed amidst the glitter of a court 
 whTP aiio was miserable ; — peaceful and hap])y 
 was her decline in the privacy she had chosen. 
 Madame de Maintenon, in all the plenitude of her 
 power, and the magnificence which surrounded her, 
 perhaps had reason to look back with regret on 
 the time when she was the poor but distinguished 
 widow of Scarron — distinguished by her talents, 
 not by her station. In the evening of her life she 
 acknowledged that she had never known real hap- 
 piness, whilst she was supposed to have attained 
 the summit of earthly felicity. 
 
 LIX.— THE TRAGEDY OF OSTENTATION. 
 A MARTYR TO VANITY. 
 
 [This is the ' Lounger's' view of the strange 
 history of Peregrinus. They who would see a 
 more extended guess at it, written in a more 
 tolerant and universal spirit, may read Wieland's 
 entertaining novel, intitled ' Confessions in Ely- 
 sium ; or the Adventurers of Peregrinus Pro- 
 teus,' — a book to be found in most circulating 
 libraries.] 
 
 Peregrinus, a native of Parium, a city on the 
 Hellespont or Dardanelles, during the second cen- 
 tury of the Christian era; a subject of the Anto- 
 nines, a cotemporary and associate of Aulus 
 Gellius, and of Lucian. 
 
 Having stained his youth by flagitious conduct, 
 and suffered from an injured husband a punish- 
 ment which added ridicule to the smart of retribu- 
 tive justice ; having hurried, by violence and vexa- 
 tion, an aged father to the grave ; from the pangs 
 of self-accusation, and the resentment of his fellow- 
 citizens, he fled into Palestine, a country which 
 once proved a scourge and afterwards gave a 
 Saviour to the world. 
 
 A wanderer, unsettled in life and wavering in 
 opinion, he degenerated into a character not un- 
 common in modern times, a violent declaimer 
 against those pleasures which he wanted inclina- 
 tion or ability to taste. 
 
 At length, stimulated by compunction, novelty, 
 or poverty, he sought repose for mental inquietude 
 in the bosom of Christianity, which first sprung up 
 in the Roman province of Judea, where Peregrinus 
 for a short time resided. 
 
 Appaicntly sincere in his professions, he was 
 anxious for the comforts of hope and forgiveness 
 v/hich revelation holds forth to repentant sinners, 
 and received considerable relief from the devout 
 zeal of his patrons, who, estimating the value of 
 their acquisition by the enormity of his trans- 
 
 gressions, sympathized with his sorrows and 
 were edified by his discourses, in which he adorned 
 the doctrines of the gospel by figures, allusions, 
 and expressions, borrowed from the various dialects 
 and elegant mythology of the Greeks. 
 
 But neither the habits nor disposition of the 
 proselyte were calculated for fulfilling the condi- 
 tions of a dispensation which enjoins purity of life, 
 and aflbrds no gratification to sensuality, selfish- 
 ness, or vanity. His conversion exposed him to 
 the religious banter of Lucian, who, however well 
 founded his suspicions might be as to the mer- 
 cenary motives of Peregrinus, evidently mistakes, 
 in his attacks on the christian religion, the Mosaic 
 ritual for the milder and more cheering doctrines 
 of Christ. 
 
 The sarcasms of the satirist, or the imprudence 
 of the convert, gradually opened the eyes of the 
 Christians : his moderation and abstemiousness 
 were found to be only assumed, for the purpose of 
 impressing on the world an opinion of his superior 
 sanctity ; while his non-compliance with the cus- 
 toms of the world was discovered to be a most 
 arrogant and assuming species of pride, which 
 rudely sets at defiance the established opinions and 
 general sense of mankind. 
 
 To attract notice at all risks, and to become the 
 subject of general conversation, was the ruling 
 passion of his soul ; whilst, with all his boasts of 
 superior wisdom, he poured forth on every occa- 
 sion of envy, contradiction, or irritation, a torrent 
 of foul invective ; and always in a greater propor- 
 tion, if the person he attacked appeared to excel 
 him in person, fortune, morals, or understanding. 
 
 Having proved himself grossly deficient in every 
 Christian requisite, and disguising under the phi- 
 losophic garb an overbearing spirit as well as a 
 depraved heart, after repeated but inefl'ectual 
 admonitions to amend, he was expelled from the 
 Christian church. 
 
 Again thrown loose on society he travelled on 
 foot into Egypt, and having by vicious or prepos- 
 terous conduct closed every avenue to fair fame, 
 he assumed the character of a cynic : he aff'ected the 
 dress and manners of Diogenes, inflicted on him- 
 self corporal chastisement, and insisted that to a 
 philoso])lier all words and all actions, as long as 
 they did not violate moral justice, or diminish the 
 great mass of public happiness, were equally 
 indifferent. 
 
 He neglected or despised the decencies of 
 dress, language, and gesture ; performing publicly, 
 without shame, actions which j)rejudice and ])ro- 
 priety, in civilized societies, have covered with a 
 thick veil. 
 
 Such conduct was neither imitated nor approved 
 in a coiuitry warmly attached to ritual observance, 
 and which has been called the mother of supersti- 
 tion. The disappointed cynic was driven with 
 ignominy from the hanks of the Nile, and, repair- 
 ing to Rome, soothed his cha.crin and gratified his 
 pride — that pride which in the human heart puts 
 on such a variety of forms — by loading with abuse 
 the customs, &c., of the country which tolerated 
 his inscjieiice. 
 
 He attacked that excellent emperor and man, 
 'i'itus Antoninus, who proved that he was the true 
 philosojjher by listening with patience to his impu- 
 dent haranguer ; and if any of the charges against 
 him were true, by amending his conduct. 
 
 A prefect of the city, whose temper was very
 
 8G 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF OSTENTATION. 
 
 irritable, drove our unfortunate declaimcr from the 
 capitol ; and, after passing through several cities of 
 Greece unnoticed or despised, he fixed his abode 
 at Athens, where he attracted the notice of A. 
 Gellius, who has recorded several of their con- 
 versations. 
 
 One of his favourite topics was to inveigh against 
 what he called the folly of wrapping up the names 
 of things, tlie harmless propensities of nature, in 
 refined phrase and delicate expression : he would 
 perhaps have agreed with a certain writer that 
 there was an increase of sin, since bad women 
 were called women of pleasure, and the crime of 
 adultery softened in the modish denomination of 
 crim. con. 
 
 Mure vain in his particular way than any man 
 alive, he grossly attacked the public spirit of 
 Herodes Atticus, a citizen, who, diffusing his 
 wealth in laudable exertion, and ornamenting his 
 country by magnificent structures, reflected credit 
 on the magnificence of a private man ; placing many 
 of the comforts and even luxuries of life within the 
 reach of the poorest individual. 
 
 The territory on which the Olympic games were 
 exhibited has been for ages a burning sand, the 
 death of many a candidate from dust and heat. A 
 spot rendered classical by poets, and affording a 
 landmark to the chronologist and historian, was 
 scantily supplied with water — a reproach to the 
 avarice, the poverty, or the taste of the Greeks. 
 
 The quick-sighted zeal of Herodes provided for 
 the defect : he conducted, at a vast expense of 
 money, a copious stream, supplied from distant 
 springs by an aqueduct, which, uniting magnifi- 
 cence with utility, was the wonder and ornament 
 of his country. 
 
 A work, which it was difficult to speak or even 
 think of without praise, which excited general 
 approbation, was considered by Peregrinus as a 
 good opportunity to exert his talent at satire and 
 abuse. 
 
 He attacked Herodes as vain-glorious and osten- 
 tatious, in thus lavishing his wealth on an under- 
 taking which only helped to make the combatants 
 effeminate : he asserted that it was more useful to 
 the state, though a few lives were lost, to harden 
 them by exposure to heat and thirst, than to 
 suffer the defenders of their country to enjoy the 
 indulgences of coolness and shade. 
 
 After much declamation in favour of self-denial, 
 it was observed that on the next celebration of the 
 games he was foremost in the crowd which pressed 
 forward to enjoy the stream. 
 
 The office of a censor of mankind, whatever 
 his motives, is not of a kind to conciliate affection, 
 but the inconsistencies of Peregrinus made him 
 contemptible ; a circumstance highly mortifying 
 to a man hunting after popularity, and ambitious 
 of posthumous fame. 
 
 Rendered desperate by disappointment, he re- 
 solved on the fervour of false philosophy to asto- 
 nish the world, and built his reputation on what 
 he judged an imperishable basis, by putting an end 
 to his existence on a funeral pile. 
 
 Being questioned as to the end he had in 
 view, he said that he meant to hold forth to the 
 world an impressive example ; to teach men to 
 despise death, and to bear pain with firmness and 
 composure. 
 
 It was in vain he was told that a fear of death 
 was implanted in our bosoms for the wisest purposes, 
 
 and that it was every one's first duty to perform 
 the offices of society in that post in which Provi- 
 dence had placed him. 
 
 " If he imagines," said Lucian, on hearing of 
 his design, " that there is anything so very heroic 
 in committing himself to the flames, I can furnish 
 him with a long list of fools and madmen who have 
 excelled in this his favourite exit. 
 
 " In the blaze of a fierce fire, as suffocation is 
 immediate, sensation ceases on the spot ; but on 
 any occasion which rouses their zeal or animates 
 their devotion, the Indian brahmins literally 
 roast themselves by slow fires, voluntarily expo- 
 sing themselves to the agonies of death for several 
 hours. 
 
 " If his passion arises merely from being tired of 
 life, he need only return to his own country, where, 
 as a parricide and an adulterer, he will instantly 
 receive the reward of his crimes." 
 
 With all his firmness, the cynic appears to have 
 dreaded the fate to which he had devoted himself. 
 He was not without hopes that by the interference 
 of his associates his proposed death would be pre- 
 vented. 
 
 But general expectation being roused, his abso- 
 lute and positive refusal to undergo that which he 
 had offered, besides lowering him in the esteem of 
 his followers, would have exposed him to the risk 
 of being torn to j)iece3 by the populace, who on 
 such occasions are not disposed to submit quietly 
 to an impostor, who sports with their feelings and 
 insults their credulity. 
 
 Finding he could expect nothing from their 
 humanity, he appealed to their superstition ; spoke 
 of celestial communication, &c., which forbade the 
 execution of his purpose: but he had gone too far 
 to retreat, and finding that he had no alternative 
 but the death he had chosen, or a more shocking 
 one. he prepared the pile with his own hands. 
 
 On the day appointed, and during the vast con- 
 course of the Olympic games, he appeared with 
 a train of attendants, addressed the people, and 
 asserted that the evil he had suffered and the 
 pains he had endured were sufficient testimonies 
 of his attachment to philosophy without the pre- 
 sent proof. 
 
 He then spoke on the vanity of life and the 
 glory of devoting ourselves to death for the benefit 
 of others, but was interrupted by the shouts of his 
 friends, who exclaimed that such a man ought to 
 live for the sake of his country, for the instruction 
 and edification of mankind. These words were 
 instantly overpowered by the voices of a very con- 
 siderable majority, who insisted that a non-per- 
 formance of that which he had promised was 
 unworthy of the character he had assumed, that a 
 philosopher ought to set an example of consistency 
 and faith. 
 
 '' Conduct him to the pile '." re-echoing on 
 every side, filled our philosopher with terror and 
 dismay. 
 
 Convinced that nothing hut death in the man- 
 ner he had proposed would satisfy the merciless 
 multitude, in a tremor produced by agitation of 
 body and mind he sunk on the ground : repeated 
 faintings, succeeded by a fever, made it necessary 
 to postpone the business. 
 
 A physician, who was sent for to administer 
 relief, informed him that if he was so anxiously bent 
 upon death he might save himself the trouble and 
 ceremony of publicly inflicting it on himself, for
 
 A HUMAN WILD BEAST APPARENTLY TAMED. 
 
 HI 
 
 that the fever, if unsubdued, would soou release 
 him from his cares. 
 
 Peregrinus, not relishing the proposal, told his 
 medical friend that merely to die in his bed was 
 not the thing he wanted ; that so common a mode 
 of going out of the world, unnoticed and unap- 
 plauded, had neither the charm of novelty nor the 
 attraction of popular admiration. 
 
 After a struggle of several weeks between his 
 fears, his disease, and his pride, the fever left him, 
 and he positively fixed the time and place at which 
 he would execute his purpose. 
 
 On the 16th July, a.d. 165, and in the 236th 
 Olympiad, such was the formal style in which it 
 was announced, he ascended for the last time a 
 uile nLich he had constructed with his own 
 hands Three miles from Olympia, on the even- 
 iij;; of a serene day, and the moon shining with 
 a silver light, Peregrinus presented himself to the 
 public eye, with a long trtiin of followers, and 
 others whom curiosity or admiration had attracted. 
 Laying aside his mantle, his wallet, and his staff, he 
 set fire to the fabric he had formed of fir and other 
 materials ; then scattering incense around him, 
 and turning his face to the south, he exclaimed in 
 a loud voice, " Genii of my ancestors, open your 
 arms to receive me '." and, leaping into the flames, 
 was soon reduced to ashes. 
 
 Thus terminated the career of a man who may 
 be said to have rendered himself extraordinary by 
 his crimes aiid the manner of his death. 
 
 LX.— A HUMAN WILD BEAST APPA- 
 RENTLY TAMED. 
 
 [From the translation of a curious piece of German 
 autobiography, entitled ' Heinrich Stilling.' The 
 author was a friend of Goethe's. We do not take 
 for granted, as he does, the thorough conversion of 
 the unhappy and most probably wretchedly edu- 
 cated subject of the present story ; but the man, 
 like other human beings, has a germ of goodness 
 in him, and the contrast of his poor wife's patience 
 and kindness is affecting.] 
 
 During supper, in the evening, Gldckner related 
 a very remarkable tale regarding his brother-in- 
 law, Freymuth, which was to the following effect. 
 — Madame Freymuth was Glockner's wife's sister, 
 and of one mind with her concerning religion ; the 
 two sisters therefore came frequently together, 
 with other friends, on the Sunday afternoon : they 
 then recapitulated the morning's sermon, read in 
 the bible, and sang hymns. Freymuth could not 
 bear this at all ; he was an arch enemy to such 
 things, yet, notwithstanding, he went diligently to 
 church and sacrament, but that was all : horrible 
 oaths, drinking, gaming, licentious conversation, 
 and fighting, were his most gratifying amusements, 
 in which he passed his time after his business was 
 finished. When he came home in the evening, 
 and found his wife reading the bible or some other 
 edifying book, he began to swear in a dreadful 
 manner, and to say to her, " Thou canting pietistic 
 
 d , knowest thou not that I will not have thee 
 
 read?" He then seized her by lier hair, dragged 
 her about upon the ground, and beat her till the 
 blood gushed from her nose and mouth ; however, 
 she did not say a word, but when he left ott" she 
 embraced his knees, and besouglit him with many 
 tears to be converted and change his course of 
 
 life : he then kicked her away from him with his 
 feet, and said, " That I will not, thou wretch ! I 
 will be no hypocrite, like thee." He treated her 
 in the same manner when he knew that she had 
 been in company with other pious people. In 
 this way he had acted ever since his wife had been 
 of different sentiments to himself. But now, only 
 within the last few days, Freymuth had become 
 entirely changed, and that in the following man- 
 ner : — 
 
 Freymuth took his departure for the fair at 
 Frankfort. During this time his wife was entirely 
 at liberty to live as she pleased ; she not only went 
 to visit other friends, but also occasionally invited 
 a considerable number of them to her house : this 
 she did also last Easter fair. Once, when many 
 of them were assembled in Freymuth's house on a 
 Sunday evening, and were reading, praying, and 
 singing together, it pleased the mob not to suffer 
 this. They came, and first of all broke all the 
 windows within their reach ; and as the house-door 
 was fastened, they burst it open with a strong pole. 
 The company in the parlour were alarmed and 
 terrified, and every one sought to hide himself as 
 well as he could. Madame Freymuth alone re- 
 mained ; and on hearing the house-door broken 
 open, she stepped out with a light in her hand. 
 Several of the mob had already burst in, whom 
 she met in the hall. She smiled at the people, 
 and said, good-humouredly, "Neighbours! what 
 is it you want^'' Immediately they were as though 
 they had received a beating ; they looked at each 
 other, were ashamed, and went quietly home again. 
 The next morning Madame Freymuth sent for the 
 glazier and carpenter, in order to restore everything 
 to its proper state : this was done, and scarcely 
 w:is all finished when her husband returned from 
 the fair. 
 
 He immediately observed the new windows, and 
 therefore asked his wife how that had haj)pened 1 
 She told him the pure truth circumstantially, and 
 concealed nothing from him, but sighed at the 
 same time in her mind to God for assistance ; for 
 she believed nothing else but that she would be 
 dreadfully beaten. Freymuth, however, did not 
 think of that, but was mad at the outrage of the 
 mob. His intention was to take cruel revenge upon 
 the villains, as he called them ; he therefore com- 
 manded his wife, with threats, to tell him who they 
 were that bad committed the outrage, for she had 
 seen and recognised them. 
 
 " Yes, dear husband!" said she, " I will tell thee ; 
 but I know a still greater sinner than they all toge- 
 ther ; for there was one who, for the very same 
 reason, beat me most dreadfully." 
 
 Freymuth did not understand this as it was 
 meant ; he fiew into a passion, beat upon his 
 
 breast, and roared out, " May the d fetch 
 
 him and thee too, if thou dost not this moment 
 tell me who it was." — "Yes," answered Madame 
 Freymuth, " I will tell thee ; revenge thyself upon 
 him as much as thou wilt; thou art the man that 
 did it, and art therefore worse than the people 
 who oidy broke the windows." Freymuth was 
 mute, and as if struck by lightning: he was silent 
 awhile. At length he began, " God in heaven, 
 thou art in the right ! I have certainly been a 
 real villain ! I am wishing to revenge myself 
 on people who are better than I! Yes, wife! I 
 am the most wicked wretch upon earth ! " He 
 jumped up, ran upstairs to his bedroom, lay
 
 8S 
 
 THE MURDERER WHO WAS NO MURDERER, 
 
 there three days and three nights flat upon tha 
 ground, ate nothing, and only occasionally took 
 soinetiiing to drink. His Mife kept him company 
 as much as she could, and helped him in jirayer 
 that he might ohtain favour with God tlirough 
 the Redeemer. 
 
 On the morning of the fourth day he rose with 
 his mind at ease, i)raised God, and said, "I am 
 now assured that my grievous sins are forgiven 
 me !" From that moment he has been quite 
 another man, as humble as he was proud before, 
 as meek as he had been previously wrathful and 
 daring, and as heartily pious as he had before been 
 im|)ious. 
 
 This man would have been a subject for my 
 friend Lavater : the expression of his countenance 
 was the maddest and wildest in the world ; it 
 Deeded only a single passion, for instance anger, 
 to be excited, and the animal spirits required only 
 to extend every muscle of his face, and he would 
 have anpeared raging mad. But now he is like a 
 lion turned into a lamb. Peace and serenity are 
 impressed upon every muscle of his countenance, 
 and this gives him an aspect as pious as it was 
 previously brutal. 
 
 LXL— THE MURDERER WHO WAS NO 
 MURDERER. 
 
 [The closing paragraph of this story (which is 
 quoted from the ' Theory of Presumptive Proof,' 
 in ' Cecil's Sixty Curious Narratives'), winds it 
 up with a singular increase of dramatic interest, — 
 if we may use terms of the stage in speaking of 
 such frightful realities. It reminds us, though dis- 
 similar in other respects, of .an account we have read 
 somewhere of a lady who dreamt that her maid- 
 servant was coming into her room to kill her, and 
 who, rising in her bed in the agitation of waking, 
 beheld the woman actually enteiiiig the door for 
 that purpose. Imagine the appalled situation of 
 both parties.] 
 
 Jonathan Bradford kept an inn in Oxfordshire, on 
 the London road to Oxford, in the year 1736. He 
 bore an unexceptionable character. Mr. Hayes, a 
 gentleman of fortune, being on his way to Oxford, on 
 a visit to a relation, put up at Bradford's ; he there 
 joined company with two gentlemen, with whom 
 he supped, and in conversation unguardedly men- 
 tioned that he had about him a large sum of money. 
 In due time they retired to their respective cham- 
 bers, the gentlemen to a two-bedded room, leaving, 
 as is customary with many, a candle burning in 
 the chimney corner. Some hours after they were 
 in bed, one of the gentlemen being awake thought 
 he heard a deep groan in the adjoining chamber, 
 and this being repeated he softly awaked his 
 friend. They listened together, and the groans in- 
 creasing as of one dying, they both instantly arose 
 and proceeded silently to the door of the next 
 chamber, from whence they heard the groans, and 
 the door being ajar saw a light in the room : they 
 entered, but it is impossible to paint their con- 
 sternation on perceiving a person weltering in his 
 blood in the bed, and a man standing over him 
 with a dark lanthorn in one hand and a knife in 
 the other. The man seemed as petrified as them- 
 selves, but his terror carried with it all the terror 
 of g\iilt. The gentlemen soon discovered that the 
 person was the stranger with whom they had that 
 
 night supped, and that the man who was standing 
 over him was their host : they seized Bradford di- 
 rectly, disarmed him of his knife, and charged him 
 with being the murderer. He assumed by this 
 time the air of innocence, positively denied the 
 crime, and asserted that he came there with the 
 same humane intentions as themselves: for that 
 hearing a noise, which was succeeded by a groan- 
 ing, begot out of bed, struck a light, armed him- 
 self with a knife for his defence, and was but that 
 minute entered the room before them." 
 
 These assertions were of little avail : he was kept 
 in close custody till the morning, and then taken 
 before a neighbouring justice of the peace. Brad- 
 ford still denied the murder, but nevertheless with 
 such an apparent indication of guilt, that the jus- 
 tice hesitated not to make use of this extraordi- 
 nary expression on writing out his mittimus : 
 " Mr. Bradford, either you or myself committed 
 this murder." 
 
 This extraordinary affair was the conversation of 
 the whole county : Bradford was tried and con- 
 demned over and over again in every company. 
 In the midst of all this predetermination came on 
 the assizes at Oxford ; Bradford was brought to 
 trial — he pleaded not guilty. Nothing could be 
 more strong than the evidence of the two gentle- 
 men : they testified to the finding Mr. Hayes mur- 
 dered in his bed, Bradford at the side of the body 
 with a light and a knife ; that knife and the hand 
 which held it bloody ; that on their entering the 
 room he betrayed ail the signs of a guilty man ; 
 and that a few moments preceding they had heard 
 the groans of the deceased. 
 
 Bradford's defence on his trial was the same as 
 before the gentlemen : he had heard a noise, he 
 suspected some villany transacting, he struck a 
 light, he snatched a knife (the only weapon near 
 him) to defend himself; and the terrors he dis- 
 covered were merely the terrors of humanity, the 
 natural effects of innocence as well as guilt, on 
 beholding such a horrid scene. 
 
 This defence, however, could be considered but 
 as weak contrasted with several powerful circum- 
 stances against him. Never was circumstantial 
 evidence more strong : there was little need left of 
 comment from the judge in summing up the evi- 
 dence. No room appeared for extenuation, and 
 the jury brought in the prisoner guilty, even with- 
 out going out of the box. Bradford was executed 
 shortly after, still declaring he was not the mur- 
 derer, nor privy to the murder of Mr. Hayes, but 
 he died disbelieved by all. 
 
 Yet were those assertions not imtrue : the mur- 
 der was actually committed by Mr. Hayes's foot- 
 man, who immediately on stabbing his master rifled 
 his breeches of his money, gold watch, and snuff- 
 box, and escaped to his own room, which could 
 have been, from the very circumstances, scarcely 
 two seconds before Bradford's entering the unfor- 
 tunate gentleman's chamber. The world owes this 
 knowledge to a remorse of conscience in the foot- 
 man (eighteen months after the execution of Brad- 
 ford), on a bed of sickness: it was a death-bed 
 repentance, and by that death the law lost its 
 victim. 
 
 It is much to be wished that this account could 
 close here, but it cannot. Bradford, though inno- 
 cent, and not privy to the murder, was nevertheless 
 the murderer in design. He had heard, as well as 
 the footman, what Mr. Hayes had declared at
 
 A REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF RECOVERY FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 sy 
 
 supper, as to his having a large sum of money about 
 liiin, and he went to the chamber with the same 
 diabolical intentions as the servant. He was struck 
 with amazement — he could not believe his senses ! 
 and in turning back the bedclothes to assure him- 
 self of the fact, he in his agitation dropped his 
 knife on the bleeding body, by which both his 
 hand and the knife became bloody. These circum- 
 stances Bradford acknowleiiged to the clergjnian 
 who attended him after his sentence. 
 
 LXIL — A REMARKABLE INSTANCE 
 RECOVERY FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 OF 
 
 '^F.ror.Ui.D AND AUTHENTICATED BY SEVERAL 
 HISTORIANS. 
 
 [Our present story from ' The Lounger' (a very 
 striking one) is preceded by some remarks of his, 
 singularly characteristic of the man, who Avith a 
 great deal of hearty good in him, had much that 
 was vehement and suspicious, of a piece with the 
 anxious stubbornness with which he kept himself 
 concealed from the public. Perhaps he feared some 
 such fate as, he here intimates, is sometimes caused 
 by a favourite " housekeeper."] 
 
 It is mentioned here, in order to stimulate the 
 friends of persons whose animation has been sus- 
 pended by drowning, suffocation, and other acci- 
 dents, and to encourage them not to relax in their 
 efforts of recovery, however hopeless appearances 
 may be. I also mean this article as a salutary 
 check on persons of another description : the resi- 
 duary legatees, second cousins, favourite house- 
 keepers, and religious intimates of wealthy bache- 
 lors, rich widows, and childless or childish old 
 men. I would wish them not to be too hasty in 
 laying them out, and to pay some little regard to 
 decency and decorum before they send for the un- 
 dertaker, screw up the coffin, and rummage for the 
 will. 
 
 A spark of life not yet wholly extinguished may 
 be roused into a flame by their abominable hypo- 
 crisy, and their avaricious hopes be ultimately de- 
 feated by a new devisee. 
 
 But waiving further preliminary comment, and 
 to come at once to the fact, the circumstance in 
 question took place in the sixteenth century, 
 during the reign of Elizabeth of England and 
 Charles IX. of France, at the period when the in- 
 trepid female who filled the English throne felt it 
 her duty or her interest to interfere in the wars of 
 the league, and actually sent an army of (JOOO men, 
 under tlie command of the Earl of Warwick, who 
 took possession of Dieppe and Havre-de-Grace, 
 but was too late to prevent the city of Roueu 
 being taken by assault by the Duke of Guise and 
 his party. 
 
 It was at this siege, and in defending Fort St. 
 Catherine, that Francis de St. Civile, a young man 
 of good family in Normandy, but somewhat tainted 
 with the new opinions, leading on the company he 
 commanded received a musket shot, which enter- 
 ing his right cheek and passing obliquely down- 
 wards, was buried in his neck. 
 
 A considerable effusion of blood took place, he 
 fell motionless on the groinid, and soon after being 
 considered as dead was strij)j)('d, and with another 
 corpse committed to tlic eartli. 
 
 A faithful old servant of his family impatiently 
 
 waited his return, and on being told what had 
 happened was anxious to see the body of his be- 
 loved master, and with a superstition in this in- 
 stance amiable, to give it Christian burial. 
 
 In the eagerness of zeal and love he procured 
 several soldiers of M. de St. Civile's company to 
 attend him with torches to the spot where the cap- 
 tain was buried. The day was already closed when 
 he received the melancholy intelligence, and a so- 
 lemn stillness reigned over a spot so lately the 
 scene of carnage and confusion. 
 
 They opened many graves in vain, and as they 
 were fearful of exciting the attention and drawing 
 upon themselves the fire of the besiegers, were pre- 
 paring to return without having accomplished their 
 purpose, when the domestic's attention was at- 
 tracted by some bright body on the ground, which 
 reflecting the blaze of the torch sparkled in his 
 eye. 
 
 Turning back to examine the cause, he saw un- 
 covered a hand and arm of some corpse already 
 buried ; on closer inspection, and gazing with eager 
 looks, he found that the glittering object was a 
 diamond ring on one of the fingers : this he in- 
 stantly recognized, having formerly brought it to 
 his master as a token of love from the mistress of 
 the young soldier's heart. 
 
 The body was disinterred without delay, and the 
 valet, bearing it in his arms, returned to his quar- 
 ters. He could not help remarking, as he carried 
 this honourable burthen, that it was still warm. 
 Stopping a moment to look at that face which had 
 smiled on him a thousand times, he perceived some- 
 thing like a faint breath issuing from his mouth. 
 This circumstance created new hopes, and the in- 
 stant he reached home placing the body in a warm 
 bed, and calling in medical aid, the wounded man 
 gradually recovered. 
 
 The first object De St. Civile opened his eyes on 
 was the fond, the faithful servant, who had at- 
 tended him from his entrance into life, and had 
 now snatched him from an untimely grave. 
 
 He remained for several weeks in a languid 
 state, and the city was in the meantime taken by 
 storm. The besiegers being exasperated against 
 the family of the wounded captain for the active 
 part they had taken, with that more than savage 
 animosity with which civil wars are carried on, 
 threw the sick man from the window. 
 
 Fortunately for M. de St. Civile there was a 
 large dunghill underneath, on which he fell with- 
 out injury. Here, in the noise and confusion of a 
 military assault, he lay for several days unnoticed 
 by the enemy, was occasionally su]>|)lied with a 
 little nourishment, and at last conveyed by night, 
 through the kind care of his original deliverer, to 
 a farmhouse a few miles from the city. At this 
 place, with good nursing, lie at length recovered, 
 and was j)ersonally known to Monsieur de Thou, 
 to whom I am obliged for a good part of this short 
 but interesting narrative. 
 
 LXIII.— THE FAMOUS STORY OF THE 
 FAMILIES OF CALAS AND SIRVEN. 
 
 [In repeating a story of Catholic bigotry and 
 cruelty, it is hardly necessary in these times to de- 
 precate its application to the existing m(-ml)ers of 
 the catholic faith : they partake of the general 
 Christian amelioration of the age, and would be
 
 90 
 
 STORY OF THE FAMILIES OF CALAS AND SIRVEN. 
 
 ashamed to do as their predecessors did. Bi- 
 gotry it is true, will still break out into acts of 
 absurdity here and there, jirotestant as well as 
 catholic ; but, frenerally speakiiifif, at least among 
 all decently educated people (and it is not the 
 fault of the uneducated that they remain so), it has 
 outgrown its mistakes, and no longer confounds 
 the exasperations of self-will with the ordinances of 
 God. The following narrative is the ' Lounger's,' 
 and is coloured with the peculiarities of a bygone 
 generation and of his own character.] 
 
 John Calas was a reputable tradesman, or, as he 
 was called in France, a merchant of the city of 
 Tlioulouse, in the eighteenth century. Himself, 
 his wife, and five sons had been born and edu- 
 cated in the protestant religion ; but Lewis, the 
 second of his children, only a few months before 
 the jiresent narrative commences, renouncing the 
 tenets he had professed, embraced the catholic 
 faith. It was supposed that the young man had 
 been persuaded to this change by an old female 
 servant who had lived many years in the family, 
 and by whom he had been originally nursed. His 
 parents lamented this apostacy, but being remark- 
 able for affection towards their offspring, it was 
 not observed to diminish the kindness of their be- 
 haviour either to Lewis or the old domestic, as 
 they were convinced, however erroneous the pro- 
 ceeding, that it originated from amiable motives 
 and a benevolent mind. Their eldest son, An- 
 thony, had been bred to the law, but found that 
 his dissenting from the established religion of his 
 country was an insuperable bar to his being ad- 
 mitted to practice. The disappointment was ob- 
 served to have a strong effect on his mind and 
 health : he became melancholy, peevish, and soli- 
 tary, procured and perused many reprehensible 
 books, and often repeated passages from theui in 
 defence of suicide. 
 
 In this state of things Anthony received an acci- 
 dental visit from an old schoolfellow, the son of 
 Mr. Lavaisse, an avocat, or as we should term it 
 an attorney, of Thoulouse. Young Lavaisse having 
 been absent for several weeks at Bourdeaux, on 
 his i-eturn found that his father had been for se- 
 veral days at a little villa to which he occasionally 
 retired, eight miles from the city. Having endea- 
 voured to procure a horse at several places without 
 effect, as he was coming out of the stable -yard of 
 one of the persons to whom he had applied, he met 
 Anthony and his father, who congratulated him on 
 his arrival, and, hearing that none of his family 
 were at home, invited him to pass his evening at 
 their house, to which he agreed. Mrs. Calas re- 
 ceived Lavaisse as the friend of her son with great 
 cordiality, and after sitting in conversation about 
 half an hour, Anthony, being the general market- 
 man of the family, was sent to purchase some 
 cheese. Soon after Lavaisse went again to the 
 keeper of a livery-stable to see if any of his horses 
 were returned, and to bespeak one for his use in 
 the morning. 
 
 They both came back in a short time, and at 
 seven o'clock sat down to supper in a room up one 
 pair of stairs, the company consisting of Calas, his 
 wife, Anthony, Peter, one of his brothers, and 
 Mr. Lavaisse. Before the meal was concluded, 
 Anthony, without any apparent reason, rose from 
 table in an evident state of mental i)erturbation : 
 this, as it was a circumstance that had often oc- 
 
 curred since his indisposition, was not noticed ; he 
 passed into the kitchen, which was on the same 
 floor, and being asked by the servant if he was 
 cold, said to her, " Quite the contrary, I am in 
 a burning heat." He soon after went down 
 stairs. 
 
 It ought to have been observed that the whole 
 of the grouud-Hoor was occupied by the shop and 
 a warehouse behind it, which were separated by 
 folding doors. The party whom Anthony had 
 quitted continued conversing till half-past nine, 
 I when Lavaisse took his leave ; and Peter, who fa- 
 tigued by his attendance in the shop had fallen 
 asleep, was roused to attend with a lantern. It is 
 easier to conceive than describe their horror and 
 astonishment on reaching the foot of the stairs : the 
 first object that presented itself was the unhappy An- 
 thony, stripped to his shirt, and hanging from a bar 
 which he had laid across the top of the folding doors, 
 having half-opened them for that purpose. Their 
 exclamation brought Mr. Calas down stairs, who 
 the moment he saw what had taken place rushed 
 forward and raised the body in his arms, moved 
 the rope by which it was suspended, and the bar 
 fell down : for the two young men were so affected 
 that they stood immovable as statues, and lost all 
 presence of mind. The unhappy father in an 
 agony of grief laid his son on the ground, and im- 
 mediately sent Peter for Mr. Lamoire, a surgeon 
 in the neighbourhood, observing to him, " Let us, 
 if we can, prevent this dishonourable accident 
 being known : you need not say how your bro- 
 ther's death took place." 
 
 Lavaisse in the meantime ran up stairs to pre- 
 vent, if possible, Mrs. Calas from knowing what 
 had happened ; but hearing the groans and outcries 
 of her husband and the old servant, it could not be 
 prevented, and the presence of this unhappy mo- 
 ther added to the afflicting scene. The surgeon 
 was not at home, but his pupil, Mr. Grosse, imme- 
 diately came : on examination he found that An- 
 thony was quite dead, and when he removed his 
 neckcloth, observing a dark mark made by the 
 cord, immediately said he had been strangled. A 
 crowd of people, attracted by curiosity and the 
 cries of the family, had collected round the door, 
 and hearing the surgeon's words, immediately 
 formed an opinion that the deceased was on the 
 point of becoming a catholic, and that his family, 
 as protestants, had strangled Anthony to prevent 
 his abjuring tlieir communion. 
 
 The majority of the inhabitants of France being 
 at that time violently prejudiced against the Cal- 
 vinists, and more particularly the inhabitants of 
 Thoulouse, who for several years celebrated the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew by anniversary pro- 
 cessions, this vague suspicion was eagerly circu- 
 lated, and with many absurd aggravations pro- 
 nounced an undeniable fact : a furious mob assem- 
 bled, and to prevent Calas and his family from 
 being torn to pieces, it was thought necessary 
 to send for the intendant of the police and his 
 assistants. 
 
 These peace-officers, instead of quieting the 
 people, and entering into cool examination of 
 facts, precipitately sided in opinion with the mul- 
 titude, and the whole family, together with La- 
 vaisse, was committed to prison, under circum- 
 stances of universal hatred and indignation. 
 
 The Franciscans and White Penitents, two reli- 
 gious societies at that time in Thoulouse, zealously
 
 STORY OF THE FAMILIES OF GALAS AND SIRVEN. 
 
 91 
 
 inflamed the public irritation, and promulgated 
 the report that Anthony, who had never given the 
 least indication of a change in his opinions, was 
 the next day to have become one of their frater- 
 nity ; that he was strangled in order to prevent 
 it ; and that Lavaisse, on this and other similar 
 occasions, was generally executioner among the 
 Calvinists. The corpse was publicly interred in 
 St. Stephen's, accompanied by a long and pompous 
 procession, a solemn service and funeral dirge : a 
 tomb was raised to his memory in a conspicuous 
 part of that church, and a real human skeleton was 
 exhibited on the monument, holding in one hand 
 a paper on \vhich was written abjuration of 
 HERESY, and in the other a branch of the palm- 
 tree as an emblem of martyrdom. In such a state 
 of the public mind it was not probable that the 
 affair wou'd experience an impartial examination. 
 The capitoul, one David, an ignorant but fierce 
 bigot, insisted on the impossibility of a person's 
 suspending himself across the folding doors, anil 
 said that it was a common practice with protestant 
 parents to hang such of their children as wisiied to 
 change .their religion ; the worthy magistrate for- 
 getting at the moment, or resolving not tc remem- 
 ber, that Lewis Calas, another of the unfortunate 
 prisoner's children, had actually become a catholic, 
 and so far from incurring the resentment of his 
 father had been lately settled by him in an advan- 
 tageous business, and that the person who had 
 been the chief instrument of his conversion was 
 at that moment an inmate in the family, and 
 treated with the most unremitting kindness. Le 
 Borde, the presiding judge, who knew and ought 
 to have acted better, warmly espoused the popular 
 opinion : he repeatedly inquired " If Anthony Galas 
 had been seen to kneel at his father's feet before 
 he strangled him "? " but receiving no satisfactory 
 answer observed, that the cries of the murdered 
 martyr were heard at distant parts of the city. He 
 added, that " It was necessary to make an example 
 of John Calas, for the edification of true believers 
 and the propagation of sound faith, as heretics 
 had been of late more than usually bold and in- 
 corrigible." 
 
 I relate with concern, that in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, in a Christian country, and during the reign 
 of a Most Christian king, this unfortunate man, 
 seventy years of age, and irreproachable in life, 
 who was remarkable for parental affection, and 
 had brought up a numerous family in credit and 
 repute, was declared guilty of murdering his own 
 child (a crime which collateral and other circum- 
 stances proved he had never committed), and sen- 
 tenced to be broken on the wheel. This innocent 
 prisoner in a few days was led forth to punish- 
 ment, in a state of mind which excited general 
 admiration. 
 
 Two honest Dominicans, Bourges and Caldegnes, 
 who attended him, declared that they not only 
 thought him innocent of the crime, but an uncom- 
 mon example of Christian patience, fortitude, clia- 
 rity, and forbearance ; they could not helj) remark- 
 ing, that in his ])rayers he intreated the Almighty 
 to pardon the errors of his enemies. These worthy 
 fathers united in wishing that their last hours 
 might be like his. 
 
 Calas endured the torture with unabated firm- 
 ness, declaring the innocence of himself and family 
 to the last : his son Peter was baiiisiied for life ; 
 the other persons, with a glaring inconsistency — 
 
 for if one was guilty all must have been so — were 
 set at liberty. 
 
 This melancholy and disgraceful transaction, 
 which took place in the year 1761, naturally at- 
 tracted the notice and consideration of all well- 
 disposed, humane, and liberal persons, particularly 
 of Mr. Voltaire, the advocate of toleration, who 
 like other advocates was ultimately carried further 
 in his reforming career than he originally expected 
 or designed ; but in rescuing the family of Calas 
 from obloquy and disgrace, he was commended by 
 all parties. His applications to men in power were 
 so eifectual, that the judicial proceedings were sent 
 to Paris and revised : Calas and the whole of the 
 family were declared innocent, the sentence was 
 annulled, the attorney-general of the province was 
 directed to prosecute the infamous capitoul, David, 
 and every possible satisfaction was made to the 
 widow, Mr. Lavaisse, and the survivors. But 
 although every thing that could be done was done, 
 all could not call up from the grave the mangled 
 corpse of the unhappy father, who at the moment 
 he was suffering unutterable distress of mind for a 
 suicide child was loaded with disgrace and chains, 
 and committed to a loathsome dungeon, accused, 
 tried, and condemned as the executioner of his 
 own offspring, suff'ered a cruel death, and finally 
 was insulted on the scaffold in his last agonies by 
 the cruel David. "Wretch!" said this infernal 
 monster to the poor old man, while in a state of 
 torture, " wretch '. confess your crime. Behold 
 the faggots which are to consume your body to 
 ashes !" 
 
 The melancholy impressions made by this article 
 would have been somewhat alleviated, had it been 
 in the editor's power to relate with truth that the 
 vile capitoul, a Franciscan, and two or three of 
 the White Penitents had been hanged. 
 
 Where and when have I seen, and by what art- 
 ist, a painting in which a group of persons are 
 exhibited as contemplating a picture of the tra- 
 gedy which forms the subject of the present article, 
 and exemplifying its effect on different tempers 
 and dispositions'? * 
 
 The man of violent passions, with fury in his 
 countenance and an extended arm, is pouring forth 
 execrations against the remorseless bigots ; another 
 gentleman, of exquisite sensibility, is silently wiping 
 the tear from his cheek ; a connoisseur seems to be 
 admiring the painter's performance, without being 
 ap])arently aflected by the subject of it ; and a 
 jolly fellow, who appears to have understood and 
 ])ractised the pleasures of the table, sits unbusied 
 before the picture, buried in fat, indolence, and 
 stupidity. 
 
 Various have been the efforts of human wisdom 
 to correct the excesses of intolerant superstition. 
 In many instances these efforts have been success- 
 ful ; but like a race-horse pushing for the goal, 
 they have often been carried further than was 
 intended. 
 
 The zealous, and perhaps at first, and before his 
 passions are inflamed, the well-meaning Gatholic, 
 who would i)unish a man's body for the salvaticni 
 of his soul, ultimately degenerates into the most 
 cruel and bloody of all tyrants — a tyrant over 
 the mind. On the contrary, the liberal-minded 
 man of feeling and philanthropy, unless guided by 
 prudence and expediency, becomes a latitudinarian 
 
 * We tliiiik tliiMi' is an oii;;rnviii<; <if il in I.avalLT, and 
 j tlsal tlio orii;mal is by a Firncli artist. — Kd.
 
 92 
 
 WILLIAM AND CATHERINE SHAW. 
 
 and a sceptic, and would ultiniately introduce the 
 most irrational and unfeeliiif^ of all despotisms. 
 
 The following letter, addressed to M. Voltaire 
 from the late Empress of Russia, during his spirited 
 conduct in favour of the family of Galas, must have 
 highly gratified that ingenious Frenchman : — 
 
 " Sir, — The brightness of the northern star is a 
 mere Aurora Borealis ; hut the private man, who 
 is an advocate for the rights of nature and a de- 
 fender of oppressed innocence, will immortalize his 
 name. You have attacked the great enemies of 
 true religion and science — fanaticism, ignorance, 
 ;uid cliieane : may your victory be complete. 
 
 " You desire some small relief for the family. I 
 should he better pleased if ray enclosed bill of ex- 
 change coulil pass unknown. Nevertheless, if you 
 think my name, unharmonious as it is, may be of 
 use to the cause, I leave it to your discretion. 
 
 " Catherine." 
 
 It is a melancholy truth, that while this disgrace- 
 ful tragedy was performing, another instance of 
 superstitious intolerance, and, like this, ending in 
 the death of two innocent persons, was exhibited 
 in the same province, at Castres, little more than 
 forty miles from Thoulouse. 
 
 Adjoining to that city, on a little farm which they 
 owned and occupied themselves, lived the family 
 of Sirven, consisting of the farmer, his wife, and 
 three daughters, one of whom was married and 
 pregnant, her husband by his employment being 
 called to a distant province. Although of the Pro- 
 testant religion, the youngest of his single daugh- 
 ters had been taken by force from her father's 
 home, put into a convent, and told that she must 
 conform to the Catholic faith, which was the only 
 true religion. Finding the poor girl naturally at- 
 tached to the tenets in which she had been edu- 
 cated, her instructors told her that it was the high 
 road to hell, and insisting that it was necessary to 
 punish the body to save the soul, they taught her 
 their better catechism, whipped her severely, and 
 shut her up in a solitary cell. In a few weeks, in 
 consequence of their persevering in what they 
 called wholesome discipline, the poor creature lost 
 her senses, and escaping from her keepers threw 
 herself headlong into a well. It was immediately 
 insisted on by the catholics, and passed current, 
 that her own family had destroyed her, it being 
 an established rule with protestants to murder 
 every one who is suspected of any inclination to 
 the catholic faith. The populace was inflamed ; 
 Sirven did not dare to make his appearance, and 
 having heard of the transaction at Thoulouse, was 
 anxious to avoid similar treatment, as his house 
 had been twice attacked. Expecting to be torn to 
 jiieces, he took an opportunity, when his infuriated 
 enemies were retired to rest from their persecu- 
 tions, to leave his house with his family. At the 
 dead of night, on foot, in the severity of winter, 
 and with a deep snow on the ground, they fled 
 from their savage neighbours and took the road to 
 Switzerland, though scarcely knowing whither to 
 go. To add to Sirven's afflictions, his daughter 
 was delivered of a dead child during the journey, 
 evidently killed by the over-fatigue and horrors of 
 its parent. Urged forward by their remorseless 
 hunters, the frantic mother could not be persuaded 
 that her child was dead, and travelled on, closely 
 embracing the clay-cold infant in her arms. 
 
 It is not easy to describe the exasperated fury of 
 
 the zealots at Castres when they found their in- 
 tended victims had escaped. They reproached 
 each other with not having kept a guard during 
 the night. To prove what they wished to do, the 
 whole family were burned in effigy ; a process was 
 issued against Sirven, his goods seized, his pro- 
 jjcrty confiscated, and the memory of an industri- 
 ous, harmless, and much injured family loaded 
 with infamy and reproach. 
 
 The fugitives, travelling by night and concealing 
 themselves in the daytime, fortunately escaped the 
 tigers, but did not consider themselves safe till 
 they reached Switzerland. In another respect they 
 were not less fortunate : the benevolent friend and 
 advocate of the family of Galas heard of Sirven"s 
 misfortunes, and powerfully interfered in their 
 favour ; but was shocked on being told that their 
 cause should be reheard, and that possibly they 
 might be pardoned. A virtuous, decent, innocent 
 f\imily, reduced to beggary and ruin, with two in- 
 dividuals of it murdered, for so in fact it was, is 
 told it may be pardoned ! But the active benevo- 
 lence of \'oltaire did not rest satisfied with this 
 answer, which seemed to be adding injury to in- 
 sult. M. de Beaumont, who nobly and success- 
 fully defended the Galas family, also strongly inte- 
 rested himself, and tardy justice ultimately took 
 place. 
 
 LXI v.— WILLIAM AND CATHERINE 
 SHAW. 
 
 [We take this edifying sample of circumstantial 
 evidence from the ' Sixty Curious Narratives ' be- 
 fore mentioned, the compiler of M'hich quotes it 
 from the ' Theory of Presumptive Proof.' Pre- 
 sumptive proof is really a very presumptuous per- 
 sonage, and his circumstantial evidence frequently 
 deserves to have a halter brought round its own 
 neck. People circumstantially found guilty ought, 
 we think, at the very worst, to undergo only a cir- 
 cumstantial hanging. A gallows should be paraded 
 round them, the executioner should make a cir- 
 cuitous pretence of turning them off, and the by- 
 standers should exclaim, " There you are, not 
 positively hung, but you are circumstantially. You 
 may presume that you are dead : the proof of your 
 being so is not direct, but strong symptoms of an 
 execution are i-ound about you 1 you may say that 
 you have been in very hanging circumstances." 
 
 We take poor William Shaw to have been no 
 very pleasant father, and his unfortunate daughter 
 (perhaps in consequence of a violent bringing-up) 
 was furious and vindictive. But their characters 
 must have been known ; a surgeon should have 
 been able to distinguish between a throat cut by 
 the deceased's own hand and by that of another 
 person ; and the groans and exclamations of a 
 highly probable suicide ought not to have been 
 construed into evidence of murder, not even with 
 a shirt spotted with blood, especially as the spots 
 turn out to have been owing to what the man said. 
 But the simpletons kill him, and then wave a flag 
 over his grave by way of consoling his innocence. 
 There is something in this action ludicrously of a 
 piece with the rest of the folly, though the instinct 
 Vv'as a good one, and the poor people must have 
 been very sorry. We believe there will be no 
 great haste to hang any more criminals upon cir- 
 cumstantial evidence after the publication of works
 
 A TALE OF OLD ITALIAN REVENGE. 
 
 9.3 
 
 of this kind, and the fate of the unfortunate Eliza 
 
 Feiuiing.] 
 
 William Shaw, says our authority, was an up- 
 holsterer at Edinburgh, in the year 1791 He had 
 a daughter, Catherine Shaw, who lived with him. 
 She encouraged the addresses of John I.awsoii, a 
 jeweller, to whom William Shaw declared the most 
 insuperable objections, alleging him to be a profli- 
 gate young man, addicted to every kind of dissipa- 
 tion. He was forbidden the house, but the daugh- 
 ter continuiug to see him clandestinely, the father, 
 on the discovery, kept her strictly confined. 
 
 William Shaw had for some time pressed his 
 daughter to receive the addresses of a sou of Alex- 
 ander Robertson, a friend and neighbour ; and one 
 evening, being very urgent with her thereon, she 
 pereiiiptorily refused, declaring she preferred death 
 to b' ii.g yung Robertson's wife. The father grew 
 enraged and the daughter more positive, so that 
 the most passionate expressions arose on both 
 sides, and the words barbarity, cruelty, and death 
 were frequently pronounced by the daughter. At 
 length he left her, locking the door after him. 
 
 The greater part of the buildings at Edinburgh 
 are formed on the plan of the chambers in our iniis 
 of court, so that many families inhabit rooms on 
 the same floor, having all one common staircase. 
 William Shaw dwelt in one of these, and a single 
 partition only divided his apartment from that of 
 James Morrison, a watch-case maker. This man 
 had indistinctly overheard the conversation and 
 quarrel between Catherine Shaw and her father, 
 but was particularly struck with the repetition of 
 the above words, she having pronounced them 
 loudly and emphatically. For some little time 
 after the father was gone out all was silent, but 
 presently Morrison heard several groans from the 
 daughter. Alarmed, he ran to some of his neigh- 
 bours under the same roof: these, entering Morri- 
 son's room and listening attentively, not only heard 
 the groans, but distinctly heard Catherine Shaw 
 two or three times faintly exclaim, " Cruel father, 
 thou art the cause of my death." Struck with this, 
 they flew to the door of Shaw's apartment ; they 
 knocked — no answer was given. The knocking 
 was still repeated — still no answer. Suspicions 
 had before arisen against the father : they were 
 now conKrmed. A constable was procured, an 
 entrance forced : Catherine was found weltering in 
 her blood, and the fatal knife by her side. She 
 was alive, but speechless ; but on questioning her 
 as to owing her death to her father, was just able 
 to make a motion with her head, apparently in the 
 affirmative, and expired. 
 
 Just at the critical moment, William Shaw re- 
 turns and enters the room: all eyes are on him. 
 He sees his neighbours and a constable in his 
 apartment, and seems much disordered thereat ; 
 but at the sight of his daughter he turns ])ale, 
 trembles, and is ready to sink. The first surjirise 
 and the succeeding horror leave little doubt of his 
 guilt in the breasts of the beholders ; and even 
 that little is done away on the constable discover- 
 ing that the shirt of William Shaw is bloody. 
 
 He was instantly hurried before a niiigistrate, 
 and upon the depositions of all the ])arties com- 
 mitted to prison on suspicion. He was shortly 
 after brought to trial, when in his defence he ac- 
 knowledged the having confined his daughter to 
 prevent her intercourse with Lawson ; that he had 
 frequently insisted on her marrying Robertson, 
 
 and that he had quarrelled with her on the subject 
 the evening she was found murdered, as the witness 
 Morrison had deposed ; but he averred that he left 
 his daughter unharmed and untouched, and that 
 the blood found upon his shirt was there in conse- 
 quence of his having bled himself some days before, 
 and the bandage becoming untied. These asser- 
 tions did not weigh a feather with the jury, when 
 opposed to the strong circumstantial evidence of 
 the daughter's expressions of "barbarity, cruelty, 
 death." and of " cruel father, thou art the cause of 
 my death," together with that apparently affirma- 
 tive motion with her head, and of the blood so seem- 
 ingly providentially discovered on the father's 
 shirt. On these several concurring circumstances 
 was William Shaw found guilty, and was hanged 
 in chains at Leith Walk, in November, 1721. 
 
 Was there a person in Edinburgh v/ho believed 
 the father guiltless 1 No, not one, notwithstand- 
 ing his latest words at the gallows were, " I am 
 innocent of my daughter's murder." But in August, 
 1722, as a man who had become the possessor of 
 the late William Shaw's apartments was rummag- 
 ing by chance in the chamber where Catherine 
 Shaw died, he accidentally perceived a paper fallen 
 into a cavity on one side of the chimney. It was 
 folded as a letter, which on opening contained the 
 following : — " Barbarous father, your cruelty in 
 having put it out of my power ever to join my fate 
 to that of the only man I could love, and tyranni- 
 cally insisting upon my marrying one whom I 
 always hated, has made me form a resolution to 
 put an end to an existence which is become a bur- 
 then to me. I doubt not I shall find mercy in 
 another world, for sure no benevolent Being can 
 require that I should any longer live in torment to 
 myself in this. ;My death I lay to your charge : 
 when you read this, consider yourself as the inhu- 
 man wretch that plunged the murderous knife into 
 the bosom of the unhappy — Catherine Shaw." 
 
 This letter being shown, the handwriting was 
 recognised and avowed to be Catherine Shaw's by 
 many of her relations and friends. It became the 
 public talk ; and the magistracy of Edinburgh, on 
 a scrutiny, being convinced of its authenticity, they 
 ordered the body of William Shaw to be taken 
 from the gibbet, and given to his family for inter- 
 ment ; and as the only reparation to his memory 
 and the honour of his surviving relations, they 
 caused a pair of colours to be waved over his grave 
 in token of his innocence. 
 
 LXV.-A TALE OF OLD ITALIAN 
 REVENGE. 
 
 [This is from our old friend ' Camerarius ' (see 
 Nos. xxvi — xxix),and is full of frightful truth. We 
 behold the horrible human relics (^taken for bats!) 
 blackening on the city gate. There are no such 
 sights now in Italy, thanks to the i>rogress of know- 
 ledge and Christian feeling; and we shall not be 
 too hasty to triumph over " Italian " stories of 
 revenge, when we call to mind that spectacles not 
 very dissimilar (more horrible in one respect, be- 
 cause they had faces) were to be seen not a great 
 many years ago over Tem[)le Bar and one of the 
 bridges : and even against stories of modern Ita- 
 lian assassination may be set ott" too many appal- 
 ling things in our daily newspajiers ; but then 
 more of them transpire now than they used to do,
 
 94 
 
 GENEROUS CHILDREN GENEROUSLY HELPED. 
 
 owing to those channels of publicity. We are all 
 getting on, thank God, generally speaking, in 
 knowledge and humanity, tlie whole civilized 
 world, aye, and the uncivilized ; and we should 
 desire and love to get on altogether, nobody lord- 
 ing it or valuing himself over another. English, 
 Italians, French, &c., will, we verily believe, before 
 many generations are past, be like one great intelli- 
 gent" family, acknowledging the same guidance of 
 public opinion, and interchanging all the blessings 
 of advancement.] 
 
 One day, says our honest and earnest old scholar, 
 as I went from Rome with my companie, and past 
 through the marquisate of Ancona, wee were to go 
 through a citie called Terni, seated in a very plea- 
 sant and fruitfuU valley, betweene the armes of a 
 riuer called the Mar. As wee entered into the 
 citie, wee saw ouer the gate a certaine tablet upon 
 a high tower, to which were tied (as it seemed to 
 vs at tirst) a great many bats or reere-mise. Wee 
 thinking it a strange sight, and not knowing what 
 it meant, being set vp in so eminent a place, one 
 of the citie, whom we asked, told us of a certaine 
 thing that had hapned some years before. There 
 were (quoth he) in this citie two noble, rich, and 
 niightie houses, which for a very long time carried 
 on an irreconcilable hatred the one against the 
 other, insomuch as the malice passed from the 
 father to the son, as it were by inheritance, by 
 occasion whereof many of both houses were slain 
 and murdered. At last the one house, not able to 
 stay the fire of their violent wrath, resolved to 
 stand about murdering no more of the aduerse by 
 surprise and treason, but to run upon them all at 
 once, and not to leaue one bodie thereof aliue. 
 They of this bloodie familie gathered together out 
 of the countrie adjoyning (vnder some other pre- 
 tence) many of their seruants, which met in the 
 citie, whereof they ioyned them to their bravos 
 (which are swaggerers, assassins, and hacksters, 
 such as many Italians that have quarrels keep in 
 pay to employ them in the execution of their 
 reuenges), and secretly armed them, enioyning 
 them to be always readie to do some notable ex- 
 ploit whensoeuer they should be called upon. 
 Soon after, taking hold of occasion, they march 
 about midnight with their people to the gouern- 
 our's house, who mistrusted nothing, secure of his 
 person, being a man of authoritie and power ; and 
 leaning guards in the same house until they should 
 haue executed their purpose, goe on silent towards 
 the house of their enemies, and disposing their 
 troops at euery street end, about ten of them goe 
 to the same house (the gouernour being between 
 them) as if they had been the archers of his guard, 
 whom they compelled to command that speedy 
 opening might be made him, as if he had some 
 seruice of importance to dispatch within their 
 house, and withal they held a poinyard at his 
 throat, threatning to kill him if he said not that 
 which they had ])ut into his mouth. He, amazed 
 at the death which he saw present before his eyes, 
 caused all the doors to be opened — a thing which 
 they within made no refusall of, seeing the gouern- 
 our there : which being done, those ten call their 
 complices, not farre off, put the gouernour into safe 
 keeping, enter into the house, and there most cru- 
 elly murder man, woman, and child ; nay, they 
 spare not so much as the horses in the stable. 
 That done, they make the gouernour set open the 
 
 citie gates, and so depart and disperse themselues 
 into diuers secret places, here and there, among 
 their friends. The wisest of them fled to the next 
 sea-ports, and got them away far off: but as for 
 those that kept any thing neere, they were so dili- 
 gently searcht for, that they were found and drawn 
 out of their holes by the justices, greatly mooved 
 (as good cause there was) with such a horrible 
 massacre. So these wicked offenders were put to 
 death with the most grieuous punishments ; and 
 after, their hands and their feet being cut oif, were 
 nailed to the tablet which you saw (quoth he) as 
 ye entered the gate, on the top of the tower, set 
 up for a show to terrific the cruel and to serue for 
 a lesson to posteritie. The sun having broiled 
 those limbs so fastened and set up maketh travel- 
 lers to think, that know nothing of this horrible 
 tragedie, that they be reere-mise. Wee hauing 
 heard this pitiful discourse, with detestation of 
 such a furious and cruel desire of revenge, kept on 
 our way. 
 
 LXVL— GENEROUS CHILDREN GENE- 
 ROUSLY HELPED. 
 
 [The compiler of the ' Sixty Curious Narratives ' 
 has extracted this delightful anecdote from the 
 
 ' Memoirs of ,' we shall not say whom, that 
 
 we may not injure the agreeable effect produced by 
 the disclosure of his name upon those who are ac- 
 quainted with his writings. Every record of hand- 
 some actions performed by such men is a boon to 
 mankind, and should be received by them with 
 gratitude ; for it gives double zest to every hand- 
 some sentence in their books, increasing that faith 
 in the good and beautiful which made them what 
 they were.] 
 
 A GENTLEMAN being at Marseilles hired a boat 
 with an intention of sailing for pleasure. He en- 
 tered into conversation with the two young men 
 who owned the vessel, and learned that they were 
 not watermen by trade, but silversmiths; and that 
 when they could be spared from their usual busi- 
 ness, they employed themselves in that way to in- 
 crease their earnings. On expressing his surprise 
 at their conduct, and imputing it to an avaricious 
 disposition, " Oh, sir," said the young men, " if 
 you knew our reasons, you would ascribe it to a 
 better motive. Our father, anxious to assist his 
 family, scraped together all he was worth, and pur- 
 chased a vessel for the purpose of trading to the 
 coast of Barbary, but was unfortunately taken by 
 a pirate, carried to Tripoli, and sold for a slave. 
 He writes word that he has luckily fallen into the 
 hands of a master who treats him with great hu- 
 manity, but that the sum which is demanded for 
 his ransom is so exorbitant, that it will be impos- 
 sible for him ever to raise it. He adds that we 
 must therefore relinquish all hope of ever seeiiig 
 him, and be contented ; that he has as many com- 
 forts as his situation will admit. With the hopes 
 of restoring to his family a beloved father, we are 
 striving by every honest means in our power to 
 collect the sum necessary for his ransom, and we 
 are not ashamed to employ ourselves in this occu- 
 pation of watermen." The gentleman was struck 
 with this account, and on his departure made them 
 a handsome present. Some months aftenvards, the 
 young men being at work in their shop were 
 greatly surprised at the sudden arrival of their 
 
 L
 
 REVENGE AND ASSASSINATION IN A CHURCH. 
 
 t<d 
 
 father, who threw himself into their arms, ex- 
 claiming at the same time that he was fearful they 
 had taken some unjust method to raise the money 
 for his ransom, for it was too great a sum for them 
 to have gained by their ordinary occupation. They 
 professed their ignorance of the whole atfiiir, and 
 could only suspect they owed their father's release 
 to that stranger to whose generosity they had been 
 before so much obliged. 
 
 After Montesquieu's death an account of this 
 affair was found among his papers, and the sum 
 actually remitted to Tripoli for the old man's ran- 
 som. It is a pleasure to hear of such an act of 
 benevolence, performed even by a person totally 
 unknown to us ; but the pleasure is infinitely in- 
 creased, when it proves the union of virtue and 
 taleui« in an author so renowned as Montesquieu. 
 
 LXVIL— REVENGE AND ASSASSINATION 
 IN A CHURCH. 
 
 [This appalling and most dramatic story is taken 
 from a deeply interesting work of fiction not long 
 since published, ' Hector Fieramosca ;' but as we 
 recollect reading it in some veritable history, and 
 as it is told in a way so brief as not to convert the 
 narrative of a fact into a narrative merely founded 
 on fact, we give it as we find it set down. At the 
 close of it we almost feel the knife at our own 
 hearts, hugged silently into the bosom of that 
 sacrilegious and venomous impostor. He was very 
 ill used; but even the baseness of the younger 
 brother fades into nothing before this everlasting 
 spirit of revenge. A closer and quieter piece of 
 intensity is perhaps not to be met with. Chaucer 
 has a line, that would make an excellent motto for 
 
 it— 
 
 " The smiler with the knife under tlie cloak. ] 
 
 Don Michael had a youthful and lovely wife, and 
 a younger brother, a bachelor, lived in his house. 
 The beauty of his sister-in-law had such an effect 
 on this youth, that abandoning all regard to mo- 
 rality or the consequences, he used every means to 
 seduce her, and succeeded. But he did not suc- 
 ceed so well as to prevent the plot being discovered 
 by a servant-maid, who informed the husband. 
 The latter having placed himself in ambush sur- 
 prised them: drawing his poniard, he attempted 
 to murder them both at the same time, but it 
 chanced that they escaped out of his hands with 
 some slight wounds. So exasperated was he at the 
 wrong received that he endeavoured to trace his 
 brother, who with the lady fled to some place of 
 security, and determined to kill him at all costs. 
 But the brother having heard of the deadly oath of 
 the injured husband, managed to defend himself in 
 different ways, so as to set at nought all the other's 
 designs; and the offended man, entirely despairing 
 of being able to inflict his vengeance, was by the 
 excess of passion carried almost to the grave. 
 
 In the meantime the jubilee of the year 1500 
 occurred, and in the town where Don Michael re • 
 sided there were abundance of processions, and 
 penitences, and public preachings, by means of 
 which several party disputes were made up, and 
 families and individuals pacified ; and amongst the 
 rest Don Michael also seemed resolved to lay aside 
 ail rancorous feelings, and devote himself to holy 
 things. But the brother would not suffer himself 
 
 to be persuaded to an interview, spite of the nume- 
 rous kindly and sacred protestations that came 
 from the other side. At the end of a holy year, 
 employed by Don Michael in continual penances 
 and religious pursuits, he determined to abandon 
 the world entirely, and going to a monastery of 
 Scalzi * entered into his noviciate, and that being 
 completed, pronounced the solemn vows. Sent by 
 his superiors into various parts of Spain, and even 
 as far as Rome, in order to study theology, he be- 
 came very learned ; and on his return to his coun- 
 try with the reputation of being a particularly holy 
 man, the rank of priesthood ^vas conferred on him. 
 He went through the first mass with the usual 
 pomp, amidst a crowd of relations, friends, and 
 other people. After its conclusion, returning into 
 the sacristy, he seated himself (such is the custom) 
 with his priest's cope still on his back upon a stool, 
 while his friends and relations approached one 
 after another in order to kiss his hand and give 
 him the congratulatory embraces. He had been 
 repeatedly heard to deplore the hatred he had so 
 many years nourished against his brother, and fre- 
 quently to say, that the only desire in the world 
 which he now had, was not only to obtain oblivion 
 and forgiveness for the past, but likewise, as a ser- 
 vant of God, to be the first and the humblest in 
 offering it. Upon this solemn occasion, moved by 
 the entreaties of all his relations, the brother at last 
 resolved to go with the others. As he advanced he 
 began an humble address, whilst the priest extend- 
 ing his arms pressed him to his bosom : but instead 
 of the brother again raising his head, his knees 
 were seen to fall, and he sunk on the ground with 
 a dreadful groan ; and the priest, brandishing a 
 small dagger which in that embrace he had phniged 
 into his brother's heart, kissed the still reeking 
 blade, spurned the corpse with his foot, and then 
 exclaimed, " I have caught thee at last." The 
 wretch escaped, and such was the confusion and 
 amazement of tlie bystanders, that no efforts were 
 made to detain him. For this crime he was ba- 
 nished, under pain of death if found. He fled from 
 country to country until he took refuge in Rome, 
 where he was protected by the Duke of Valenti- 
 nois (Borgia). The latter took but little trouble to 
 find out his virtues, but soon found him of use in 
 the most important affairs, and the villanous priest 
 became the life of all his undertakings. 
 
 [The novel from which this story is taken, is 
 translated from the Italian of the Marquis d'Aze- 
 glio, the son-in-law of the author of the ' Betrothed ' 
 (I Promessi Sposi), and his successor in the larger 
 species of Italian novel-writing. The novel itself, 
 which is written with great care and a remarkable 
 condensation of incident (it is only in one volume), 
 is founded on a most interesting fact in the history 
 of Italy — the combat of thirteen Italians against 
 thirteen French in vindication of the national re- 
 pute for courage, which one of the latter had in- 
 sulted ; and throughout it we are made conversant 
 with a variety of real historical personages, parti- 
 cularly the portentous Csesar Borgia, who in the 
 hard-heartedness of his prodigious egotism took 
 upon himself to play the part of a dispassionate 
 Providence, and became accordingly a monster of 
 passion and crime. But what was not to be ex- 
 pected of one who was the son of a man without 
 conscience, brought up in the midst of the worst 
 
 • Order of barefooted friars.
 
 96 
 
 THE RATTLE FOR THE BRIDES. 
 
 corruptions of the church, and himself a pope, ahle 
 to absolve his oilspriug friMii the resi)onsibility of 
 their common vilianies ? Such at least are the 
 characters of these two men in history, perhaps 
 exaiifgerated, though their enormities seem too 
 well established. Ariosto, however, who knew 
 the pope's daughter, the famous Lucretia Borgia, 
 describes her in contradiction to all other report 
 as a paragon of goodness as well as beauty; and 
 for the honour and comfort of human nature 
 (which, however, is not to be shaken by exceptions) 
 we think as much credit as possible ought to be 
 given to the testimony of a man who was both 
 charitable and sincere. Besides, Lucretia may have 
 been misled, when young, by the example and 
 authority of a father so situated ; and yet by some 
 extreme lineness of nature (believed in by the poet, 
 and existing in himself as well as others) have 
 subsequently recovered herself, and become what 
 he describes.] 
 
 LXYIIL— MARRIAGE AFTER BURIAL. 
 
 [If ever the letter of the marriage institution 
 might be set aside in favour of its spirit, it would 
 surely be in a case like the present. The story 
 appeared originally in the famous French publica- 
 tion, the ' Causes Celebres.' It reminds us of one 
 strikingly like it in an Italian publication called 
 the < Florentine Observer,' upon which Mr. 
 Shelley has left the fragment of a noble poem. 
 See, in his ' Miscellaneous Poems,' the piece 
 entitled ' Genevra.' Upon the same subject is 
 founded the Editor's ' Legend of Florence.'] 
 
 Two Parisian merchants, strongly united in friend- 
 ship, had each one child of ditferent sexes who 
 early contracted a strong inclination for each other, 
 which was cherished by the parents, and they 
 were flattered with the expectations of being 
 joined together for life. Unfortunately, at the 
 time they thought themselves on the point of com- 
 pleting this long wished-for union, a man, far ad- 
 vanced in years and possessed of an immense 
 fortune, cast his eyes on the young lady, and made 
 honourable proposals ; her parents could not lesist 
 the temptation of a son-in-law in such affluent 
 circumstances, and forced her to comply. As 
 soon as the knot was tied, she strictly enjoined her 
 former lover never to see her, and patiently sub- 
 mitted to her fate ; but the anxiety of her mind 
 preyed upon her body, which threw her into a 
 lingering disorder that apparently carried her off, 
 and she was consigned to her grave. As soon as 
 this melancholy event reached the lover, his afHic- 
 tion was doubled, being deprived of all hopes of 
 her widowhood ; but, recollecting that in her 
 youth she had been for some time in a lethargy, 
 his hopes revived and hurried him to the ])lace of 
 her burial, where a good bribe procured the sex- 
 ton's permission to dig her up, which he performed 
 and removed her to a place of safety, where by 
 proper methods he revived the almost extin- 
 guished spark of life. Great was her surprise at 
 finding the state she had been in ; and probably 
 as great was her pleasure at the means by which 
 she had been recalled from the grave. As soon as 
 she was sufficiently recovered, the lover laid his 
 claim ; and his reasons, supported by a powerful 
 inclination on her side, were too strong for her to 
 resist ; but as France was no longer a place of 
 
 safety for them, they agreed to remove to England, 
 where they continued ten years, when a strong 
 inclination of revisiting their native country seized 
 them, which they thought they might safely gratify, 
 and accordingly performed their voyage. 
 
 The lady was so unfortunate as to be known by 
 her old husband, whom she met in a public walk, 
 and all her endeavours to disguise herself were 
 ineffectual. He laid his claim to her before a 
 court of justice, and the lover defended his right, 
 alltging that tlie husband by burying her had for- 
 feited his title, and that he had acquired a just one 
 by freeing her from the grave and delivering her 
 from the jaws of death. These reasons, whatever 
 weight they might have had in a court where love 
 presided, seemed to have little efTect on the grave 
 sages of the law ; and the lady, with her lover, 
 not thinking it safe to wait the determination of 
 the court, prudently retired out of the kingdom. 
 
 LXIX.— THE BATTLE FOR THE BRIDES. 
 
 [This is the story upon which Mr. Rogers has 
 founded one of the elegant narratives in his 
 volume of ' Italy.' War never looked more amia- 
 ble. It is Mars with a bunch of lilies in his hand. 
 We take it from two agreeable, and, let us add, 
 most pleasantly portable volumes (no mean com- 
 fort to one who reads much), entitled ' Sketches 
 from Venetian History,' published by Murray, and 
 containing, among other illustrations, an interest- 
 ing bird's-eye view of the most extraordinary of 
 cities.] 
 
 Under Candiano II. (Doge of Venice in the 
 tenth centuryj, occurred one of those events which 
 vividly depict the manners of the age to which 
 they belong ; and which, though affecting indivi- 
 duals rather than a nation, excite nevertheltss 
 very powerful interest, and almost connect history 
 with romance. According to an ancient usage, 
 the marriages among the chief families of Venice 
 were celebrated publicly. The same day and the same 
 hour witnessed the union of numerous betrothed ; 
 and the eve of the Feast of the Purification, on the 
 return of which the Republic gave portions to 
 twelve young maidens, was the reason of this 
 joyous anniversary. It was to Olivolo, the resi- 
 dence of the patriarch, on the extreme verge of 
 the city, that the ornamented gondolas repaired 
 on this happy morning. There, hailed by music 
 and the gratulations of their assembled kindred, 
 the lovers disembarked ; and the festive pomp — 
 swelled by a long train of friends, richly clad, and 
 bearing with them in proud display the jewels 
 and nuptial presents of the brides — proceeded to 
 the cathedral. The pirates of Istria had long 
 marked this peaceful show, as affording a rich 
 promise of booty ; for, at the time of which we 
 are writing, the arsenal and its surrounding man- 
 sions were not yet in existence Olivolo was 
 untenanted, except by priests ; and its neighbour- 
 hood was entirely without inhabitants. In these 
 deserted spots the corsairs laid their ambush the 
 night before the ceremony; and while the unarmed 
 and unsuspecting citizens were yet engaged in the 
 marriage rites before the altar, a rude and ferocious 
 troop burst the gates of the cathedral. Not con- 
 tent with seizing the costly ornaments which 
 became their prize, they tore away also the weeping
 
 THE APOLOGIST BELIEVED AGAINST HIS WILL, 
 
 97 
 
 and heart-broken brides, and hurried them to their 
 vessels. The doge had honoured the festival with 
 his presence ; and, deeply touched by the rage and 
 despair of the disappointed bridegrooms, he sum- 
 moned the citizens to arms. Hastily assembling 
 such galleys as were in the harbour, they profited 
 by a favourable wind, and overtook the ravishers 
 before they were extricated from the Lagun of 
 Caorlo. Candiano led the attack, and such was 
 its fury that not a single Istriote escaped the 
 death which be merited. The maidens were 
 brought back in triumph ; and on the evening of 
 the same day the interrujjted rites were solemnized 
 with joy, no doubt much heightened by a remem- 
 brance of the peril which had so well nigh pre- 
 vented their completion. The memory of this 
 singular event was kept alive by an annual pro- 
 ceesiuu of Venetian Avomen on the eve of the 
 Purification, and by a solemn visit paid by the 
 doge to the church of Santa Maria Formosa. The 
 trunkmakers (carsellari) of the island on which 
 stands the above-named church composed the 
 greater part of the crew hastily collected on this 
 occasion ; and Candiano, as a reward for their 
 bravery, asked them to demand some privilege. 
 They requested this annual visit to their island. 
 
 " What," said the prince, " if the day should 
 prove rainy %" 
 
 " We will send you hats to cover yonr heads; 
 and if you are thirsty, we will give you drink." 
 
 To commemorate this question and reply, the 
 priest of Santa Maria was used to offer to the 
 doge, on landing, two flasks of malmsey, two 
 oranges, and two hats adorned with his own 
 armorial bearings, those of the pope, and those of 
 the doge. The Marian Games {La Festa delle 
 Marie), of which this andata formed part, and 
 which lasted for six days, continued to be cele- 
 brated until they were interrupted by the public 
 distress during the war of Chiorra. They were 
 renewed, two hundred years afterwards, with yet 
 greater pomp ; but of the time at which they fell 
 into total disuse we are unable to speak. 
 
 LXX.— THE APOLOGIST BELIEVED 
 AGAINST HIS WILL. 
 
 [This, perhaps, should rather be called a novel 
 than a romance : but the turn of the adventure is 
 at all events rare and unexpected ; and the enter- 
 tainment is increased by the maliciously c()mic 
 figure cut by the great melancholy Cromwell, 
 whose propensity to the refreshment of a little 
 occasional fun is here gratified in a manner that 
 must have been as delightful to himself as dis- 
 tracting to the poor divine. It is a regular scene 
 in a play, transferred to the stage of life. We 
 take it from that shrewd, amusing, and valuable 
 book, ' Granger's Biographical History of Eng- 
 land.'] 
 
 Jeremiah White received a liberal education, 
 and was brought up at Trinity College. Cambridge, 
 of which house he became a fellow. In tlie 
 troublesome times of the war Mr. White's politics 
 led him to join the prevailing powers, and in time 
 procured him to be made preacher to the council 
 of state, and domestic chaplain to his highness, 
 Oliver, lord protector. He was a very sprightly 
 and facetious man, despised the cant and hypocris^y 
 
 of the puritanical party of his time, and was consi- 
 dered one of the chief wits of the protector's court. 
 Possessing all the advantages of youth and a fine 
 person, he had the ambition to aspiie to the hand of 
 Cromwell's youngest daughter, the Lady Frances. 
 The young lady appears by no means to have dis- 
 couraged his addresses, but in so religious a court 
 this gallantry could not be carried on without being 
 taken notice of: the protector was informed of it, 
 and having no inclination for such an alliance, was 
 so much concerned, that he ordered the person 
 who told him to keep a strict look-out, promising, 
 if he would give him any substantial proofs, he 
 should be well rewarded and White severely pu- 
 nished. The spy followed his business so close, 
 that in a little time he dogged Jerry White (as he 
 was generally called) to the lady's chamber, and 
 ran immediately to the protector to acquaint him 
 that they were together. Oliver in a rage hastened 
 to the chamber, and going hastily in found Jerry 
 on his knees, either kissing his daughter's hand or 
 having just kissed it. Cromwell in a fury asked 
 what was the meaning of that posture before his 
 daughter Prances'? White, with a great deal of 
 presence of mind, said, " May it please your high- 
 ness, 1 have a long time courted that young gentle- 
 woman there, my lady's woman, and cannot pre- 
 vail : I was therefore humbly praying her ladyship 
 to intercede for me." Oliver turning to the young 
 woman, cried, " What's the meaning of this, hussy % 
 Why do you refuse the honour Mr. White would 
 do youl He is my friend, and I expect you would 
 treat him as such." My lady's woman, who desired 
 nothing better, with a very low curtesy replied, " If 
 Mr. White intends me that honour, I shall not be 
 against him." " Sayest thou so, my lass," cried 
 Cromwell, " call Goodwyn : this business shall be 
 done presently before I go out of the room." Mr. 
 White had gone too far to recede from this pro- 
 posal : his brother parson came, and Jerry and my 
 lady's woman were married in the presence of the 
 protector, who gave the bride 500^. to her portion, 
 to the secret disaiipointment and indignation of the 
 enraged dupe of his own making, but to the entire 
 gratification and satisfaction of the fair Abigail, the 
 moment they were made one flesh, wiio by this 
 unexpected good fortune obtained a husband mucli 
 above her most sanguine hope or expectation. 
 
 The Restoration deprivecl White of all hope of 
 preferment if he refused to take the oaths, and 
 offered him but faint prospects if he did : he there- 
 fore prudently chose to remain quiescent, for he 
 was too pleasant a man to take up his abode in a 
 prison for preaching in a conventicle. His wit 
 and cheerfulness gained him many friends, but he 
 would have found himself more at home in the 
 palace of Cliarles II. than in that of Oliver. He 
 survived not only the Restoration and Revolution 
 but the Union, and died in 1707, aged seventy- 
 eight. 
 
 When the story of his marriage was mentioned 
 before Mrs. White (who survived her husband), 
 she always simpered her assent to its truth. 
 
 LXXL— BEAU WILSON: 
 
 A rUZZLE FOn CONJECTURE. 
 
 [From ' Granger's Biographical History of Eng- 
 land,' vol. vi., p. 25. Granger seems to intimate, in 
 a note, that the Duchess of Cleveland, who had 
 
 II
 
 98 
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S REVENGE. 
 
 been mistress to Charles II., was the possible 
 source of Wilson's splendour ; but slie could have 
 hardly been rich enoujjh. The probability is, we 
 think, that he was in possession of some secret of 
 state. The " Mi-. Law" with whom he fought the 
 duel was the famous Law (of Lauriston), who 
 afterwards made so much noise in France as a 
 financial speculator, and who was ancestor of the 
 Count de Lauriston, one of Buonaparte's genex-als.] 
 
 This very mysterious person was the younger 
 brother of a respectable family, and having through 
 friends procured a commission in the army, went 
 to serve in Flanders, where he had not long con- 
 tinued before he was broke for cowardice, and 
 became so reduced in circumstances as to accept 
 forty shillings from a friend to pay his passage back 
 to England. There, within a short time after his 
 arrival, he appeared to the astonishment of the 
 public the brightest star in the hemisphere ; his 
 coaches, saddle, hunting, and race horses, equi- 
 page, dress, and table, were the admiration of the 
 world ; and continued so while they saw him main- 
 tain such profuse expense without any visible 
 means to support his glory. He never played, or 
 but inconsiderably, entertained with profuseness 
 all who visited him, drank himself liberally ; but at 
 all hours, as well sober as otherwise, he kept a 
 strict guard upon his words, though several were 
 either employed by the curiosity of others or their 
 own to take him at his looser moments and per- 
 suade him to reveal his secret; but he so inviolably 
 preserved it, that even their guesses were quite at 
 random, and without probability or foundation. 
 He was not known to be an admirer of ladies ; 
 and what added to the surprise was, that he was at 
 all times to be found, and ever with some of his 
 own people, seemingly open in conversation, free 
 from spleen or chagrin : in a word, he had that 
 settled air as if he were assured his good fortune 
 would continue for ever. One of his friends ad- 
 vised him to purchase an estate while he had 
 money. Mr. Wilson thanked him, but said he did 
 not forget the future in the present ; he was obliged 
 to him for his counsel, but whilst he lived it would 
 be ever thus, for he was always certain to be mas- 
 ter of such a sum of money. This more and more 
 confounded the world, for if, they would say, he 
 derived his good fortune from the ladies, there was 
 scarce any rich enough to support him ; neither 
 did he bestow any of his time unaccounted for, and 
 it was not to be believed that the fair sex would not 
 exact attention and service for their money, espe- 
 cially for such considerable sums. Those who 
 pretended to guess better, had recourse to che- 
 mistry, and said he had found the grand secret, and 
 was master of that invaluable transmuting stone, or 
 powder, which could convert meaner metals into 
 gold. Some blasted his reputation with the report 
 that he must once have robbed a Holland mail of 
 a considerable quantity of rough diamonds, though 
 another person suffered for the offence, denying 
 the fact to the last. Others would have it that the 
 Jews kept him, with many other idle and ridicu- 
 lous reports which were circulated concerning him, 
 until the time he was found killed going to fight a 
 duel with a Mr. Law, who, it is reported, ran him 
 through the body before he could draw his sword 
 in his own defence. Mr. Wilson lived in unabated 
 splendour to the last, and tbe mystery rather aug- 
 mented than diminished when a very inconsider- 
 
 able sum of money, being all that could be found 
 after his death, left the world to conjecture from 
 what source or funds he had derived means to 
 support his state and magnificence. ' 
 
 LXXII.— A GENTLEMAN'S REVENGE. 
 
 [From Mr. Miller's 'Scenes and Legends of the 
 North of Scotland.' Is not " Jane Seymour " 
 an incorrectness 1 Sir Robert Monro's father 
 (also a Sir Robert) married a Jean, daughter of 
 John Forbes, Esq. ; but in ' Burke'sPeerage and 
 Baronetage,' the Sir Robert of the present story 
 married a Mary Seymour, and it is probable that 
 this was the true name from the circumstance of 
 his great - grand - daughter's being christened 
 " Mary Seymour " — a pleasing evidence, by the 
 way, of the impression which her fair ancestor 
 had left in the family. The following is Mr. 
 Burke's notice of this truly gallant and inte- 
 resting man : — " Sixth (baronet) Sir Robert, a 
 gallant military officer, who fell at the battle of 
 Falkirk, fighting against the Pretender, on the 
 I7th of January, 1746. Sir Robert married Mary, 
 daughter of Henry Seymour, Esq., of Woodlands, 
 in the county of Dorset." The present baronet is 
 his grandson. His son, Sir Henry Monro, is re- 
 corded as distinguished for his " great classical 
 attainments." The Monros appear to have been 
 an interesting' race : we believe the young Monro, 
 who was killed some years ago by a tiger in the 
 East Indies (torn away by the animal as he was 
 sitting with a party), was of this family, and we 
 think we have read he was a very good and generous 
 fellow. The Sir Robert here mentioned had a 
 brother killed with him at Falkirk, and another 
 W'ho died in the same way seven months afterwards 
 in the Highlands. His only sister survived him 
 for nearly twenty years, " a striking example (says 
 Doddridge) of profound submission and fortitude, 
 mingled with the most tender sensibility of tem- 
 per." See the passage in Miller, p. 427.] 
 
 The following anecdote of Sir Robert, which I 
 owe to tradition, sets his character in a very 
 amiable light. On his return from Flanders, in 
 1712, he was introduced to a Miss Jane Seymour, 
 a beautiful English lady. The young soldier was 
 smitten by her appearance, and had the happiness 
 of perceiving that he had succeeded in at least 
 attracting her notice. So happy an introduction 
 was followed up into intimacy, and at length 
 what had been only a casual impression, on either 
 side, was ripened into a mutual passion of no 
 ordinary warmth and delicacy. On Sir Robert's 
 quitting England for the north, he arranged with 
 his mistress the plan of a regular correspondence, 
 and wrote to her immediately on his arrival at 
 Foulis. After waiting for a reply with all the 
 impatience of the lover, he sent off a second letter 
 complaining of her neglect, which had no better 
 success, and shortly after a third, which shared the 
 fate of the two others. The inference seemed too 
 obvious to be missed, and he strove to forget Miss 
 Seymour. He hunted, he fished, he visited his 
 several friends, he involved himself in a multipli- 
 city of concerns, but all to no purpose : she still 
 continued the engrossing object of his affections, 
 and after a few months' stay in the Highlands, 
 during which his very character seemed to have
 
 SANDY WOOD; OR, INVETERACY IN A GOOD HEART. 
 
 99 
 
 undergone a radical change for the worse, he 
 again returned to England. When waiting on a 
 friend in London, he was ushered precipitately 
 into the midst of a fashionable party, and found 
 himself in the presence of his mistress. She 
 seemed much startled by the rencounter: the 
 blood mounted to her cheeks, but suppressing her 
 emotion by a strong effort, she turned to the lady 
 who sat next her, and began to con\erse on some 
 common topic of the day. Sir Robert retired, 
 and becKpning to his friend entreated him to 
 procure him an interview with Miss Seymour. 
 This was effected, and an explanation ensued. 
 The lady had not received a single letter, and 
 forming at length, from the seeming neglect of her 
 lover, an opinion of him similar to that from 
 ■which she herself was suffering in his esteem, she 
 attempted to baziish him from her affection, an 
 attempt however in which she had been scarcely 
 more successful than Sir Robert. They were 
 gratified to find that they had not been mistaken 
 in their first impressions of each other, and they 
 parted more attached, and more convinced that 
 the attachment was more mutual than ever. In 
 less than a month after Miss Seymour became 
 Mrs. Monro. 
 
 Sir Robert succeeded in tracing all his letters to 
 one point, a kind of post-office on the confines of 
 Inverness-shire. There was a proprietor in this 
 neighbourhood who was deeply engaged in the 
 interests of the Stuarts, and decidedly hostile to 
 Sir Robert, the scion of a family Avhich had dis- 
 tinguishtd itself from the first dawn of the reform- 
 ation in the cause of civil and religious liberty. 
 There was, therefore, little difficulty in assigning 
 an author to the contrivance ; but Sir Robert was 
 satisfied in merely tracing it to a discovery : for, 
 squaring his principles of honour rather by the 
 morals of the New Testament than by the dogmas 
 of that code which regards death as the only 
 expiation of insult or injury, he was no duellist. 
 An opportunity, however, soon occurred of his 
 avenging himself in a manner agreeable to his 
 character and principles. On the breaking out of 
 the Rebellion of 1715, the person who had so 
 wantonly sported with his happiness joined with 
 the Earl of Mar, and after the failure of the enter- 
 prise was among the number of the proscribed : 
 Sir Robert's influence with the government, and 
 the peculiar office to which he was appointed, gave 
 him considerable power over the confiscated proper- 
 ty, and this power he exerted to its utmost in behalf 
 of the wife and children of the man by whom he 
 had been injured. " Toll your husband," said he 
 to the lady, "that I have now repaid him for the 
 interest he took in my correspondence with Miss 
 Seymour." 
 
 LXXIII.— SANDY WOOD ; OR, INVETE- 
 RACY IN A GOOD HEART. 
 
 [We have just given a ' Gentleman's Revenge,' 
 in a story from Mr. Miller's ' Legends of Scotland 
 and Traditions of Cromarty.' We here give the 
 stubborn yet affecting resentment of a less culti- 
 vated goodness, ignorant what to do with its feel- 
 ings, and therefore doubly bent upon being obsti- 
 nate. The Englishman's zeal in behalf of fair 
 play, at the conclusion, is very amusing.] 
 
 The old enclosure of the burying-ground (says 
 
 Mr. Miller), which seems originally to have been 
 an earthen wall, has now sunk into a grassy 
 mound ; and on the southern and western sides 
 some of the largest trees of the fence, a fine 
 stately ash fluted like a Grecian column, a huge 
 elm roughened over with immense wens, and a 
 low bushy larch with a bent, twisted trunk and 
 weeping branches, spring directly out of it. At 
 one place we see a flat tombstone lying a feM- 
 yards outside the mound. The trees, which shoot 
 up on every side, fling so deep a gloom over it during 
 the summer and autumn months, that we can 
 scarcely decipher the epitaph ; and in winter, it is 
 not unfrequently buried under a heap of withered 
 leaves. By dint of some little pains, however, we 
 come to learn from the darkened and half-dilapi- 
 dated description, that the tenant below was one 
 Alexander Wood, a native of Cromarty, who died 
 in the year 1690 ; and that he was interred at this 
 place by his own especial desire. His wife and 
 some of his children have taken up their places 
 beside him, — thus lying apart like a family of 
 hermits ; while his story, which, almost too wild 
 for tradition itself, is yet as authentic as most 
 pieces of written history, affords a curious expla- 
 nation of the circumstance which directed their 
 choice. 
 
 W ood was a man of strong passions, sparingly 
 gifted with common-sense, and exceedingly super- 
 stitious. No one could be kinder to one's friends 
 or relatives, or more hospitable to a stranger; but 
 when once offended he was implacable. He had 
 but little in his power either as a friend or an 
 enemy, — his course through the world lying barely 
 beyond the bleak edge of poverty. If a neighbour 
 dropped in by accident at meal-time, he would 
 not be suffered to quit his house until he had 
 shared with him his simple fare. There was 
 benevolence in the very grasp of his hand, and the 
 twinkle of his eye, and in the little set speech, still 
 preserved by tradition, in which he used to 
 address his wife every time an old or mutilated 
 beggar came to his door: — "Alms, gudwife," he 
 would say, " alms to the cripple, and the blind, 
 and the broken down." When injured or insulted, 
 however, and certainly no one could do either 
 without being very much in the Avrong, there was 
 a toad-like malignity in his nature which would 
 come leaping out like the reptile from its hole, and 
 no power on earth could shut it up again. He 
 would sit hatching his venom for days and weeks 
 together with a slow, tedious, unoperative kind 
 of perseverance that atchicved nothing. He was 
 full of anecdote, and in all his stories human 
 nature was exhibited in only its brightest lights, 
 and its deepest shadows, without the slightest 
 mixture of that medium tint which gives colour 
 to its working every-day suit. Whatever was bad 
 in the better class he transferred to the worse, 
 and vice versa ; and thus not even his narratives 
 of the supernatural were less true to nature and 
 fact than his narratives of mere men and women. 
 And he dealt willi the two classes of stories after 
 one fashion, — lending the same firm belief to both 
 alike. 
 
 In the house adjoining the one in which he 
 resided there lived a stout little man, a shoemaker, 
 famous in the village for his great wit and his 
 very considerable knavery. His jokes were 
 mostly practical, and some of them were exceed- 
 ingly akin to felonies. Poor Wood could not 
 
 II 2
 
 100 
 
 SANDY WOOD; Oil, INVETERACY IN A GOOD HEART. 
 
 understand his wit, but in his simiilicity of heart 
 he deemed him lionest, and would fain have pre- 
 vailed with the neigiihours to think so too. Me 
 knew it, he said, by his very look. Their gardens, 
 like their liouses, lay contiguous, and were sejia- 
 rated from eaeli otiier, not by a fence, but by lour 
 undressed stones, laid in a line. Year after year 
 was the garden of Wood becoming less productive, 
 and he had a strange misgiving, but the thing was 
 too absurd to be spoken of, that it was growing 
 smaller every season by the breadth of a whole row 
 of cabbages. On the one side, however, were the 
 back walls of his own and his neighbour's tene- 
 mpnts ; the four large stones stretched along the 
 other ; and nothing surely could be less likely 
 than that either the stones or the houses should 
 take it into their heads to rob him of his property. 
 But the more he strove to exclude the idea, the 
 more it pressed upon him. He measured and re- 
 measured to convince himself that it was a false 
 one, and found that he had fallen on just the 
 means of establishing its truth : the garden was 
 actually growing smaller. But howl Just because 
 it was bewitched. It was shrinking into itself 
 under the force of some potent enchantment, like 
 a piece of plaiding in the fulling-mill. No hypo- 
 thesis could be more congenial, and he would have 
 held by it perhaps until his dying day, had it not 
 been struck down by one of those chance disco- 
 veries which destroy so many beautiful systems 
 and spoil so much ingenious philosophy, quite in 
 the way tliat Newton's apple struck down the 
 votaries of Descartes. 
 
 He was lying abed one morning in spring about 
 daybreak, when his attention was excited by a 
 strange noise that seemed to proceed from the gar- 
 den. Had he heard it two hours earlier, he would 
 have wrapped his head up in the bed-clothes and 
 lain still ; but now that the cock had crowed, it 
 could not, he concluded, be other than natural. 
 Hastily throwing on part of his clothes, he stole 
 warily to a back window, and saw between him 
 and the faint light that was beginning to peep out 
 in the east the figure of a man, armed with a lever, 
 tugging at the stones. Two had already been 
 shifted a full yard nearer to the houses, and the 
 figure was straining over a third. Wood crept 
 stealthily out at the window, crawled on ali-fours 
 to the intruder, and tripping up his heels laid him 
 across his lever : it was his knavish neighbour, the 
 shoemaker. A scene of noisy contention ensued : 
 groups of half-dressed townsfolk, looming horribly 
 in their shirts and night-caps through the grey of 
 morning, came issuing through the lanes and the 
 closes, and the combatants were dragged asunder. 
 And well was it for the shoemaker that it hap- 
 pened so : for Wood, though in his sixtieth year, 
 was strong enough and more than angry enough 
 to have torn him to pieces. Now, however, that 
 the warfare had to be carried on by words, the 
 case was quite reversed. 
 
 "Neebors," said the shoemaker, who had the 
 double advantage of being exceedingly plausible 
 and decidedly in the wrong, " I'm desperately ill 
 used this morning, desperately ill used : he would 
 baith rob and murder me. I lang jaloused, ye ken, 
 that my wee bit o' a yard was growing littler and 
 littler ilka season ; and though no verra ready to 
 suspect folks, I just thought I would keep watch 
 and see wha was shifting the mark stanes. Weel, 
 and I did : late and earlv did I watch for mair 
 
 now than a fortnight, and wha did I see this morn- 
 ing through the back winnock but auld Sandy 
 Wood there in his verra sark. O, it's no him that 
 has any thought o' his end '. poking the stanes wi' 
 a lang kebar until the verra heart o' my grun'. 
 See," said he, pointing to the one that had not yet 
 been moved, " see if he hasna shifted it a lang ell ; 
 and only notice the craft o' the body in tirring up 
 the yard about the lave, as if they had been a' 
 moved frae my side. Weel, I came out and chal- 
 lenged him, as wha widnal Says I, 'Sawney, my 
 man, that's no honest ; 111 no bear that :' and nae 
 mair had I time to say, when up he flew at me 
 like a wuU cat, and if it wasna for yoursels I dare 
 say he would hae throttled me. Look how I'm 
 bleedan, and only till him ; look till the cankart 
 deceitful bodie, if he has one word to put in for 
 hinisel'." 
 
 There was truth in at least the last assertion ; 
 for poor AVood, mute with rage and astonishment, 
 stood listening in utter helplessness to the astound- 
 ing charge of the shoemaker, almost the very 
 charge he himself had to prefer. Twice did he 
 sjiring forward to grapple with him, but the neigh- 
 bours held him back ; and every time he essayed 
 to speak, his words, massed and tangled together 
 like wreaths of sea-weed in a hurricane, actually 
 stuck in his throat. He continued to rage for 
 three days after, and when the eruption had at 
 length subsided, all his former resentments were 
 found to be swallowed up, like the lesser craters of 
 a volcano, in the gulf of one immense hatred. 
 
 His house, as has been said, lay contij^uous to 
 the house of the shoemaker, and he could not 
 avoid seeing him every time he went out and came 
 in — a circumstance which he at first deemed rather 
 gratifying than otherwise : it prevented his hatred 
 from becoming vapid by setting it a working at least 
 ten times a day, as a musket would a barrel of ale if 
 discharged into the bung-hole. Its frequency, 
 however, at length sickened him, and he had em- 
 ployed a mason to build a stone wall, which by 
 stretching from side to side of the close was to shut 
 up the view, when he sickened in right earnest, 
 and at the end of a few days found himself dying. 
 Still, however, he was possessed by his one en- 
 grossing resentment : it mingled with all his 
 thoughts of the past and of the future, and not 
 only was he to carry it Avith him to the Morld to 
 which he was going, but also to leave it behind 
 him as a legacy to his children. Among his many 
 other beliefs there was a superstition handed down 
 from the times of the monks, that at the day of 
 final doom all the people of the sheriffdom were to 
 be judged on the moor of Navity; and both the 
 judgment and the scene of it he had indissolubly 
 associated with the shoemaker and the four stones. 
 Experience had taught him the importance of 
 securing a first hearing for his story ; for was his 
 neighbour, he concluded, to be beforehand with 
 him, he would have as slight a chance of being 
 righted at Navity as in his own garden. After 
 brooding over the matter for a whole day, he called 
 his friends and children round his bed, and raised 
 himself on his elbow to address them. 
 
 " I'm wearing awa", bairns and neebors," he 
 said, " and it vexes me sair that that wretched 
 bodie should see me going afore him. Mind, Jock, 
 that ye'U build the dike, and make it heigh, heigh, 
 and stobbie on the top ; and O keep him out o' 
 my lykewake, for should he but step in at the
 
 A MODERN BLUE-BEARD. 
 
 101 
 
 door, rU rise, Jock, frae the verra straiking board 
 and do murder : diiina let him so muckle as look 
 on my coffin. I've been pondering a' this day 
 about the fearfu' meeting at Navity and the march 
 stanes, and I'll tell you, Jock, how we'll match 
 him. Bury me ayont the saint's dike on the Na- 
 vity side, and dinna lay me deep. Ye ken the 
 bonny green hillock, spreckled o'erwi' gowans and 
 puddoclv. flowers ; bury me there, Jock ; and your' 
 sel' and the auld wife may just, when your hour 
 comes, tak up your places beside me. We'll a' 
 get up the first tout, the ane helping the other, and 
 I'se wad a* I'm worth i" the warld we'll be half 
 way up at Navity afore the schochlan, short-legged 
 bodie wins o'er the dike."' Such was the dying 
 injunction of Sandy Wood, and his tombstone yet 
 remains to testify that it was religiously attended 
 to. An Englishman who came to reside in the 
 parish nearly an age after, and to whom the story 
 had been imparted in rather an imperfect manner, 
 was shocked by what he deemed his unfair policy. 
 The litigants, he said, should start together : he 
 was certain it would be so in England, where a 
 fair field was all that would be given to St. Dun- 
 stan himself, though he fouglit with the devil ; and 
 that it might be so here, he buried the tombstone 
 of Wood in an immense heap of clay and gravel. 
 It would keep him down, he said, until the little 
 fellow would have clambered over the wall. The 
 townsfolk, however, who were better acquainted 
 with the merits of the case, shovelled the heap 
 aside, and it now forms two little hillocks, which 
 overtop the stone, and which from the nature of 
 the soil are still more scantily covered with verdure 
 than any part of the surrounding bank. 
 
 LXXIV.— A MODERN BLUE-BEARD. 
 
 [From the Memoirs of Madame de Geulis. The 
 existence of such a monster as is here described 
 would be incredible, were it not for the occasional 
 appearance among us of " monsters " in other 
 shapes, poisoners, &c. ; and being credible, it would 
 be intolerable, did not the comforting and well- 
 grounded reflection come to our aid, that such 
 phenomena are in fact madmen — of which there can 
 be no doubt. There is some defect in their or- 
 ganization, most likely physical as well as moral, 
 which makes them a species of wild and incon- 
 sistent beast in a human shape.] 
 
 My vivacity and my rudeness (says Madame de 
 Genlis, speaking of her childish days) were gene- 
 rally confined to the chambermaids, or to one of 
 our neighbours who came often to the chateau, 
 
 and to whom I had conceived a violent aversion. 
 ***** 
 
 The personage so hated was a gentleman who 
 was said to belong to the ancient house of Chfdons, 
 now long extinct : he styled himself M. de Chalons, 
 and he was then upwards of thirty : though rich 
 he had always refused to marry, under pretext of 
 being extremely devout ; and he hail such a repu- 
 tation for piety, that he almost passed for a saint : 
 his face was rather handsome, but he had a man- 
 ner of looking at you from the corner of his eye, 
 and by stealth, which first inspired me with an 
 aversion to him. I remarked also that at chur(;h 
 he made many pious contortions ; and his uplifted 
 eyes, and hands crossed on his breast, were not at 
 all edifying to me. In short, I considered him a 
 
 hypocrite, and the event proved him one of the 
 most wicked monsters ever heard of, one who had 
 committed many atrocious crimes, which were dis- 
 covered in the following manner. Encouraged by 
 the reputation he had usurped, he at last counted 
 upon it too far, and heaven suffered him to be so 
 blinded as to commit crimes which were sure to 
 be discovered. Under the pretext of repairing his 
 household linen, he brought from Autun a pretty 
 young sempstress whom he had seen in that town : 
 he had detained her in his chateau about six 
 weeks, after which she disappeared. He wrote to 
 her mother that she had run ofl"with a lover, and 
 at the same time he begged her to send him the 
 girl's youngest sister, a girl also extremely pretty, 
 as the repairing of his linen, he said, was not yet 
 finished. She was sent to him. In two months 
 she disappeared also, and the monster wrote to 
 the mother that she had followed the example of 
 her sister, and had taken flight as she did. This 
 time however the unfortunate mother, enlightened 
 by her despair, laid her complaint before the judge, 
 who gave orders for a search throughout the house 
 of M. de Chalons. The wretch, who had inform- 
 ation of this, took flight, and was never after- 
 wards heard of; but Providence has surely over- 
 taken him, and caused him to perish in his obscure 
 hiding-place. An examination of his chateau took 
 place ; marks of blood, ill-washed out, were visible 
 in one of his cabinets ; there were deadly poisons 
 found in a cupboard ; and in the gaixlen were se- 
 veral specimens of his last-buried victims. The 
 body of the first of the young girls was recognised 
 by means of a ring of hair, with a motto, which he 
 had left upon her finger. Thus my antipathy for 
 the monster was completely justified by the sequel. 
 
 LXXV.— HEAD SENSE WANTING 
 HEART WISDOM. 
 
 [We extract this account of a well-known cha- 
 racter from a magazine, called the ' Literary 
 Union.' It would not have appeared in these 
 pages (nor assuredly in those of our authority), 
 had anything like scandal attached to it ; but 
 Mr. Colton persisted in making his own want of 
 sympathy so public, appears to have been so ini- 
 connected with any one who could feel in pain 
 for his memory, and indeed must be looked ujjon 
 as so manifest a specimen of a clever lunatic, ori- 
 ginally defective in his nature, and therefore a sub- 
 ject rather for the physiologist than the preacher 
 (unless the latter preached a little more physio- 
 logy, which would not be amiss), that with this 
 caveat against misconception we can have no hesi- 
 tation in adding him to our list of ' Romances.' 
 It may be as well to add, that, clever as he was, his 
 talents have been highly over-rated. He got a 
 little more head knowledge than ordinary by dint 
 of not caring where he went for it, or what he 
 did ; but for the same reason he was totally defi- 
 cient in profundity and real wisdom. His best 
 thoughts are from others, and his cleverest trick 
 was his having a style that made them pass for his 
 own; a style, however, betraying its trickery. See 
 his regular set out of ablcs in the bit of sophistry 
 about suicide. The poor man was absolutely 
 turning a sentence while meditating his last act of 
 self-reference and egotism, thouyh in the shape of, 
 a tragedy. " When life is unbcar«6/e (says he),
 
 102 
 
 HEAD SENSE WANTING HEART WISDOM. 
 
 death is dt^simhlc, and suicide j\istiti(i6/c;" and so, 
 poor, clever, Hariiig, silly fellow, he goes off, like a 
 mail on the stage, with a line line in his mouth, 
 and thinks he will have made a profound sensation 
 on us. But life is seldom unbearable, except by 
 want of imagination and an outrageous egotism ; 
 and suicide, to be justifiable, except in the eyes of 
 melancholy charity, should be preceded by nothing 
 that renders it formidable to the survivors, or 
 avoidable by medicine or by patience.] 
 
 It was in the year 1826, if memory serves (says 
 the writer in the ' Literary Union'), that we first 
 saw the Rev. C. Coltou in Paris : he had then just 
 arrived from America, sported a splendid cab and 
 tiger, and lived in dashing style. He derived his 
 means from certain visits to Frescati's gaming- 
 house, and No. 113, Palais Royal, whence he 
 usually returned laden with gold : he played upon 
 system, and the fome of his plan reaching Eng- 
 land, two speculators with plenty of cash (whose 
 names it were well not to mention) were tempted 
 to leave London for Paris and adopt his mode of 
 play. A short time after their arrival Colton joined 
 them, an arrangement having been made that they 
 should find cash and he science, and he was then 
 to be met with at the Salon-au-dessus du Cafe 
 Anglais, corner of the Place des Italiens, every 
 evening. Fortune favoured him for some years, 
 and all went merrily ; but during this period, which 
 was his meridian, we never saw one generous or 
 praiseworthy action, never met with a recorded 
 trait of charity or goodness ; avarice was his ruling 
 passion, and to gratify this he would stick at no- 
 thing. About this time, not content with the 
 rapidity with which he gained money at the table, 
 the thought took possession of him that he was a 
 first-rate judge of pictures; and with his dominant 
 idea in view, that of duping others in the re-sale, 
 he purchased a great number ; but as Colton dis- 
 covered to his cost that this is a trade that requires 
 some apprenticeship, he was imposed upon in 
 every way, and paintings for which he bad paid as 
 much as 150,000 francs, scarcely produced after his 
 death as many centimes. Fortune now began to 
 turn tail at the table, and Colton found it was 
 much easier to talk of breaking the bank, as he 
 had so often boasted he could do by his system, 
 than to effect it. He fell as rapidly as he had 
 risen : he had saved no money — few do who live 
 by chance : they put implicit faith in the fickle 
 goddess, and fancy she is never to desert them, so 
 that his distress was great in the extreme. With- 
 out other resource (for, having no money, the table 
 was closed to him), he adopted the singular expe- 
 dient of advertising in ' Galignani's Journal' that 
 a clerical gentleman was willing, for a certain 
 sum, to teach an unfailing method by which the 
 bank might be broken at rouge et noir : like the 
 alchymist of old, who was willing, nay desirous, to 
 sell for a trifle the means of making gold in quan- 
 tities unlimited. There are always gulls to be 
 found when a clever rascal will give himself the 
 trouble to seek for them : the bait took, and for 
 some little time Colton lived well upon the flats 
 thus caught. At every opportunity he would ven- 
 ture to his old haunts with the trifle he could 
 spare, nay som.etimes with that which he could 
 not, and occasionally would have a run of luck. 
 We used then to meet him at Poole's, an English 
 tavern, in the Rue Favart, near the Boulevard 
 
 Italien, in all the pomp and pride of worn-out 
 velvet, mock jewellery, and dirty hands. On these 
 occasions, when the sunshine of circumstance had 
 for an instant dispelled the fogs usually enveloping 
 him, his conversation was sparkling and delight- 
 ful, and his arrival was hailed as the promise of 
 amusement. Colton possessed a most retentive 
 memory, as his ' Lacon,' which is perhaps more 
 remarkable for the terseness of style in which an 
 amazing number of the opinions of others are ex- 
 pressed, than for any great originality or depth of 
 thought, will abundantly testify ; he had a smat- 
 tering of most of the sciences, and an amazing 
 fund of amusing anecdote. To a stranger — more 
 especially if unlearned, for this would insure from 
 him an elaborate display — he must have appeared 
 a man of immense and varied talent (he loved to 
 be a lion, and thus unrestrainedly to rule the 
 roast) ; but when in the company of .really scien- 
 tific men, men who had drunk deeply where he 
 had only sipped, his consequence was considerably 
 lessened. Arrogance and conceit often drew from 
 him offhand opinions upon subjects of which he 
 knew but little, and his pride compelled him to 
 maintain them to the last, however absurd, how- 
 ever wrong ; but if his adversary proved too power- 
 ful for him, he would suddenly quit the field for 
 his stronghold, anecdote, carry off the laugh on 
 his side, and thus rid himself of what he termed, 
 
 with strange blindness, " The d st bore in life, 
 
 an obstinate man." This however would not 
 always succeed, and we well remember him, among 
 other instances, to have been roughly handled and 
 
 exposed by Mr. Charles M n, a young man of 
 
 talent (related to one of the most eminent per- 
 formers of the day), who failed as an actor some 
 few seasons past in London. 
 
 Colton's appearance was singular in the ex- 
 treme : he painted his cheeks, and was usually 
 bedecked with mock jewels and gilded chains. 
 With his pockets filled with eatables, a market- 
 basket in his hand, crammed with vegetables, 
 fish, &c., most incongruously, and an octavo vo- 
 lume of some fashionable work under his arm, he 
 might be sometimes met walking the streets of 
 Paris, the very picture of eccentricity, nearly of 
 madness. Thus equipped he one morning called 
 
 in at Mr. T r's, a noted patissier, in the Rue 
 
 St. Honore. " I say, T r, I have called to 
 
 give you a good recipe for curing hams : my mo- 
 ther has just now sent me some over, which I 
 sliall cure myself, and damme, sir, they shall beat 
 your Strasburghs to h — 11." He did cure them 
 himself, and invited some of his friends to meet 
 him at Poole's to taste. As might have been ex- 
 pected, however, the moment he entered the room 
 with his basket on his arm containing the pre- 
 cious niorceati, all were convinced of the failure of 
 his recipe : the odour was intolerable ; but this, 
 with unyielding gravity, he argued proceeded 
 merely from the substitution of brown sugar for 
 treacle ; from treacle he went to metaphysics ; and 
 being somewhat humbled by the previous event, 
 never were we better pleased with his society than 
 on that evening. 
 
 At this period of his career Colton had for 
 hanger-on, or rather associate in his projects for 
 
 raising the wind, one H n, a well-educated 
 
 man, of good family but bad principles : pupils in 
 the occult science were becoming rare, and he 
 now endeavoured to obtain a living by a series of
 
 THE SHEPHERD-LORD. 
 
 103 
 
 begging letters. Colton forged the darts, and 
 
 H n launched them. Every person of wealth 
 
 resident in Paris, or stranger visiting it, was waited 
 
 upon by H n ; and the plea of an unfortunate 
 
 divine in embarrassed circumstances, a broken- 
 down author, or a distressed widower with six 
 children, as the case might be, produced for some 
 time a supply of cash. Colton, of course, would 
 never allow that he derived any benefit from this 
 proceeding — it was for his poor triend, his protegee, 
 
 H n ; and he was thus enabled to plead with 
 
 all his eloquence in H.'s behalf, and so increase 
 the share which was to go into his own pocket. 
 He did not, however, confine himself to this, and 
 one example of his mode of proceeding may not 
 
 be uninteresting. A young Englishman, D , 
 
 with more money than wit, arrived at Paris and 
 was introduced to Dr. Colton, as he was some- 
 times called in common parlance, by one B , 
 
 from whom we have the trait ; and proud of having 
 formed an acquaintance with the noted author of 
 ' Lacon,' he feasted and feted him to his heart's 
 content. Colton finding money was plentiful began 
 
 to interest D in behalf of his poor friend 
 
 H n, and succeeded in raising within his breast 
 
 a desire to serve him . One day, after dining to- 
 gether at Vefour's, they retired to the Cafe de 
 I'Univers, one of Colton's usual resorts. "While 
 ascending the staircase Colton drew from his 
 
 pocket a large brooch, showed it to D , said it 
 
 was the property of a gentleman in distress who 
 wished to dispose of it, and managed to let him 
 
 guess that this gentleman was H n ; and then 
 
 regretted it was not within his means to purchase 
 so valuable a stone as that, which he termed a 
 Brazilian diamond, and said that for the first time 
 in his life he envied D the means he pos- 
 sessed of doing good. This was attacking him in 
 
 the right place, D bought the jewel, gave him 
 
 the price he asked, 175 francs, and then politely 
 presented it to Mr. Colton as a token of his friend- 
 ship. This same brooch Colton had repeatedly 
 displayed at Poole's previous to the above trans- 
 action, and did so many times afterwards, always 
 declaring it to be worth some hundreds of pounds. 
 This was generally believed ; but after his death, 
 when the few miserable remnants of his property 
 
 were sold by auction, it was bought by Mr. T r, 
 
 before-mentioned, for the astounding sum of 2s. \\d. 
 English money. 
 
 These schemes however would not last for 
 ever, and Colton gradually fell lower and lower. 
 
 B d, the celebrated horsedealer, w^as now his 
 
 constant companion, and together they dragged out 
 a miserable existence in the Faubourg St. Ger- 
 main. It could hardly be said they lived. Occa- 
 sionally Colton would visit Poole's, bringing with 
 him his scanty pittance, usually accompanied by a 
 jug of milk, and his appearance at this time was 
 miserable indeed. Colton liad strong prejudices, 
 more especially with respect to his own country : 
 " D — n France, d — n Frenchmen, and d — n their 
 very dogs," he would often say. Alas ! he had 
 good reason to abuse their dogs : one unlucky even- 
 ing, we shall never forget it, poor Colton entered 
 Poole's. " H — 11 take France, dogs and all." 
 "What is the matter, parson 1" "Why, gentle- 
 men, an infernal dog has followed me this last half 
 hour, snapping continually at my pocket : there 
 was no driving him away ; at last he made a 
 nibble, and with success, for in throwing him off, 
 
 the thief bolted with the skirt of my coat, con- 
 taining my supper." It was not to be wondered 
 at : his pocket, which had been the repository of 
 many similar loads, was so saturated with grease 
 that it must have proved a most tempting bait to a 
 hungry dog. That evening he was doomed to be 
 unfortunate, for scarcely had he placed his milk 
 between his feet upon the floor, its usual situation, 
 than forgetting in the heat of conversation to se- 
 cure it, a dog upset the can ; and when Colton re- 
 membered his milk, his fourfooted friend was re- 
 velling in that which to him was a disaster. 
 
 Colton had been afflicted for many years with a 
 violent disease, for which he was several times 
 operated upon, and his sufferings had been so 
 dreadful that we have little doubt his intellect was 
 affected by them. Whether this was so or not, 
 when the cholera raged so dreadfully in Paris, he 
 fled in the utmost alarm to Fontainbleau to avoid 
 it, and there, as a novel method of avoiding con- 
 tagion and radically curing the disease with which 
 he was tormented, he blew out his brains. Pre- 
 vious to the fatal act— strange, wayward being that 
 he was — he made a will, by which he left property 
 he did not possess to a Mr. G , one of his asso- 
 ciates ; and upon a secretaire in the room was 
 found this apothegm, the last he ever wrote : 
 " When life is unbearable, death is desirable, and 
 suicide justifiable ;" thus contradicting in his last 
 moments, both by word and deed, what he had 
 previously printed in ' Lacon ;' where he says, 
 speaking of a gamest«r, that " If he die a martyr 
 to his profession he is doubly ruined : he adds his 
 soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide 
 renounces earth to forfeit heaven ! " 
 
 [Very good people have committed suicide, 
 owing to some access of frenzy acting upon a 
 morbid temperament, or to the " last feather that 
 breaks the horse's back ;" but self-slaughter is so 
 unnatural, that in general a certain violence and 
 hardness of character are necessary to enable a 
 man to go through it. Strong will in his own pur- 
 poses, and little sympathy with other people, ex- 
 cept inasmuch as they bend to it, will, in most 
 instances, be found at the bottom of a suicide's 
 character.] 
 
 LXXVL— THE SHEPHERD-LORD. 
 
 TThe following extract from the Memoirs 
 written by the celebrated Anne. Countess of Dorset, 
 Pembroke, and Montgomery (herself a romance), 
 we take from the ' Censura Literaria' of Sir Eger- 
 ton Brydges ; a book counted as dry as dust by 
 some, but erroneously, for the dust is often pre- 
 cious, now disclosing some curious old book of 
 poeti7, now some gorgeous shield, &c., like the 
 ruins of an ancient scholarly monastery ; and now 
 and then we meet the figure of Sir Egerton him- 
 self, walking in his melancholy, and brooding over 
 fallen greatness — a little beyond the necessity per- 
 haps, but earnestly, and with a faith ; and all ear- 
 nestness is interesting to us, especially in a poe- 
 tical shape. Sir Egerton. after his fashion, and by 
 no means the least touching fashion, was original, 
 and of how few claimants of the public attention 
 can this be said t 
 
 At the close of his extract in the * Censura' are 
 three sonnets by him upon the subject, not his
 
 104 
 
 SANDY WRIGHT AND THE ORPHAN. 
 
 best, though not uninteresting : and he has quoted 
 passages from IMr. Wordsworth's beautiful poem 
 " On the Restoration of Lord Clifford to the Man- 
 sion of his Ancestors, Brougham Castle," some 
 verses of which are like the festal echo of its walls, 
 followed by their cverj'-day silence. It will not 
 be uninteresting to a reader in these or after- 
 times to know, that Brougham Castle derives its 
 name from the ham or village, now town, on the 
 little river Brough, which town gives the family 
 name to its present illustrious possessor, the de- 
 scendant of its ancient lords.] 
 
 Henry Lord Clifford, born 1454 (says the 
 countess, his descendant), was between six and 
 seven years of age at his father's death ; for whose 
 act (the killing the young Earl of Rutland, Ed- 
 ward IV. 's brother, somewhat unmercifully, in 
 battle) the family was soon after attainted. He 
 was one of the examples of the variety of fortunes 
 in the world, for at seven years old he was put 
 into the habit of a shepherd's boy, by the care and 
 love of an industrious mother, to conceal his birth 
 and parentage ; for had he been known to have 
 been his father's son and heir, in all probability he 
 would either have been put in prison, or banished, 
 or put to death, so odious was the memory of his 
 father for killing the young Earl of Rutland, and 
 for being so desperate a commander in battle 
 against the house of York, which then reigned. 
 
 So, in the condition of a shepherd's boy at 
 Lannesborough, where his mother then resided for 
 the most part, did this Lord ClitTord spend his 
 youth till he was about fourteen years of age, 
 about which time his mother's father, Henry Brom- 
 flet. Lord Vesey, died. 
 
 And a little after his death it came to be mur- 
 mured at court that his daughter's two sons were 
 alive, about which their mother was examined : 
 but her answers were that she had given direc- 
 tions to send them beyond seas to be bred there, 
 and she did not know whether they were dead or 
 alive ; which equivocation of her's did the better 
 pass, because presently after her husband's death 
 she sent both her sons away to the sea-side : the 
 younger of which, called Richard Clifford, was in- 
 deed transported over the seas into the Low Coun- 
 tries to be bred there, where he died not long 
 after ; so as his elder brother, Henry Lord Clifford 
 had, after his restitution, the enjoyment of that 
 little estate that this Richard, his younger brother, 
 should have had if he had lived. 
 
 But her eldest son, Henry Lord Clifford, was 
 secretly conveyed back to Lannesborough again, 
 and committed to the hands of shepherds as afore- 
 said, which shepherds' wives had formerly been 
 servants in that family, as attending the nurse who 
 gave him suck, which made him, being a child, 
 more willing to that mean condition, where they 
 infused into him that belief, that lie must either 
 be content to live in that manner or be utterly 
 undone. 
 
 And as he did grow to more years he was still 
 more capable of this danger if he had been dis- 
 covered, and therefore presently after his grand- 
 father, the Lord Vesey, was dead, the said murmur 
 of his being alive being more and more whispered 
 at the court, made his said loving mother, by means 
 of her second husband, Sir Lancelot Thirkeld, to 
 send him away with the said shepherds and their 
 wives to Cumberland, to be kept as a shepherd 
 
 there, sometimes at Thrilcot and amongst his 
 father-in-law's kindred, and sometimes on the 
 borders of Scotland, where they took land pur- 
 posely for these shepherds who had the custody of 
 him, where many times his fafhcr-in-law came 
 l)urposely to visit him, and sometimes his mother, 
 though very secretly. 
 
 By this mean kind of breeding this inconve- 
 nience befel him, that he could neither read nor 
 write, for they durst not bring him up in any kind 
 of learning, for fear lest by it his birth should be 
 discovered ; yet after he came to his lands and 
 honours he learned to write his name only. 
 
 And after this Henry Ijord Clifford had lived 
 twenty-four or twenty-five years in this obscure 
 manner, and that himself was grown to be about 
 thirty-one or thirty- two years of age, Henry VII. 
 then obtaining his crown did, in the tirst part of 
 his reign, in 1486, restore him in blood and ho- 
 nour and to all his baronies and castles. 
 
 This Henry Lord Clifford did, after he came to 
 his estate, exceedingly delight in astronomy and 
 the contemplation of the stars, which it was likely 
 he was seasoned in during the time of his shep- 
 herd's life. He built a great part of Barden * 
 tower, which is now much decayed ; and there he 
 lived much, which it is thought he' did rather 
 because in that place he furnished himself with 
 materials and instruments for that study. 
 
 He was a plain man and lived for the most part 
 a country life, and came seldom either to the court 
 or to London but when he was called thither to 
 sit in them as a peer of the realm, in which parlia- 
 ment it is reported he behaved himself wisely and 
 nobly, like a good Englishman. 
 
 He died when he was sixty-nine or seventy years 
 old, 23rd April, 15-23. 
 
 LXXVII.— SANDY WRIGHT AND THE 
 ORPHAN. 
 
 (Abridged from Mr. Miller'' s ' Scenes and Legends 
 of the North of Scotland.'') 
 
 Early in the month of April, 1734, three Cro- 
 marty boatmen connected with the custom-house 
 were journeying along the miserable road which 
 at this period winded along between the capital of 
 the highlands and that of the kingdom : they had 
 already travelled since morning more than thirty 
 miles through the wild highlands of Inverness- 
 shire, and were now toiling along the steep side 
 of an uninhabited valley of Badenoch. 
 
 The gloom of evening, deepened by a coming 
 snow-storm, was closing round them as they en- 
 tered one of the wildest recesses of the valley, an 
 immense precipitous hollow, scooped out of the 
 side of one of the hills : the wind began to howl 
 through the cliffs, and the thickening flakes of 
 snow to beat against their faces. The house in 
 which they were to pass the night was still ten 
 miles away. " It will be a terrible night, lads, in 
 the Moray frith," said the foremost traveller, a 
 
 • " He retired," says Whittaker, " to the solitude of Bar- 
 ilen, wheie he seems to h:ive enlarged the tower out of ;i ccim- 
 nion keeper's lodge, aud where he found a retreat e(|ually 
 finourable to taste, to instruction, and to devotion. Tlie nar- 
 row limits of his residence show that he had learned to despise 
 tlie pomp of u'reatness, and tliat a sm ill train of servants 
 eouhl snliice him who had lived to the age of thirty a servant 
 liimsell."
 
 SANDY WRIGHT AND THE ORPHAN, 
 
 109 
 
 broad-shouldered, deep-chesled, strong-looking 
 man, of about five feet eight: " I would ill like to 
 hae to beat up through the drift alonjj the rough 
 shores of CadboU : it was in just such a night as 
 this, ten years ago, that old Walter Hogg went 
 down in the Red Sally." " It will he as terrible 
 a night, I'm feared, just where we are, in the black 
 strath of Badenoch," said one of the men behind, 
 who seemed much fatigued ; " I wish we were a' 
 safe in the clachan." " Hoot, mon," said Sandy 
 Wright, ' die first speaker, " it cannot now be 
 muekle mair nor sax miles afore us, an we'll hae 
 the tail of the gloamin for half an hour yet. But 
 gude save us ! what's that 1 " he exclaimed, point- 
 ing to a little figure that seemed sitting by the side 
 of the road, about twenty yards before him ; " it's 
 surely a fairy," The figure rose from its seat and 
 caine up staggering, apparently from weakness, to 
 -meet them : it was a boy, scarcely more than ten 
 years of age. " O, my puir boy," said Sandy 
 Wright, " what can hae taken ye here in a night 
 like thisl" "I was going tfl Edinburgh to my 
 friends," replied the boy, " for my mother died, 
 and left me among the freme: but I'm tired, tired, 
 and cahna walk farther, and I'll be lost, I'm feared, 
 in the youndrift." " That ye winna, my puir 
 bairn, if I can help it," said the boatman: "gi'es 
 a baud o' your ban'," grasping as he spoke the 
 extended hand of the boy, " dinna tine heart, an' 
 lean on me as muckle's ye can." But the poor 
 little fellow was already exhausted, and after a 
 vain attempt to proceed, the boatman hud to carry 
 him on his back. The storm burst out in all its 
 fury, and the travellers, half suifocated, and more 
 than half blinded, had to grope onwards along 
 through the rough road, still more roughened by 
 the snow-wreaths that were gathering over it : they 
 stopped at every fiercer blast, and turned their 
 backs to the storm to recover breath ; and every 
 few yards they advanced they had to stoop to the 
 earth, to ascertain the direction of their path by 
 catching the outline of the nearer objects between 
 them and the sky. After many a stumble and fall, 
 however, and many a groan and exclamation from 
 the two boatmen behind, who were well nigh worn 
 out, they all reached the clachan in safety about 
 two hours after nightfall. 
 
 The inmates were seated round an immense 
 peat fire, placed, according to the custom of the 
 country, in the middle of the floor : they made 
 way for the travellers, and Sandy Wright drawing 
 his seat nearer the fire began to chafe the hands 
 and feet of the boy, who was almost insensible 
 from cold and fatigue. " Bring us a mutchkin 
 o' brandy here," said the boatman, " to drive out 
 the cold fra our hearts, an' as the supper canna be 
 ready for awhile yet, get me a piece for the boy : 
 he has had a narrow escape, puir little fellow, an' 
 maybe there's some that would miss him, lanerly 
 as he seems. Only hear how the win roars on the 
 gable, an' rattles at the winnocks and the door. 
 O, it's an awfu' night in the Moray frith ! " 
 
 Sandy Wright shared with the boy his supper 
 and his bed, and on setting out the following 
 morning he brought him along with him, desj)ite 
 the remonstrances of tlie other boatmen, who 
 dreaded liis proving an incumbrance. The story 
 of the little fellow, though simple, was very affect- 
 ing : — His mother, a poor widow, had lived for the 
 five preceding years in the vicinity of Inverness, 
 supporting heiself and her boy by her skill as a 
 
 sempstress. As early as his sixth year he had 
 shown a predilection for reading, and with the 
 anxious solicitude of a Scottish mother she had 
 wrought early and late to keep him at school ; but 
 her efforts were above her strength, and after a 
 sore struggle of nearly four years she at length 
 sunk under them. 
 
 " One day," said the poor little boy, "when she 
 was sick, two neighbour women came in, and she 
 called me to her, and told me that when she should 
 be dead I would need to go to Edinburgh, for I 
 had no friends anywhere else. Her own friends 
 were there, she said, but they were poor and 
 couldna do muekle for me ; and my father's friends 
 were there too, and they were gran' and rich, 
 though they wadna' own her. She told me no to 
 be feared by the way, for that Providence kent 
 every bit o't, and that he would make folk be kind 
 to me. 1 have letters to show me the way to my 
 mither's friends when I reach the town, for I can 
 read and write." 
 
 Throughout the whole of the journey Sandy 
 Wright was as a father to him. He shared with 
 him his meals and his bed. and usually for the 
 last half-dozen miles of every stage he carried him 
 on his back. On reaching the Queensferry, how- 
 ever, the boatmen found that his money was well 
 nigh expended. I must just try and get him 
 across, thought he, without paying the fare. Sandy 
 Wright does so with much difficulty. "An' now, 
 my boy," said he, as they reached the head of 
 what is now Leith walk, " I hae business to do at 
 the custom-house, an' some money to get : but I 
 must first try and find out your friends for ye. 
 Look at your letters, and tell me the street an' 
 the number where they put up." — The boy untied 
 his little bundle, and named some place in the 
 vicinity of the Grass-market, and in a few minutes 
 they were both walking up the High-street. 
 
 " O, yonder's my aunt," exclaimed the boy, to 
 a young woman who was coming down the street, 
 "yonder's my mither's sister:" and away be 
 sprung to meet her. She immediately recognised 
 and welcomed him, and he introduced the boat- 
 man to her as the kind friend who had rescued 
 him from the snow-storm and the ferryman. She 
 related, in a few words, the story of the boy's 
 parents. His father had been a dissipated young 
 man, of good family, whose follies had separated 
 him from his friends ; and the difference he had 
 rendered irreconcilcable by marrying a low-born 
 but industrious and virtuous young woman, who, 
 despite of her birth, was deserving of a better hus- 
 band. "Two of his brothers,'' said the woman, 
 " who are gentlemen of the law, were lately in- 
 quiring about the boy, and will, I hope, interest 
 themselves in his behalf." In this hope the boat- 
 man cordially joined. "An' now, my boy," said 
 he, as be bid him farewell, " I have just one groat 
 left yet: — hme it is; better in your pocket than 
 wi' the gruff carle at the ferry. It's an honest 
 groat anyhow, an' I'm sure I wish it luck.'' 
 
 Eighteen years elapsed before Sandy Wright 
 again visited Edinburgh. He had quitted it a 
 robust, powerful man of forty-seven, and he re- 
 turned to it a grey-headed old man of sixty-five. 
 His humble fortunes too were sadly in the wane. 
 His son William, a gallant young fellow, who had 
 risen in a few years on the score of merit alone 
 from the forecastle to a lieutenancy, had headed, 
 under Admiral Vernon, some desperate enterprizc,
 
 liJG 
 
 REAL HISTORY OF THE "DUCHESS OF C." 
 
 from M-hich he never returned ; and tlie boatman 
 himself, when on the eve of retiring on a small 
 pension from his long service in the custom-house, 
 was dismissed without a shilling, on the charge of 
 having connived at the escape of a smuggler. He 
 was sliglitly acquainted with one of the inferior 
 clerks in the Edinburgh custom-house, and in the 
 slender hope that this jierson might use bis influ- 
 ence in his behalf, and that that influence might 
 prove powerful enough to get him reinstated, he 
 had now travelled from Cromarty to Edinburgh, a 
 weary journey of near two hundred miles. He 
 had visited the clerk, who had given him scarcely 
 any encouragement, and he was now waiting fur 
 him in a street near George's-square where he had 
 promised to meet him in less than half an hour. 
 But more than two hours had elapsed, and Sandy 
 Wright, fatigued and melancholy, was sauntering 
 slowly along the street, musing on his altered cir- 
 cumstances, when a gentleman who had passed 
 him with the quick hurried step of a person en- 
 gaged in business, stopped abruptly a few yards 
 away, and returning at a much slower pace eyed 
 him stedfastly as he repassed. He again came 
 forward and stood. " Aie you not Mr. Wright 1" 
 he enquired. " My name, sir, is Sandy Wright," 
 said the boatman, touching his bonnet. The face 
 of the stranger glowed with pleasure, and grasping 
 him by the hand, " Oh my good kind friend, Sandy 
 Wright'." he exclaimed; "often, often have I 
 enquired after you, but no one could tell me where 
 you resided, or whether you were living or dead. 
 Come along with me : my house is in the next 
 square. What ! not remember me ! ah, but it will 
 he ill with me when I cease to remember you. I 
 am Hamilton, an advocate — but you will scarcely 
 know me as that." 
 
 The boatman accompanied him to an elegant 
 house in George's-square, and was ushered into a 
 splendid apartment where sat a young lady engaged 
 in reading. " Who of all the world have I found," 
 said the advocate to the lady, " but good Sandy 
 Wright, the kind brave man who rescued me when 
 perishing in the snow, and who was so true a friend 
 to me when I had no friend besides?" The lady 
 welcomed the boatman with one of her most fasci- 
 nating smiles, and held out her hand. " How 
 happy I am," she said, " that we should have met 
 with you. Often has Mr. Hamilton told me of 
 your kindness to him, and regretted that he should 
 have no opportunity of acknowledging it." The 
 boatman made one of his best bows, but he had no 
 words for so line a lady. 
 
 The advocate enquired kindly after his concerns, 
 and was told of his dismissal from the custom- 
 house : he made application on his behalf, keeping 
 him in the meantime in his house and treating 
 him with the attentions of a son, in which he was 
 joined by bis lovely wife. 
 
 A fortnight passed away very agreeably to the 
 boatman ; but at length he began to weary sadly 
 of what he termed the life of a gentleman. He 
 sighed after his little smoky cottage, and the " puir 
 auld wife." " Just remain with us one week 
 longer," said the advocate, " and I shall learn in 
 that time the result of my application. You are 
 not now quite so active a man as when you carried 
 me ten miles through the snow, and frightened 
 the tall ferryman, and so I shall secure for you a 
 passage in one of the Leith traders." In a few 
 days after, the advocate entered the apartment, his 
 
 eyes beaming with pleasure and a packet in his 
 hand. " This is from London," he said, as he 
 handed it to his lady : " It intimates to us that 
 one Alexander Wright, a custom-house boatman, 
 is to retire from the service on a pension of twenty 
 pounds per annum." 
 
 But why dwell longer on the story 1 Sandy 
 Wright parted from his kind friends, and returned 
 to Cromarty, where he died in the spring of \7>>9, 
 in the eighty-second year of his age. " Folk hae 
 aye to learn," he used to say, " an for my own 
 part I was a saxty-year auld scholar afore 1 kent 
 the meaning of the verse, 'Cast thy bread on the 
 waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.' " 
 
 LXXVIIL— REAL HISTORY OF THE 
 "DUCHESS OF C." 
 
 Of which Madame de Gejilis has made an Episode 
 in her " Adelaide and Theodore.'^ 
 
 [Madame de Genlis saw this lady at Rome, 
 where she was present for a quarter of an hour at 
 an entertainment given to a princess of the house 
 of Bourbon, retiring at the expiration of that time 
 on account of the shattered state of her health. 
 Though she was but forty-six years old she looked 
 ten years older ; her head and eyes were inclined 
 to the ground, and from time to time she had 
 " attacks of shuddering." 
 
 This last circumstance, and the one noticed in 
 italics at the conclusion of the following account, 
 are afTecting evidences of the sufferings she had 
 gone through.] 
 
 "The Duchess of Cerifalco," says Madame de 
 Genlis, " had the mildness and the piety of an 
 angel. She never knew, nor could any one ever 
 discover, why her barbarous spouse shut her up in 
 the cave. Religion, which is always useful in all 
 things, was the means of saving her life ; for the 
 monster, who still preserved some religious senti- 
 ments, did not dare to poison her ; and when he 
 himself was on his death-bed he contided to his 
 valet the secret, that for family reasons he had con- 
 fined in a subterraneous cavern a woman who was 
 at once mad and criminal. He did not acknow- 
 ledge that this woman was his own wife, who was 
 believed to have been dead for nine years. The 
 valet-de-chambre, on receiving the key of the 
 cavern, went to succour the unfortunate woman, 
 who had wanted food for two days : he knocked in 
 vain at the door — she did not come to receive her 
 bread and water — she had fainted. The servant 
 entered, gave her the necessary assistance to enable 
 her to get up, recognised her, left her nourishment 
 for several days, and gave her the key of the 
 cavern ; but being obliged to remain with the 
 duke he sent a courier to Rome to the Prince of 
 Palestrina, with a note from the duchess, who in 
 four lines and a half acquainted him with her 
 existence, and demanded his aid. The prince, 
 followed by all the members of his family, went to 
 the king of Naples and related the melancholy 
 history\ The king gave him a regiment to escort 
 him to the chateau of the duke, in case force should 
 be found necessary. When the Prince of Pales- 
 trina arrived, the duke was still living: he was 
 told, on the part of the prince, that his crime was 
 known, and that his victim was about to be re- 
 leased : the duke expired a few hours afterwards.
 
 TRAGICAL DEATH OF A TRAGICAL WRITER. 
 
 107 
 
 The prince had preserved most preciously his 
 daughter's note : at my earnest entreaty he showed 
 it me, I gazed a long time at this little bit of 
 paper; the handwriting, the expressions, the words, 
 almost all of ivhich wanted the last syllable — all was 
 precious in my eyes." 
 
 [Madame de Genlis adds a remark, which she 
 believes has never been before made ; to wit, that 
 " in cases where the memory lias been lost without 
 any change in the reasoning faculty, it is always 
 the last syllables of the words that are forgotten." 
 She says that this was the case with Alexander 
 Selkirk, the prototype of Robinson Crusoe ; and 
 that she had observed the same phenomenon in 
 a young person who had been blind for four- 
 teen years.] 
 
 LXXIX.— A MAN IMPRISONED IN ENG- 
 LAND FOR FORTY YEARS WITHOUT 
 BEING DECLARED GUILTY. 
 
 [The story of Major Bernard! has been told at 
 considerable length in the ' Biographia Britanuica,' 
 and we think also in the 'Lounger's Common- 
 place Book,' though we cannot find it on referring 
 to that work. Probably it was in the additional 
 volume subsequently printed, which we do not 
 happen to have by us. The following abridgment 
 is taken from the ' General Biographical Diction- 
 ary.' The major's " courage" in venturing upon 
 a second marriage we do not understand. The 
 courage was rather on the side of the lady, in 
 wedding a poor man and a prisoner. She appears 
 to have been a noble-hearted woman, and to have 
 met with a man that deserved her. But both the 
 parties seem to have been truly attached, and as 
 far as the marriage union is concerned, what cou- 
 rage is there in having one's way under those 
 circumstances ? The biographer appears also to 
 have been too hasty in calling the children " inhe- 
 ritors of misery and confinement," and assuming 
 it as " probable" that they were left destitute. 
 Why need he have assumed anything so melan- 
 choly of the children of two such people, happy 
 with each other and in their own virtues, and 
 therefore not likely to have had such a prospect to 
 contemplate 1 The most likely thing is, that two 
 people so good and kind had some reliance upon 
 the future, of whatever nature, sufficient to warrant 
 the calmness of their philosophy. 
 
 Major Bernardi's history is a puzzle, and of very 
 doubtful credit to the energy of the government at 
 that jipriod and its professed liberality. The pro- 
 bability, we think, is, that, he was in possession of 
 some state secret, which, out of a sense of duty to 
 his old master, he refused to give up.] 
 
 John Bernardi, says the biographer, usually called 
 JNIajor Bernardi, was born at Evesham in 1G57, 
 and was descended from an honourable family 
 which had flourished at Lxicca, in Italy, from tlie 
 year 1097. His grandfather Philip, a count of the 
 Roman empire, lived in England as resident from 
 Genoa twenty-eight years, and married a native of 
 this country. His father Francis succeeded to this 
 office ; but taking disgust at some measures adopted 
 by the senate at Genoa, resigned, and retiring to 
 Evesham amused himself with gardening, on which 
 he spent a considerable sum of money and set a 
 good example in that science to the town. John, 
 his son, the subject of this article, of a spirited and 
 
 restless temper, having received some harsh usage 
 from his father, at the age of thirteen ran away to 
 avoid his severity, and perhaps without any deter- 
 minate purpose. He retained notwithstanding 
 several friends, and was for some time supported 
 by them, but their friendship appears to have gone 
 little farther ; for soon after he enlisted as a com- 
 mon soldier in the service of the Prince of Orange. 
 In this station he showed micommon talents and 
 bravery, and in a short time obtained a captain's 
 commission in the service of the States. In April, 
 1677, he married a Dutch lady of good family, 
 with whom he enjoyed much conjugal happiness 
 for eleven years. The English regiments in the 
 Dutch service being recalled by James II., very 
 few of them, but among those few was Bernardi's, 
 would obey the summons, and of course he could 
 not sign the association into which the Prince of 
 Orange wished the regiments to enter. He thus 
 lost his favour, and having no other alternative, 
 and probably wishing for no other, he followed the 
 abdicated James II. into Ireland; who soon after 
 sent him on some commission into Scotland, from 
 whence, as the ruin of his master now became in- 
 evitable, he once more retired to Holland. Ven- 
 turing however to appear in London in 1G95, he 
 was committed to Newgate, March 2J, 1696, on 
 suspicion of being an abettor of the plot to assas- 
 sinate king William ; and although sufficient evi- 
 dence could not be brought to prove the fact, he 
 was sentenced and continued in prison by the 
 express decree of six successive parliaments, with 
 five other persons, where he remained for more 
 than forty years. As this was a circumstance 
 wholly without a precedent, it has been supposed 
 that there was something in his character particu- 
 larly dangerous, to induce four sovereigns and six 
 parliaments to protract his confinement, without 
 either legally condemning or pardoning him. 
 
 In his confinement he had the courage to venture 
 on a second marriage, which proved a very fortu- 
 nate event to him, as he thus not only enjoyed the 
 soothing converse of a true friend, but was even 
 supported during his whole imprisonment by the 
 care and industry of his wife. Ten children were 
 the produce of this marriage, the inheritors of 
 misery and confinement. In the meantime he is 
 said to have borne his imprisonment with such 
 resignation and evenness of temper as to have ex- 
 cited much respect and love in the few who enjoyed 
 his acquaintance. In the earlier part of his life he 
 had received several dangerous wounds, which 
 now breaking out afresh and giving him great 
 torment, atfurded a fresh trial of his equanimity 
 and firmness. At length he died, Sept. 20, 1736, 
 leaving his wife and numerous family probably in 
 a destitute state ; but what became of them after- 
 wards is not known. Bernardi was a little, brisk, 
 and active man, of a very cheerful disposition, and 
 as may appear from this short narrative, of great 
 courage and constancy of mind. 
 
 LXXX.— TRAGICAL DEATH OF A TRA- 
 GICAL WRITER, 
 
 It was curious that the Abbe Prevot, the 
 gloomiest of romance writers, should accidentally 
 have met with a death as strange and ghastly as 
 any that he could have well conceived. Nor is it 
 the only romance in the history of this singular
 
 108 
 
 AN UNDENIABLE APPARITION. 
 
 genius. He was born at a town in Artois, in the 
 year 1097, and lie studied with the Jesuits, most 
 probably for the church. The Jesuits he left to go 
 into the army ; then left the army to return to 
 them ; again left them to retiu-n to the army, in 
 which he became a distinguished officer ; left the 
 army a third time, in consequence of an unhappy 
 love adventure; became a Benedictine monk; and 
 finally, broke his monastic vows and became a 
 writer. Tliis monk and gloomy novelist (who 
 under the circumstances of those times could not 
 well either appear to be liable to the charge with 
 impunity, or even openly marry) was accused of 
 being a favourite of the ladies, one of whom left 
 the country to follow him to England during a 
 temporary sojourn there. He defended himself 
 from the charge in the following manner, more 
 ingenious than candid. 
 
 " This Medoro," says he, speaking of himself, 
 " so favoured by the fair, is a man of thirty-seven, 
 or thirty-eight, who bears in his countenance and 
 in his humour the traces of his former chagrin ; 
 who passes whole weeks ■without going out of his 
 closet ; and who every day employs seven or eight 
 hours in study ; who seldom seeks occasion for 
 enjoyments, who even rejects those that are offered, 
 and prefers an hour's conversation with a sensible 
 friend to all those amusements which are called 
 pleasures of the world and agreeable recreations. 
 He is indeed civil, in consequence of a good edu- 
 cation, but little addicted to gallantry ; of a mild 
 but melancholy temper; in fine, sober, and regular 
 in his conduct." 
 
 The truth is, he was most likely really in love 
 on this occasion, and not " in gallantry ;'' nor will 
 any lady, in these more reasonable times, wonder 
 that he should either love or be loved, when it is 
 considered, not only that he was a man of intelli- 
 gence and sensibility, but the author of one of the 
 most striking stories of a devoted passion that 
 ever was written, — the celebrated tale of ' Manon 
 L'Escaut.' And the less such a man cared for 
 gallantly, or the more he outlived it, the more he 
 would care for love. He was in the habit of being 
 in earnest ; which is half the secret of acceptability 
 of any kind ; and though gloomy in his books, he 
 does not appear to have been so in his intercourse, 
 but possessed only of that milder melancholy which 
 is even-tempered and easily runs into the pleasant- 
 ness it stands in need of; and this willingness to 
 please and be pleased is the other half. 
 
 On his return to Paris, our author assumed the 
 habit of an abbe, and lived tranquilly under the 
 protection of the Prince of Conti, who gave him 
 the title of his almoner and secretary, with an es- 
 tablishment that enabled him to pursue his studies. 
 " By the desire of Chancellor d'Aguesseau, he 
 undertook a general history of voyages, of which 
 the first volume appeared in 1745. The success of 
 his works, the favour of the great, the subsiding of 
 the passions, a calm retreat, and literary leisure, 
 seemed to promise a serene and peaceful old age. 
 But a dreadful accident put an end to his tranquil- 
 lity, and the fair prospect which had opened before 
 him was closed by the hand of death. To pass the 
 evening of his days in peace, and to finish in re- 
 tirement three great works which he had under- 
 taken, he had chosen and prepared an agreeable 
 recess at Firmin, near Chantilly. On the 23rd of 
 November, 1763, he was discovered by some jiea- 
 sants in an apoplectic fit, in the forest of Chantilly. 
 
 A magistrate was called in, who unfortunately 
 ordered a surgeon immediately to open the body, 
 which was apparently dead. A loud shriek from 
 the victim of their culpable precipitation convinced 
 the spectators of their error. The instrument was 
 withdrawn, but not before it had touched the vital 
 parts. The unfortunate abbe opened his eyes and 
 expired." 
 
 Prevot is accounted the second best of the 
 French novelists, ranking next to JNIarivaux. He 
 is known to the readers of our circulating libraries 
 not only for his 'Manon I'Escaut," but as the 
 author of the ' Dean of Coleraine,' of the ' History 
 of Mr. Cleveland,' and the ' History of Margaret 
 of Anjou.' His countrjmen are indebted to him 
 also, among many other things, for translations of 
 ' Sir Charles Grandison,' and ' Clarissa.' 
 
 Imagine him thinking of the fictitious catastro- 
 plies of his novels, while realizing so frightful a 
 one in his own death ! What a fate, — to open his 
 eyes from an apoplexy, and feel himself slaugh- 
 tered ! — 
 
 • "To walce and fi nd those visions true I " 
 
 LXXXI.— AN UNDENIABLE APPARITION. 
 
 {From Essays, by Jackson of Exeter, the 
 Mtisician.) 
 
 At a town in the west of England was held a club 
 of twenty-four people, which assembled once a 
 week to drink punch, smoke tobacco, and talk 
 politics. Like Rubens' academy at Antwerp, each 
 member had his peculiar chair, and the president's 
 was more exalted than the rest. One of the mem- 
 bers had been in a dying state for some time ; of 
 course, his chair while he was absent, remained 
 vacant. 
 
 The club being met on their usual night, in- 
 quiries Were naturally made after their associate. 
 As he lived in the adjoining house, a particular 
 friend went himself to inquire for him, and re- 
 turned with the dismal tidings that he could not 
 possibly survive the night. This threw a gloom 
 on the company, and all efforts to turn the convei'- 
 sation from the sad subject before them were in- 
 effectual. 
 
 About midnight (the time by long prescription 
 appropriated for the walking of spectres) the door 
 opened, and the form in white, of the dying, or 
 rather of the dead man, walked into tlie room, and 
 took his seat in the accustomed chair : there he 
 remained in silence, and in silence was he gazed 
 at. The apparition continued a sufficient time in 
 the chair to assure all present of the reality of the 
 vision ; at length he rose and stalked towards the 
 door, which lie opened as if living, went out, and 
 then shut the door after him. 
 
 After a long pause, some one at last had the re- 
 solution to say, " If only one of us had seen this 
 he would not have been believed, but it is impos- 
 sible that so many persons can be deceived." 
 
 The company bj degrees recovered their speech, 
 and the whole conversation, as may be imagined, 
 was upon the dreadful object which had engaged 
 their attention. They broke up, and went home. 
 
 In the morning inquiry was made after their 
 sick friend — it was answered by an account of his 
 death, which happened nearly at the time of his 
 appearing in the club. There could be little doubt
 
 FATAL MISTAKE OF MORBID EGOTISM FOR LOVE. 
 
 109 
 
 before, but now nothing could be more certain 
 than the reality of the apparition, which had been 
 seen by so many persons together. 
 
 It is needless to say that such a story spread 
 over the country, and found credit even from infi- 
 dels ; for in this case all reasoning became super- 
 fluous, when opposed to a plain fact asserted by 
 three-and-twenty witnesses. To assert the doc- 
 trine of the fixed laws of nature was ridiculous, 
 when there were so many people of credit to prove 
 that they* might be unfixed. 
 
 Years rolled on — the story ceased to engage 
 attention, and it was forgotten, unless when occa- 
 sionally produced to silence an unbeliever. 
 
 One of the club was an apothecary. In the 
 course of his practice he was called to an old 
 woman, whose profession was attending on sick 
 pt-rsous. She told him, that she could leave the 
 world with a quiet conscience but for one thing, 
 which lay on her mind — "Do you not remember, 
 Mr. * * *, whose ghost has been so much talked 
 oCi I was his nurse. The night he died I left 
 the room for something I wanted — I am sure I 
 had not been absent long ; but at my return I 
 found' the bed without my patient. He was 
 delirious, and I feared that he had thrown himself 
 out of the window. 1 was so frighted that I had 
 no power to stir ; but after some time, to my 
 great astonishment, he entered the room shivering, 
 and his teeth chattering — lay down on the bed, 
 and died. Considering myself as the cause of his 
 death I kept this a secret, for fear of what might 
 be done to me. Though I could contradict all the 
 story of the ghost, I dared not do it. I knew by 
 what had happened that it was he himself \\\io had 
 been in the club-room (perhaps recollecting that it 
 was the night of meeting), but I hope God and the 
 poor gentleman's friends will forgive me, and I 
 shall die contented I" 
 
 LXXXII.— FATAL MISTAKE OF MORBID 
 EGOTISM FOR LOVE. 
 
 [The frequency of strange cases of this kind 
 during the transition of mind in France from one 
 state of opinion to another, induces us to copy it 
 from the newspapers. It is not love which these 
 unfortunate persons feel ; at least, not love of any 
 high order — certainly not of a lasting or healthy 
 sort. It is a morbid, melancholy impatience, 
 generally allied to a character of a very wilful 
 description, which probably would as soon have 
 quarrelled as lovetl in the course of another twelve- 
 month, and meeting with an egotism resembling 
 its own, and prepared to jump all extremities for 
 the sake of indulging its spleen, and getting a 
 sensation. We do not say this, of course, out of 
 any want of charity towards the unhappy victims 
 of such mistakes, but as a warning towards sensi- 
 tive people of melancholy fancies, not to copy 
 these very serious levities of our neighbours (for 
 such after all they must be called, and the result 
 of half thoughts mistaking themselves for whole 
 ones), but to cultivate their faculties, animal and 
 intellectual, to better advantage, — and to believe 
 tliat real love would rather continue to exist with 
 the beloved object in the same wide worhl, if it 
 could not do it in the same house, than hazard the 
 loss of its company in another by such j)erilou3 
 conclusions — much less selfishly invite it to par- 
 
 take them, and thus quit all chance of earthly 
 happiness from the more cheerful companionship 
 of other friends.] 
 
 The following extraordinary case, the details of 
 which are given by one of the actors in the tragedy, 
 came on before the Court of Assize in Paris, on 
 Saturday. In 1826, Prosper Bancal, accompanied 
 by his sister, went on a visit to the family of M. 
 Troussett, a merchant of Angouleme, when he 
 for the first time saw Madame Priolland, who was 
 then twenty years of age. Although he only 
 remained there eight days, so great an intimacy 
 had spi-ung up between Madame Priolland and 
 himself that after his departure they corresponded 
 for five months, when at the request of her hus- 
 band the correspondence ceased. From that period 
 until 1831, when Bancal left France for Senegal, 
 he and Madame Priolland met but twice, and both 
 times in the presence of her husband. Towards 
 the close of 1834, Bancal returned from Senegal, 
 and went to Montpellier to take out a doctor's 
 diploma. In going and returning he called on 
 Madame Priolland, and it was in one of those 
 interviews, he states, that she proposed to him the 
 project of putting themselves to death — a proposal 
 which he looked upon at first as mere badinage, 
 but which soon took irresistible possession of 
 his mind. Resolutions were finally made to ac- 
 complish this object, and they parted in the end of 
 February. They met on the 14th of March at 
 Poictiers, and the 23rd of March was the day fixed 
 for the execution of their project. On the I7th 
 of March they arrived in Paris, and went to 
 lodge at an hotel as man and wife. On the 
 evening fixed for the accomplishment of their 
 horrible plan Madame Priolland ordered a foot 
 bath to be brought into her chamber, and at eleven 
 o'clock, everything being ready, the horrible 
 tragedy began. Bancal states that she then asked 
 him to put an end to her life ; upon which he bled 
 her twice in her legs. She lost a great deal of 
 blood, and would have fallen from the chair had 
 he not supported her. After some time his strength 
 failed, and she fell upon the floor, but he subse- 
 quently succeeded in placing her upon the bed, 
 and they lay there side by side. The hours wore 
 away, and she still lived. He asked her if she 
 wished to live ; she said " No." He then asked 
 her if she would wish him to use the bistoury ; but 
 she said she objected to the iron entering her 
 heart. She had chosen bleeding as the means to 
 be used to deprive her of life, because she said she 
 would wish to see herself (lying. After some further 
 delay, he, with her own consent, gave her some 
 acetate of morphine, which he had ])rovided, and 
 then took a dose himself. They both suffered 
 nausea and vertigo, in consequence of taking the 
 morphine, hut its effects were not sulliciently 
 powerful, and the bistoury was at length resorted 
 to. lie stabbed her once without effect ; but on 
 his inflicting a second and deejjcr wound, she 
 pressed his hand, and never moved afterwards. 
 He then stabbed himself three times, but the 
 wounds did not prove fatal. A friend of Bancal's, 
 named Cassemacasse, next morning received a 
 letter which had been written by the former, who, 
 in the anticipation of death, had re(iuested that he 
 would sec ^ladamo Priolland and himself buried 
 in the same coffin. When Cassemacasse went to 
 the room and had the door forced open, Bancal 
 and his victim were both stretched on the bed, the
 
 no 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF "MULLED SACK." 
 
 latter quite dead, but the former still living, though 
 a stream of blood was issuing from a large wound 
 in his left breast. Bancal having recovered from 
 his wound, was on Saturday last brought to trial 
 for the murder of Madame PrioUand. Great 
 interest was excited in the court, which was 
 crowded to excess by ladies anxious to hear the 
 result of tliis romantic aftair. After a long inves- 
 tigation, of which we regret that our limits will 
 not permit us to give the details, the jury returned 
 a verdict of Not Guilty. Bancal is described as 
 being a young man, small in stature, with black 
 hair and eyes, and of a pale countenance, expres- 
 sive of a deep and settled melancholy. 
 
 LXXXIIL— LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 "MULLED SACK." 
 
 [^lulled Sack was a highwayman iu the time of 
 the Stuarts, who obtained his name from being 
 addicted to the beverage of Falstaff. We are not 
 disposed lightly to admit heroes of his profession 
 into the lists of Romance ; but a man who, besides 
 his ambitious larcenies upon ladies and colonels, 
 has picked the pocket, first of Oliver Cromwell, 
 and afterwards of Charles II., thus performing 
 the part of a sort of retributive justice on behalf 
 of the people, has claims upon our amazement, 
 which may reasonably give him a lift w^ith the 
 impartial historian.] 
 
 This most notorious fellow (says our authority. 
 Granger) was the son of one Cottington, a haber- 
 dasher of small wares in Cheapside ; but his father, 
 being a boon companion, so wasted his substance 
 that he died so poor as to be buried by the parish. 
 He left fifteen daughters and four sons, the 
 youngest of whom was this Mulled Sack. At 
 eight years of age he was, by the overseers of the 
 parish, put out apprentice to a chimney-sweeper 
 of St. Mary-le-Bow, to whom he sei-ved about 
 five years ; and having then entered his teens he 
 thought himself as good a man as his master : 
 whereupon he ran away, as thinking he had learnt 
 so much of his trade as was sufficient for him to 
 live upon, and his heirs for ever. 
 
 He had no sooner quitted his master than he 
 was called by the name of Mulled Sack (though 
 his real name was John Cottingt07i), from his 
 usually drinking sack mulled, morning, noon, and 
 night. To su])port this extravagant way of living 
 he took to picking pockets, and carried on this 
 profession with great success ; and among others 
 he robbed was the Lady Fairfax, from whom he 
 got a rich gold watch, set with diamonds, in the 
 following manner : — " This lady used to go to a 
 lecture, on a week-day, to Ludgate church, where 
 one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed 
 by the precisians. Mulled Sack observing this, 
 and that she constantly wore her watch hanging 
 by a chain from her waist, against the next time 
 she came there he dressed himself like an officer 
 iu the army ; and having his comrades attending 
 him like troopers, one of them takes off the pin 
 of a coach wheel that was going upwards through 
 the gate, by which means it falling off the passage 
 was obstructed, so that the lady could not alight 
 at the church-door, but was forced to leave her 
 coach without, which Mulled Sack taking advan- 
 tage of readily ])resented himself to her ladyship, 
 and having the impudence to take her from her 
 
 gentleman-asher, who attended her alighting, led 
 her by the arm into the church ; and by the way, 
 with a pair of keen or sharp scissors prepared for 
 the purpose, cut the chain in two and got the 
 watch clean away, she not missing it till sermon 
 was done, when she was going to see the time of 
 the day." 
 
 After many narrow escapes from being taken in 
 the act of plundering, Mulled Sack was at length 
 detected in the act of picking the pocket of Oliver 
 Cromwell, as he came out of the Parliament-house, 
 and had like to have been hanged for the fact ; 
 but the storm blowing over, he was so much out 
 of conceit with picking pockets, that he took up 
 another trade, which was robbing on the highway ; 
 and following this practice with one Tom Che- 
 ney, they were audacious enough to rob Colonel 
 Hewson, at the head of his regiment, when march- 
 ing into Houuslow; but being quickly pursued by 
 some troopers which lay in that town, Cheney's 
 horse failing him, he was taken, while Mulled Sack 
 got clear off. Cheney, desperately wounded, was 
 brought prisoner to Newgate ; and shortly after, 
 when the sessions came on at the Old Bailey, he 
 would have avoided his trial by pleading weakness, 
 and the soreness of his wounds : but this had no 
 effect upon the court, for they caused him to be 
 brought down in a chair ; from whence, as soon as 
 he had received sentence of death, which was about 
 two o'clock in the afternoon, he was carried in a 
 cart to Tyburn, and there executed. 
 
 Mulled Sack, having thus lost his companion, 
 was resolved in future to rob on the highway 
 himself alone, though he kept company with the 
 greatest highwaymen that were ever known in 
 any age ; and such was his genius, that by their 
 conversation he became as expert a robber on the 
 road as any man whatever : for, whilst he fol- 
 lowed that profession, he got as much money as 
 all the thieves then in England. He always 
 went habited alike, and was reputed a merchant, 
 for he constantly wore a watchmaker's and 
 jeweller's shop in his pocket, and could at any 
 time command 1000^. 
 
 Having notice by his spies that the general- 
 receiver at Reading was to send 6000^. to London, 
 by an ammunition-waggon and convoy, he pre- 
 vented that way of carriage by conveying it up 
 himself on horseback, breaking into the receiver's 
 house at night-time, and carried off the booty 
 undiscovered. The loss being so great, strict 
 inquiry was set on foot, when it was discovered 
 that Mulled Sack was the principal in the robbery ; 
 whereupon he was watched, waylaid, apprehended, 
 and sent down prisoner to Reading, and from 
 thence, at the assizes, conveyed to Abingdon ; 
 where, not wanting money, he procured such a 
 jury to be empannelled, that though Judge Jermyn 
 did what he could to hang him, there being very 
 good circumstantial proof, as that he was seen in 
 the town the very night when the robbery was 
 committed, yet he so baulked the evidence, and so 
 affronted the judge — by bidding him come off the 
 bench, and swear what he said, as judge, witness, 
 and prosecutor too, for so perhaps he might mur- 
 der him by presumption of evidence, as he termed 
 it — that the jury brought him in guiltless. 
 
 He had, however, not been long at liberty before 
 he killed one John Bridges, to have the more free 
 egress and regress with his wife, who had kept 
 him company for above four years ; but the
 
 THE STORY OF JOHN FEDDES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 deceased's friends resolved to prosecute the mur- 
 derer to the uttermost. He fled beyond sea ; and 
 at Cologne he robbed King Charles II., then in 
 his exile, of as much plate as was valued at 1500/. ; 
 then flying into England again, he promised to 
 give Oliver Cromwell some of his Majesty's papers 
 which he had taken with his plate, and discover 
 his correspondents here ; but not making good his 
 promise, he was sent to Newgate, and receiving 
 sentence of death, was hanged in Smithfield-rounds, 
 in April-, -"leSO, aged fifty-five years. 
 
 LXXXIV.— THE STORY OF JOHN 
 FEDDES. 
 
 ( From Miller's ' Scenes and Legends of the North 
 of Scotla?id. ) 
 
 In the woods to the east of Cromarty, and occupy- 
 ing the summit of a green insulated eminence, is 
 the ancient burying-ground and chapel of St. 
 Regulns. Bounding the south there is a deep 
 narrow ravine, through which there runs a small 
 trickling streamlet, whose voice, scarcely heard 
 during the droughts of summer, becomes hoarser 
 and louder towards the close of autumn. The 
 sides of the eminence are covered with wood, 
 which overtopping the summit, forms a wall of 
 foliage that encloses the burying-ground except on 
 the east, where a little opening affords a view of 
 the northern Sutor over the tops of trees which 
 hare not climbed high enough to complete the 
 fence. In this burying-ground the dead of a few 
 of the more ancient families of the town and parish 
 are still interred ; but by far the greater part of it 
 is occupied by nameless tenants, whose descend- 
 ants are unknown, and whose bones have mould- 
 ered undisturbed for centuries. The surface is 
 covered by a short yellow moss, which is gradually 
 encroaching on the low flat stones of the dead, 
 blotting out the unheeded memorials which tell 
 us that the inhabitants of this solitary spot were 
 once men, and that they are now dust, — that they 
 lived, and that they died, and that they shall live 
 again. 
 
 Nearly about the middle of the burial-ground 
 there is a low flat stone, over which time is silently 
 drawing the green veil of oblivion. It bears date 
 1690, and testifies, in a rude inscription, that it 
 covers the remains of Paul Feddes and his son 
 John, with those of their respective wives. Con- 
 cerning Paul tradition is silent ; of John Feddes, 
 his son, an interesting anecdote is still presei-ved. 
 Sometime early in the eighteenth century, or 
 rather perhaps towards the close of the seven- 
 teenth, he became enamoured of Jean Gallie, one 
 of the wealthiest and most beautiful young women 
 of her day, in this part of the country. The 
 attachment was not mutual, for Jeans aflcctions 
 were already fixed on a young man, who, both in 
 fortune and elegance of manners, was superior, 
 beyond comparison, to the tall, red-haired boatman, 
 whose chief merit lay in a kind, brave heart, a 
 clear head, and a strong arm. John, tliough by 
 no means a dissij)ated character, had been accus- 
 tomed to regard money as merely the price of 
 independence, and he had sacrificed but little to 
 the Graces. His love-suit succeeded as might 
 have been expected ; the advances he made were 
 treated with contempt, and the day was fixed 
 when his mistress was to be married *o a rival. 
 
 He became sad and melancholy, and late on the 
 evening which preceded the marriage-day he was 
 seen traversing the woods which surrounded the 
 old castle ; frequently stopping as he went, and by 
 wild and singular gestures giving evidence of an 
 unsettled mind. In the morning after he was 
 nowhere to be found. His disappearance, with 
 the frightful conjectures to which it gave rise, 
 threw a gloom over the spirits of the townsfolks, 
 and affected the gaiety of the marriage party : it 
 was remembered, even amid the festivities of the 
 bridal, that John Feddes had had a kind warm 
 heart ; and it was in no enviable frame that the 
 bride, as her maidens conducted her to her 
 chamber, caught a glimpse of several twinkling 
 lights that were moving beneath the brow of the 
 distant Sutor. She could not ask the cause of an 
 appearance so unusual : her fears too surely sug- 
 gested that her unfortunate lover had destroyed 
 himself; and that his friends and kinsfolk kept 
 that night a painful vigil in searching after the 
 body. But the search was in vain, though every 
 copse and cavern, and the base of every precipice 
 within several miles of the town was visited, and 
 though during the succeeding winter e\ery wreath 
 of sea-weed which the night storms had rolled 
 upon the beach, was approached with a fearful 
 yet solicitous feeling, scarcely ever associated with 
 bunches of sea-weed before. Y''ears passed away, 
 and except by a few friends the kind enterprising 
 boatman was forgotten. 
 
 In the meantime it was discovered, both by her- 
 self and the neighbours, that Jean Gallie was 
 unfortunate in her husband. He had prior to his 
 marriage, when one of the gayest and most dashing 
 young fellows in the village, formed habits of idle- 
 ness and intemperance, which he could not or 
 would not shake off; and Jean had to learn that 
 a very gallant lover may prove a very indifferent 
 husband, and that a very fine fellow may care for 
 no one but himself. He was selfish and careless 
 in the last degree ; and unfortunately, as his sel- 
 fishness was of the active kind, he engaged in 
 extensive businesSj to the details of which he paid 
 no attention, but amused himself with wild vague 
 speculations, which joined to his habits of intem- 
 perance, in the course of a few years, stripped him 
 of all the property which had belonged to himself 
 and his wife. In proportion as his means decreased 
 he became more worthless, and more selfishly bent 
 on the gratification of his apjjetites ; and he had 
 squandered almost his last shilling, when after a 
 violent fit of intemperance, he was seized by a 
 fever, which in a few days terminated in death ; 
 and thus five years after the disappearance of 
 John Feddes, Jean Gallie found herself a poor 
 widow, with scarce any means of subsistence, and 
 witho\it one pleasing thought connected with the 
 memory of her husband. 
 
 A few days after the interment, a Cromarty ves- 
 sel was lying at anchor before sunrise near the 
 mouth of the Spey. The master, who had been 
 one of Feddes' most intimate friends, was seated 
 near the stern, employed in angling for cod and 
 ling. Between his vessel and the shore a boat 
 appeared in the grey light of morning, stretching 
 along the beach vnider a light and well-trimmed 
 sail. She had passed him nearly half a mile, when 
 the helmsman slackened the sheet, which had been 
 close-hauled, and suddenly changing the tack, bore 
 away right before the wind. In a few minutes
 
 112 
 
 A MODERN AMAZON. 
 
 the boat dashed alongside. All the crew except 
 the helmsman had been lying asleep upon the 
 beams, and now started up alarmed by the shock. 
 " How, skipper," said one of them, rubbing his 
 eyes, " how, in the name of wonder, have we 
 gone so far out of our course ? What brings us 
 here'?" — "You come from Cromarty?" said the 
 skipper, directing his s])cech to tlie master, who 
 starting at tlie sound from his seat, flung himself 
 half over tlie gunwale to catch a glimpse of the 
 speaker. "Jolin Feddes," he exclaimed, " by all 
 that is miraculous !" — " You come from Cromarty, 
 do you not ?" reiterated the skipper. "Ah, Willie 
 INIouat! Is that you 1" 
 
 The friends were soon seated in the snug little 
 cal)in of the vessel ; and John, apparently the least 
 curious of the two, entered at the otlier's request 
 into a detail of the particulars of his life for the 
 five preceding years. " Y'ou know, Mouat," he 
 said, " how I felt and what I suffered for the last 
 six months I was at Cromarty. Early in that 
 period I had formed the determination of quitting 
 my country for ever ; but I was a weak, foolish 
 fellow, and so I continued to linger like an un- 
 happy ghost, week after week, and month after 
 month, hoping against hope, until the night 
 which preceded the wedding day of Jean Gallie. 
 Captain Robinson was then on the coast, unload- 
 ing a cargo of Hollands. I made it my business 
 to see him ; and after some little conversation, for 
 we were old acquaintance, I broached to liim my 
 intention of leaving Scotland. It is well, said he ; 
 for friendship's sake I will give you a passsage to 
 Flushing, and, if it fits your inclination, a berth in 
 the privateer I am now fitting out for cruising 
 along the coast of Spanish America. I find the 
 free trade does not suit me ; it has no scope. I 
 considered his proposals, and liked them hugely. 
 There was, indeed, some risk of being knocked on 
 the head in the cruising affair, but that weighed 
 little with me : I really believe that, at the time, I 
 would as lief have run to a blow as avoided one ; 
 — so I closed with him, and the night and hour 
 were fixed when he should land his boat for me in 
 the hope of the Sutors. The evening of that night 
 came, and I felt impatient to be gone. You won- 
 der how I could leave so many excellent friends 
 without so much as bidding them farewell. I 
 have since wondered at it myself; but my mind 
 was filled at the time with one engrossing object, 
 and I could think of nothing else. Positively I 
 was mad. I remember passing Jean's house on 
 that evening, and of catching a glimpse of her 
 through the window. She was so engaged in pre- 
 paring a piece of dress, which I suppose was to be 
 worn on the ensuing day, that she did not 
 observe me. I cannot tell you how I felt, — indeed 
 I do not know ; for I have scarcely any recollec- 
 tion of what I did or thought until a few hours 
 after, when I found myself aboard of Robinson's 
 lugger, spanking down the frith. It is now five 
 years since, and in that time I have both given 
 and received some hard blows, and have been both 
 rich and poor. Little more than a month ago I 
 left Flushing for Banff, where I intend taking up 
 my abode, and where I am now on the eve of 
 purchasing a snug little property." " Nay," said 
 Jlouat, "you must come to Cromarty." "To 
 Cromarty; no, no, that will scarcely do." "But 
 hear me, Feddes; — Jean Gallie is a widow.'' 
 There was a long pause. " Well, poor young 
 
 thing," said John at length with a sigh ; " I should 
 feel sorry for that ; I trust she is in easy circum- 
 stances." — " You shall hear." 
 
 The reader has already anticipated Mouat's 
 narrative. During the recital of the first part of 
 it, John, who had thrown himself on the back of 
 his chair, continued rocking backwards and for- 
 wards with the best counterfeited indifference in 
 the world. It was evident that Jean Gallie was 
 nothing to him. As the story proceeded he drew 
 himself up leisurely, and with firmness, until he 
 sat bolt upright and the motion ceased. Mouat 
 described the selfishness of Jean's husband, and 
 his disgusting intemperance. He spoke of the 
 confusion of his affairs. He hinted at his cruelty 
 to Jean when he had squandered all. John could 
 act no longer, — he clenched his fist, and sprung 
 from his seat. " Sit down, man !" said Mouat, 
 " and hear me out ; — the fellow is dead." — "And 
 the poor widow?" said John. — "Is, I believe, 
 nearly destitute. You have heard of the box of 
 broad pieces left her by her father? she has few 
 of them now." — " Well, if she hasn't, I have ; 
 that's all. When do you sail for Cromarty V — 
 " To-morrow, my dear fellow, and you go along 
 with me ; do you not?" 
 
 Almost any one could supply the concluding 
 part of my narrative. Soon after John had arrived 
 at his native town, Jean Gallie became the wife of 
 one who, in almost every point of character, was 
 the reverse of her first husband ; and she lived 
 long and happily with him. Here the novelist 
 would stop ; but I write from the burying-ground 
 of St. Regulus, and the tombstone of my ancestor 
 is at my feet. Y'et why should it be told that 
 John I'eddes experienced the misery of living too 
 long, — that in his ninetieth year he found him- 
 self almost alone in the world ; for, of his children, 
 some had wandered into foreign parts, where they 
 either died or forgot their father, and some he saw 
 carried to the grave. One of his daughters re- 
 mained with him, and outlived him. She was 
 the widow of a bold enterprising man, who lay 
 buried with his two brothers — one of whom had 
 sailed round the world with Anson — in the depths 
 of the ocean ; and her orphan child who, of a 
 similar character, shared nearly fifty years after a 
 similar fate, was the father of the writer. 
 
 LXXXV.— A MODERN AMAZON. 
 
 It was in the year 1638, says the Abbe Arnauld, 
 in his amusing memoirs, that I had the honour to 
 become acquainted with that Amazon of our times, 
 Madame de Saint Balmont, whose life was a pro- 
 digy of courage and of virtue, uniting in her person 
 all the valour of a determined soldier, and all the 
 modesty of a truly Christian woman. She was of 
 a very good family of Lorraine, and was born with 
 a disposition worthy of her birth. The beauty of 
 her face corresponded to that of her mind, but her 
 shape by no means agreed with these, being small 
 and rather clumsy. Providence, who had destined 
 her for a life more laborious than that which 
 females in general lead, had formed her more 
 robust and more able to bear bodily fatigue. It 
 had inspired her with so great a contempt for 
 beauty, that when she had the small-pox she was 
 as pleased to be marked with it as other women 
 are afflicted on a similar occasion, and said that it
 
 THE CELEBRATED CASE OF ANGLADE. 
 
 113 
 
 would enable her to be more like a man. She was 
 married to the Count de Saint Balmont, who was 
 not inferior to her either in birth or in merit. 
 They lived together very happily till the troubles 
 that arose in Lorraine obliged them to separate. 
 The count was constantly employed by the duke 
 his sovereign, in a manner suitable to )iis rank and 
 disposition, except when he once gave him the 
 command of a poor feeble fortress, in which he 
 had the assurance to resist the arms of Louis XIV. 
 for sev'efal days together, at the risk of being 
 treated with the extremest severity of military law, 
 which pronounces tlie most infamous and degrading 
 punishment against all those officers who hold out 
 without any prospect of success. M. de Saint 
 Balmont went indeed farther, and added insolence 
 to rashness ; for, at every shot of cannon that was 
 fired at the fortress, he appeared at the windows, 
 attended by some fiddlers, who played by his side. 
 This madness (for one cannot call it by a more 
 gentle name) had nearly cost him very dear ; for 
 when he was taken, it was agitated in the council 
 of war, composed of the officers whom he had 
 treated with this insolence, whether he should not 
 be hung up immediately ; but regard was paid to 
 his birth, and perhaps to his courage, however in- 
 discreet. Madame de Saint Balmont remained 
 upon his estates to take care of them. Hitlierto 
 she had only exerted her soldier-like disposition in 
 hunting and shooting (which is a kind of war), but 
 very soon an opportunity presented itself of realiz- 
 ing it, and it was this : — An officer in our cavalry 
 had taken up his quarters upon one of her hus- 
 band's estates, and was living there at discretion. 
 Madame de Saint Balmont sent him a very civil 
 letter of complaint on his ill-behaviour, which he 
 treated with great contempt. Piqued at this, she 
 was resolved that he should give her satisfaction, 
 and merely consulting her resentment, she wrote 
 to him a note, signed Le Chevalier de Saint Bal- 
 mont. In this note she observed to him, that the 
 ungentlemanlike manner in which he had behaved 
 to his sister-in-law, obliged him to resent it, and 
 demanded that he would give him with his sword 
 that satisfaction which his letter had refused. The 
 officer accepted the challenge, and repaired to the 
 place appointed. Madame de Saint Balmont mot 
 him, dressed in man's clothes. They immediately 
 drew their swords, and our heroine had the advan- 
 tage of him ; when, after having disarmed him, 
 she said with a very gracious smile, "You thought, 
 sir, I make no doubt, that you were fighting with 
 Le Chevalier de Saint Balmont; it is, however, 
 Madame de Saint Balmont of that name who re- 
 turns you your sword, and begs you in future to 
 pay more regard to the requests of the ladies." 
 She then left him. covered with shame and con- 
 fusion ; and as the story goes, he immedintely 
 absented himself, and no one ever saw him after- 
 wards. But be that as it may, this incident serving 
 merely to inflame the courage of the fair chal- 
 lenger, she did hot rest satisfied with merely pre- 
 serving her estates by repelling force by force, but 
 she afforded protection to many of the gentlemen 
 in her neighbourhood, who made no scruple to 
 take refuge in the village, and put tliemselves 
 under her orders when she took the field, which 
 she always did with success, her designs being 
 executed with a prudence equal to her courage. 
 I have often, says tlie abbe, been in company with 
 this extraordinary j)ersonage, at the house of 
 
 Madame de Fequieres, wife to the celebrated 
 marshal of that name at Verdun ; and it was quite 
 ridiculous to see how embarrassed she appeared in 
 her female dress, and (after she had quitted it in 
 the town) with what ease and spirit she got on 
 horseback, and attended the ladies that were of her 
 party, and whom she had left in her carriage, in 
 their little excursions into the country. 
 
 The manner of living, however, of Madame de 
 Saint Balmont, so fiir removed from that of her sex, 
 and which in all other females who have attempted 
 it has ever been found united with libertinism of 
 manners, was in her accompanied with nothing 
 that bore the least resemblance to it. When she 
 was at home in time of peace, her whole day was 
 employed in the offices of religion ; in prayers, in 
 reading the Bible and books of devotion, in visit- 
 ing the poor of her parish, whom she was ever 
 assisting with the most active zeal and charity. This 
 manner of living procured her the admiration and 
 esteem of persons of all descriptions in her neigh- 
 bourhood, and insured her a degree of respect that 
 could not have been greater towards a queen. 
 
 LXXXVL— THE CELEBRATED CASE OF 
 ANGLADE. 
 
 (^Translated from the French, by Charlotte Smith.) 
 
 The Count of Montgomery rented part of an hotel 
 in the Rue Royale, at Paris. The ground floor and 
 first floor were occupied by him; the second and 
 third by the Sieur d'Anglade. The Count and 
 (Countess de Montgomery had an establishment 
 suitable to their rank ; they kept an almoner, and 
 several male and female servants, and their horses 
 and equipage were numerous in proportion. Mon- 
 sieur d'Anglade (who was a gentleman, though of 
 inferior rank to the count) and his wife lived with 
 less splendour, but yet with elegance and decency 
 suitable to their situation in life. They had a car- 
 riage, and were admitted into the best companies, 
 where probably Anglade increased his income by 
 play ; but on the strictest enquiry, it did not 
 appear that any dishonourable actions could be 
 imjnited to him. The Count and Countess de 
 Montgomery lived on a footing of neighbourly 
 civilitv with ISIonsieur and jNladame d'Anglade ; 
 and without being very intimate, were always on 
 friendly terms. Some time in September, lt)S7, 
 the count and countess proposed passing a few 
 days at Villeboisin, one of their country-houses : 
 they informed Monsieur and Madame d'Anglade 
 of their design, and invited them to be of the 
 party. They accepted it ; but the evening before 
 they" were to go, they for some reason or other 
 (probably because Madame d'Anglade was not very 
 well) begged leave to decline the hoiioin-, and the 
 count and countess set out without them, leaving 
 in their lodgings one of the countess's women, four 
 girls whom she employed to work for her in em- 
 broidery, and a boy who was kept to help the 
 footmen. They took with them the priest, Francis 
 Gagnard, who was their almoner, and all their 
 servants. 
 
 The coinit pretended that a strange presentiment 
 of impending evil hung over him, which determined 
 him to retiu-n to Paris a day sooner than he in- 
 tended. Certain it is, that instead of staying till 
 Thursday, as they proposed, they came back on 
 Wednesday evening. On their coming to their
 
 114 
 
 THE CELEBRATED CASE OF ANGLADE. 
 
 hotel a few moments before their servants (who 
 followed them on horseback), they observed that 
 the door of a room on the ground floor where their 
 men-servants slept was ajar, though the almoner, 
 who always kept the key, had double-locked it 
 when he went away. IVlonsieur d'Anglade, who 
 was out W'hen they came home, returned to his 
 lodgings about eleven o'clock, bringing with him 
 two friends, with whom he had supped at the Pre- 
 sident Robert's. On entering, he v.-as told that 
 the count and countess were returned, at which it 
 is said he a])pearcd much surprised. However, he 
 went into the apartment where they were, to pay 
 his compliments. They desired him to sit down, 
 and sent to beg Madame d'Anglade would join 
 them; she did so, and they passed some time in 
 conversation, after which they parted. The next 
 morning the Count de Montgomery discovered 
 that the lock of his strong box had been opened by 
 a false key, from whence had been taken thirteen 
 small bags, each containing a thousand livres in 
 silver; eleven thousand five hundred livres in gold, 
 being double pistoles ; and a hundred louis d'ors 
 of a new coinage, called au Cordon ; together with 
 a pearl necklace, worth four thousand livres. 
 
 The count, as soon as he made this discovery, 
 went to the police and preferred his complaint, de- 
 scribing the sums taken from him, and the species 
 in which those sums were. The lieutenant of the 
 police went directly to the hotel ; where, from cir- 
 cumstances, it clearly appeared that the robbery 
 must have been committed by some one who be- 
 longed to the house. Monsieur and Madame 
 d'Anglade earnestly desired to have their apart- 
 ments and their servants examined ; and from some 
 observations he then made, or some prejudice lie 
 had before entertained against Monsieur and 
 Madame d'Anglade, the lieutenant of the police 
 seems to have conceived the most disadvantageous 
 opinion of them, and to have been so far prepos- 
 sessed with an idea of their guilt, that he did not 
 sufficiently investigate the looks and the conduct 
 of others. In pursuance, however, of their desire 
 to have their rooms searched, he followed them 
 thither, and looked narrowly into their drawers, 
 closets, and boxes ; unmade the beds, and searched 
 the mattrasses and the paillasses. On the floor they 
 themselves inhabited nothing was found : he then 
 proposed ascending to the attic story, to which 
 Monsieur d'Anglade readily consented. Madame 
 d'Anglade excused herself from attending, saying 
 that she was ill and weak. However, her husband 
 •went up with the officer of justice, and all was 
 readily submitted to his inspection. In looking 
 into an old trunk filled with clothes, remnants, and 
 parchments, he found a rouleau of seventy louis 
 d'ors au Cordon, wrapt in a printed paper, which 
 printed paper was a genealogical table, which the 
 count said was his. 
 
 This seems to have been the circumstance which 
 so far confirmed the before groundless and slight 
 suspicions of the lieutenant of the police, that it 
 occasioned the ruin of these unfortunate people. 
 
 As soon as these seventy louis were brought to 
 light, the Count de Montgomery insisted upon it 
 that they were his ; though as they were in com- 
 mon circulation, it was as impossible for him to 
 swear to them as to any other coin. He declared, 
 however, that he had no doubt but that Monsieur 
 and ^Madame d'Anglade had robbed him ; and said 
 that he would answer for the honesty of all his 
 
 own people; and that on this occasion he could 
 not but recollect that the Sieur Grimaudet, who 
 had before occupied this hotel, which Monsieur 
 d'Anglade had inhabited at the same time, had lost 
 a valuable piece of plate. It was therefore, the 
 count said, very probable that d'Anglade had been 
 guilty of both the robberies, which had happened 
 in the same place while he inhabited it. 
 
 On this rouleau of seventy louis d'ors the lieu- 
 tenant of the police seized. He bid Monsieur 
 d'Anglade count them ; he did so, but terrified at 
 the imputation of guilt, and of the fatal conse- 
 quence which in France often follows the imputa- 
 tion only, his hand trembled as he did it ; he was 
 sensible of it, and said — " I tremble." This emo- 
 tion, so natural even to innocence, appeared, in 
 the eyes of the count and the lieutenant, a corro- 
 boration of his guilt. After this examination they 
 descended to the ground floor, where the almoner, 
 the page, and the valet-de-chambre were accus- 
 tomed to sleep together, in a small room. Madame 
 d'Anglade desired the officer of the police to 
 remark, that the door of this apartment had been 
 left open, and that the valet-de-chambre probably 
 knew why ; of whom therefore inquiry should be 
 made. Nothing was more natural than this ob- 
 servation ; yet to minds already prepossessed with 
 an opinion of the guilt of Anglade and his wife, 
 this remark seemed to confirm it; wheu in the 
 corner of this room, where the wall formed a little 
 recess, five of the bags were discovered which the 
 count had lost, in each of which was a thousand 
 livres ; and a sixth, from which upwards of two 
 hundred had been taken. After this, no farther 
 inquiry was made, nor any of the servants exa- 
 mined. The guilt of Monsieur and Madame 
 d'Anglade was ascertained, in the opinion of the 
 lieutenant of the police and the Count de Mont- 
 gomery ; and, on no stronger grounds than the 
 circumstance of finding the seventy louis d'ors, the 
 emotion shown by d'Anglade while he counted 
 them, and the remark made by his wife, were these 
 unfortunate people committed to prison. Their 
 effects were seized ; Monsieur d'Anglade was 
 thrown into a dungeon in the Chatelet; and his 
 wife who was with child, and her little girl about 
 four years old, were sent to Fort I'Eveque ; while 
 the strictest orders were given that no person 
 whatever should be admitted to speak to them. 
 The prosecution now commenced, and the lieute- 
 nant of the police, who had committed the unhappy 
 man, was to be his judge. D'Anglade appealed, 
 and attempted to institute a suit against him, and 
 make him a party, in order to prevent his being 
 competent to give judgment ; but this attempt 
 failed, and served only to add personal animosity 
 to the prejudice this officer had before taken up 
 against Anglade. Witnesses were examined ; but 
 far from their being heard with impartiality, their 
 evidence was twisted to the purposes of those who 
 desired to prove guilty the man they were deter- 
 mined to believe so. The almoner, Francis Gag- 
 nard, who was the really guilty person, was among 
 those whose evidence was now admitted against 
 Anglade ; and this wretch had effrontery enough 
 to conceal the emotions of his soul, and to perform 
 a mass which the count ordered to be said at St. 
 Esprit, for the discovery of the culprits. 
 
 The lieutenant of the police, elate with his tri- 
 umph over the miserable prisoner, pushed on the 
 prosecution with all the avidity which malice and
 
 THE CELEBRATED CASE OF ANGLAUE. 
 
 llo 
 
 revenge could inspire in a vindictive spirit. In 
 spite, however, of all he could do, the proofs 
 against d'Anglade were still insufficient : therefore 
 he determined to have him put to the torture in 
 hope of bringing him to confess the crime. An- 
 glade appealed, but the parliament confirmed the 
 order, and the poor man underwent the question 
 ordinary and extraordinary ; when, notwithstand- 
 ing his acute sufferings, he continued firmly to pro- 
 test his innocence, till covered with wounds, his 
 limbs ^Ijslocated, and his mind enduring yet more 
 than his body, he was carried back to his dungeon. 
 Disgrace and ruin overwhelmed him : his fortune 
 and effects were sold for less than a tenth of their 
 value, which is always the case where law presses 
 with its iron hand ; his character was blasted, his 
 health was jruined. Not naturally robust, and 
 always accustomed not only to the comforts but 
 the elegancies of life, a long confinement in a noi- 
 some and unwholesome dungeon had reduced him 
 to the lowest state of weakness. In such a situa- 
 tion he was dragged forth to torture, and then 
 plunged again into the damp and dark cavern from 
 whence he came, without food, medicine, or assist- 
 ance- of any kind, though it is usual for those who 
 suffer the torture to have medical help and re- 
 freshment after it. This excess of severity could 
 be imputed only to the malignant influence of the 
 officer of justice in whose power he now was. 
 
 From the same influence it happened that though 
 the Sieur d'Anglade, amidst the most dreadful pains 
 had steadily protested his innocence, and though 
 the evidence against him was extremely defective, 
 sentence was given to this effect : — That Anglade 
 should be condemned to serve in the galleys for 
 nine years ; tiiat his wife should for the like term 
 be banished from Paris and its jurisdiction; that 
 they should pay three thousand livres reparation 
 to the Count de Montgomery as damages, and 
 make restitution of twenty-five thousand six hun- 
 dred and seventy-three livres, and either return 
 the pearl necklace or pay four thousand livres 
 more. From this sura the five thousand seven 
 hundred and eighty livres found in the bags in 
 the servant's room were to be deducted, together 
 with the seventy louis d'ors found in the box, of 
 which the officers of justice had taken possession, 
 and also a double Spanish pistole and seventeen 
 louis d'ors found on the person of Anglade, which 
 was his own money. 
 
 Severe as this sentence was, and founded on 
 such slight presumption, it was put immediately 
 into execution. Anglade, whose constitution was 
 already sinking under the heavy pressure of his 
 misfortunes, whose limbs were contracted by the 
 dampness of his prison, and who had undergone 
 the most excruciating tortures, was sent to the 
 tower of Montgomery, there to remain without 
 assistance or consolation till the convicts con- 
 demned to the galleys were ready to go. He was 
 then chained with them — a situation how dreadful 
 for a gentleman whose sensibility of mind was ex- 
 treme, and who had never suffered (he least hard- 
 ship or difficulty till then, when he was plunged at 
 once into the lowest abyss of misery, chained 
 among felons, and condemned to the most hopcdess 
 confinement and the severest labour, without any 
 support but what he could procure from the pity 
 of those who saw him, for of his own he had now 
 nothing. Yet dreadful as these evils were, he 
 supported them with that patient firmness which 
 
 nothing but conscious innocence could have pro- 
 duced. Reduced to the extreme of human wretch- 
 edness, he felt not for himself; but when he re- 
 flected on the situation of his wife and his infant 
 daughter, his fortitude forsook him. A fever had 
 from his first confinement preyed on his frame: 
 its progress grew more rapid, and he felt his death 
 inevitable, when the galley-slaves being collected 
 to depart, he besought leave to see his wife and to 
 give his last blessing to his child, but it was denied 
 him. He submitted, and prepared to go ; hut 
 being too weak to stand he was put into a waggon, 
 whence he was lifted at night when they stopped 
 and laid on straw in a barn or out-house, and the 
 next morning carried again between two men to 
 the waggon to continue his journey. In this man- 
 ner, and believing every hour would be his last, 
 the unhappy man arrived at Marseilles. It was 
 asserted, but for the honour of human nature should 
 not be believed, that the Count de Montgomery 
 pressed his departure notwithstanding the deplor- 
 able condition he was in, and even waited on the 
 road to see him pass and enjoy the horrid spectacle 
 of his sufferings. The unhappy wife of this injured 
 man had not been treated with more humanity. 
 She had been dragged to prison, separate from that 
 of her husband, and confined in a dungeon. She 
 was with child, and the terror she had undergone 
 occasioned her to miscarry. Long fainting fits 
 succeeded, and she had no help but that of her 
 little girl, who young as she was endeavoured to 
 recall her dying mother by bathing her temples, 
 and by making her smell to bread dipped in wine. 
 But as she believed every fainting fit would be her 
 last, she implored the jailer to allovv her a con- 
 fessor : after much delay he sent one, and by his 
 means the poor woman received succour and sus- 
 tenance ; but while she slowly gathered strength, 
 her little girl grew ill. The noisome damps, the 
 want of proper food and of fresh fair, overcame the 
 tender frame of the poor child; and then it was 
 that the distraction and despair of the mother was 
 at its height. In the middle of a rigorous winter 
 they were in a cavern where no air could enter, 
 and where the damps only lined the wall ; a little 
 charcoal in an earthen pot was all the fire they 
 had, and the smoke was so offensive and danger- 
 ous that it increased rather than diminished their 
 sufferings. In this dismal place the mother saw 
 her child sinking under a disease for which she 
 had no remedies : cold sweats accompanied it, and 
 she had neither clean linen for her, nor fire to warm 
 her ; and as even their food depended on charity, 
 and they Avere not allowed to see any body, they 
 had no relief but what the ])riest from time to time 
 procured them. At length, and as a great favour, 
 they were removed to a j)lace less damj), to whidi 
 there was a little window ; but the window was 
 stopped, and the fumes of the charcoal were as 
 noxious here as in the cavern they had left. Here 
 they remained, however (Providence having pro- 
 longed their lives), for four or five months. Mon- 
 sieur d'Anglade, not being in a condition to be 
 chained to the oar, was sent to the hospital of the 
 convicts at Marseilles. His disease still preyed on 
 tlie poor remains of a ruined constitution, but his 
 sufferings were lengthened out beyond what his 
 weakness seemed to promise. It was near four 
 months after his arrival at Marseilles that, being I 
 totally exhausted, he felt his last moments ap- ' 
 proach, and desired to receive the sacramenis. 
 
 1 2
 
 IIG 
 
 THE CELEBRATED CASE OF ANGLADE. 
 
 Before they were administered to him he solemnly 
 declared, as he ho])ed to be received into the pre- 
 sence of the searcher of hearts, that he was inno- 
 cent of the crime laid to his charge ; that he for- 
 gave his inexorable prosecutor and his partial 
 judge; and felt no other regret in quitting the 
 world than that of leaving his wife and his child 
 exposed to the miseries of poverty and the disgrace 
 of his imputed crime : but he trusted his vindica- 
 tion to God, who had, he said, lent him fortitude 
 to endure the sufferings lie had not deserved ; and 
 then, after having received the eucharist with piety 
 and composure, he expired, a martyr to unjust sus- 
 picion and hasty or malicious judgment. 
 
 He had been dead only a few weeks, when seve- 
 ral persons who had known him received anony- 
 mous letters. The letters signified that the person 
 who wrote them was on the point of hiding him- 
 self iu a convent for the rest of his life ; but before 
 lie did so, his conscience obliged him to inform 
 whom it might concern, that the Sieur d'Anglade 
 was innocent of the robbery committed in the apart- 
 ments of the Count de IVIontgomery ; that the per- 
 petrators were one Vincent Belestre, the son of a 
 tanner of Mans, and a priest named Gagnard, a 
 native also of Mans, who had been the count's 
 almoner. The letters added that a woman of the 
 name of De la Comble could give light into the 
 whole affair. One of these letters was sent to the 
 Countess de jNIontgomery, who however had not 
 generosity enough to show it ; but the Sieur Loy- 
 sillon and some others, who had received at the 
 same time the same kind of letters, determined to 
 inquire into the affair: while the friends of the 
 Count de Montgomery, who began to apprehend 
 that he would be disagreeably situated if his prose- 
 cution of Anglade should be found unjust, pre- 
 tended to discover that these letters were dictated 
 by Madame d'Anglade, who hoped by this artifice 
 to deliver her husband's memory from the odium 
 which rested on it, and herself and her child from 
 the dungeon in which they were still confined. 
 An inquiry was set on foot after Belestre and Gag- 
 nard, who had some time before quitted the count's 
 service. It was found that Belestre was a consum- 
 mate villain, who had in the early part of his life 
 been engaged in an assassination, for which he was 
 obliged to fly from his native place ; that he had 
 been a soldier, had killed liis sergeant in a quarrel, 
 and deserted ; then returning to his own country, 
 had been a wandering vagabond going by different 
 names, and practising every species of roguery ; 
 that he had sometimes been a beggar and some- 
 times a bully about the streets of Paris, but always 
 much acquainted and connected with Gagnard, 
 his countryman ; and that suddenly from the low- 
 est indigence he had appeared to be in affluence, 
 had bought himself rich clothes, had shown vari- 
 ous sums of money, and had purchased an estate 
 near Mans, for which he had paid between nine 
 and ten thousand livres. 
 
 Gagnard, who was the son of the gaoler of Mans, 
 had come to Paris without either clothes or money, 
 and had subsisted on charitj' or by saying masses 
 at St. Esprit, by which he hardly gained enough 
 to keep him alive, when the Count de Montgomery 
 took hirn. It was impossible what he got in his 
 service as wages could enrich him, yet immediately 
 after quitting it he was seen clothed neatly in his 
 clerical habit; his expenses for his entertainments 
 were excessive ; he had plenty of money in his 
 
 pockets, and had taken a woman out of the street, 
 whom he had established in handsome lodgings 
 and clothed with the greatest j)rofusion of finery. 
 These observations alone, had they been made in 
 time, were sufficient to have opened the way to a 
 discovery which might hsve saved the life and re- 
 deemed the honour of the unfortunate Anglade. 
 Late as it was, justice was now ready to overtake 
 them, and the hand of Providence itself seemed to 
 assist. Gagnard, being in a tavern in the street St. 
 Andre des Arcs, was present at a quarrel wherein 
 a man was killed : he was sent to prison with the 
 rest of the people in the house ; and about the 
 same time a man who had been robbed and 
 cheated by Belestre near three years before, met 
 him, watched him to his lodgings, and put him 
 into the hands of the Marechaussee. These two 
 wretches being thus in the hands of justice for 
 other crimes, underwent an examination relative 
 to the robbery of the Count de Montgomery : they 
 betrayed themselves by inconsistent answers. Their 
 accomplices were apprehended, and the whole 
 affair now appeared so clear, that it was only asto- 
 nishing how the criminals could ever have been 
 mistaken. The guardians of Constantia Guelli- 
 mot, the daughter of Anglade, now desired to be 
 admitted parties in the suit on behalf of their ward, 
 that the guilt of Belestre and Gagnard might be 
 proved, and the memory of Monsieur d'Anglade 
 and the character of his widow justified ; as well 
 as that she might, by fixing the guilt on those who 
 were really culpable, obtain restitution of her 
 father's eff'ects, and amends from the Count de 
 Montgomery. She became through her guardian 
 prosecutrix of the two villains, the principal wit- 
 ness against whom was a man called the Abbe de 
 Fontpierre, who had belonged to the association of 
 thieves of which Belestre was a member. This 
 man said that he had written the anonymous let- 
 ters which led to the discovery, for that after the 
 death of Anglade his conscience reproached him 
 with being privy to so enormous a crime. He 
 swore that Belestre had obtained from Gagnard 
 the impressions of the count's keys in wax, by 
 which means he had others made that opened the 
 locks. He said that soon after the condemnation 
 of Anglade to the galleys, he was in a room ad- 
 joining to one where Belestre and Gagnard were 
 drinking and feasting ; that he heard the former 
 say to the latter, " Come, my friend, let us drink 
 and enjoy ourselves, while this fine fellow, this 
 Marquis d'Anglade, is at the galleys." To which 
 Gagnard replied, with a sigh, "Poor man, I can- 
 not help being sorry for him : he was a good kind 
 of man, and was always very civil and obliging to 
 me." Belestre then exclaimed, with a laugh, 
 " Sorry ! what, sorry for a man wlio has secured 
 us from suspicion, and made our fortune?" Much 
 other discourse of the same kind he repeated. And 
 De la Comble deposed that Belestre had shown 
 her great sums of money and a beautiful pearl 
 necklace ; and when she asked him where he got 
 all this, he answered that he had won it at play. 
 These and many other circumstances related by 
 this woman confirmed his guilt beyond a doubt. 
 In his pocket were found a Gazette of Holland, in 
 which he iiad (it was supposed) caused it to be 
 inserted that the men who had been guilty of the 
 robbery for which the Sieur d'Anglade had been 
 condemned, were executed for some other crime at 
 Orleans, hoping by this means to stop any farther
 
 STORY OF RENEE CORBEAU. 
 
 nv 
 
 inquiry. A letter was also found on him from 
 Gag-nard, which advised him of the rumours which 
 were spread from the anonymous letters, and de- 
 sired him to find some means to quiet or get rid 
 of the Abbe Fontpierre. 
 
 The proof of the criminality of these two men 
 being fully established, they were condemned to 
 death ; and being previously made to undergo the 
 question ordinary and extraordinary, they con- 
 fessed,, Qagnard upon the rack and Belestre at the 
 place of execution, that they had committed the 
 robbery. Gagnard declared that if the lieutenant 
 of the police had pressed him with questions the 
 day that Anglade and his wife were taken up, he 
 was in such confusion he should have confessed all. 
 These infamous men having suffered the punisli- 
 ment of their crime, Coustantia Guillemot d'An- 
 glade continued to prosecute the suit against the 
 Coinit de Montgomery for Ihe unjust accusation he 
 had made, who endeavoured, by the chicane which 
 his fortune gave him the power to command,, to 
 evade the restitution. At length, after a very long 
 process, the court decided that the Count de Mont- 
 gomei-y should restore to the widow and daughter 
 of Anglade the sum which their effects and all 
 the property that was seized had produced ; that 
 he should further pay them a certain sum as amends 
 for the damages and injuries they had sustained ; 
 and that their condemnation should be erased and 
 their honours restored : which, though it was all 
 the reparation that could now be made them, could 
 not bind up the incurable wounds they had suffered 
 in this unjust and cruel persecution. 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Anglade, whose destiny excited 
 universal commiseration, was taken into the pro- 
 tection of some generous ptnsons about the court, 
 who raised for her a subscription, which at length 
 amounted to a hundred thousand livres, which, to- 
 gether with the restitution of her father's effects, 
 made a handsome provision for her, and she was 
 married to Monsieur des Essarts, a councillor of 
 parliament. 
 
 LXXXVII.— STORY OF RENEE 
 CORBEAU. 
 
 ( Translated from the French, by Charlotte Smith.) 
 
 A YOUNG man, a native of Seez in Normandy, of 
 noble parents, studied the law at Angers. He 
 there saw Renee Corbeau, the daughter of a trades- 
 man of the town, and under a promise of marriage 
 seduced her. Her situation was soon such as made 
 it necessary to acquaint her parents with her en- 
 gagement, who sought for means to oblige her 
 lover to perform those promises which had induced 
 Renee to listen to him. 
 
 Doubting that he would, if possible, evade them, 
 the parents thought it might be necessary to em- 
 ploy artifice. They therefore pretended to take a 
 journey, and as soon as they believed the lovers 
 were together returned suddenly upon them, aiid 
 reproaching the young man with liaving seduced 
 their daughter, insisted instantly on his making 
 the only reparation in his jjowcr by signing a con- 
 tract of marriage, with which a notary was pre- 
 pared who was ready in the house. The young 
 man signed the deed ; but feeling himself unwor- 
 thily treated in being thus sur|)ris('d into an en- 
 gagement which he had never refused to perform, 
 he went imwicdiately to his father, to whom lie re- 
 
 lated all that had happened. The father, yet more 
 enraged than the son, persuaded him to take priest's 
 orders as the only way to avoid completing a mar- 
 riage so dishonourable, and so contrary to his inte- 
 rest ; and this advice he hastily embraced. The 
 unfortunate girl, thus abandoned by her faithless 
 lover, commenced, together with her parents, a suit 
 against him for seduction. He was in consequence 
 arrested, and the affair was brought before the 
 parliament at Paris. 
 
 The sentence, after long pleading on both sides, 
 was that the young man should either marry Renee 
 Corbeau or be beheaded : as his being a priest 
 made the former impossible, he was to suffer 
 death. 
 
 He was delivered to the executioner ; the fatal 
 moment was at hand, and the priest attended to 
 perform the last duties, when Renoe Corbeau flew 
 to the place where his judges were yet sitting, and 
 making her way through tlie crowd besought per- 
 mission to speak, and a moment's suspension of 
 the dreadful punishment about to be inflicted on 
 her lover. 
 
 The judges, struck with her beauty and distress, 
 consented to hear her ; and with the simple and 
 afi'ecting eloquence of nature she pleaded for his 
 life. She represented that they undoubtedly thought 
 her more unhappy than guilty, since they punished 
 with death him who was supposed to have betrayed 
 her ; but that such a sentence, far from repairing 
 her misfortune, would render it irreparable by tak- 
 ing from her the only person who could restore her 
 honour, and instead of doing her justice would 
 condemn her to tears and remorse for the rest of 
 her life, and would leave her to endless regret 
 when she reflected that her fatal love had been the 
 occasion of his death for whom only she wished to 
 live. 
 
 She besought those among her judges who had 
 ever been sensible of the force of love to put them- 
 selves for a moment in her situation, and to reflect 
 what they would themselves suffer, wliere they to 
 be deprived of the object of their affections by a 
 cruel death, and to know themselves tiie occasion 
 of it. " For it is," said she, " I who have armed 
 the iron hand of law against him ; 'tis I who am 
 his executioner ; and 'tis I who, infinitely more 
 unhappy than he is, am condemned to exist under 
 infamy, and to carry Avith me to the grave the 
 dreadful reflection of having murdered him by the 
 excess of my attachment." 
 
 Though the holy orders into which he had en- 
 tered prevented his marrying her, she I'epresented 
 that they had been compulsive, and made only 
 through fear of a violent and imperious father, but 
 that a dispensation might be obtained to dissolve 
 them : she therefore implored the judges to sus- 
 pend the execution of the sentence for a time, that 
 her lover might take measures to annul his reli- 
 gious vows and become her liusband. 
 
 The court, affected by her tears and despair, 
 were induced to grant a respite for six months ; 
 and as a legate from the pope was expected in 
 France, she flattered herself she would obtain from 
 him permission for her lover to renounce the eccle- 
 siastical habit and marry her. 
 
 But the Cardinal de Medicis, who was the legate 
 that soon after arrived, was so irritated against the 
 young man for having sacrilegiously embraced holy 
 orders only to evade an engagement which his 
 honour and his conscience, as well as every human
 
 118 
 
 EXECUTION OF EARL FERRERS. 
 
 law, urgeil him to fulfil, that he absolutely refused 
 to grant the dispensation, and the unhappy Renue 
 Corheau was again driven to despair, llonry IV., 
 that excellent mouareh, was then on the throne : 
 his ears were ever open to the complaints of his 
 subjects, and when youth and beauty pleaded there 
 was little doubt of redress from his compassion, 
 though his justice was silent. Renee Corbeau 
 threw herself at the king's feet, and the king, inte- 
 rested by lier figure and situation, very soon suf- 
 fered hiiuself to be prevailed upon. He ordered 
 that a dis])ensation might be granted : it was im- 
 mediately expedited, and the lover, thus snatched 
 from impending destruction, was married to his 
 mistress. They lived together many years in the 
 most perfect union, the husband always remember- 
 ing with the tenderest gratitude that he owed his 
 life and the honour of his family to the ati'ection 
 and attachment of his wife. 
 
 LXXXYIII. — HORACE WALPOLE'S AC- 
 COUNT OF THE EXECUTION AND BE- 
 HAVIOUR OF EARL FERRERS. 
 
 IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND IN ITALY. 
 
 [There can be no doubt that the unhappy sub- 
 ject of this narrative was a man with a very dis- 
 eased state of blood ; but it is so hazardous to 
 pronounce whether such men are or are not to be 
 treated as insane, aud the line is so difficult to be 
 drawn between the responsible and irresponsible 
 degrees of morbidity, that the treatment of them 
 forms one of the problems of legislation. The truth 
 is, that in this, as in so many other cases, the 
 general system of moral and social training must 
 be improved, before security can be looked for in 
 the particular. See the novel of ' Ferrers,' from 
 the pen of Mr. Charles Oilier, a writer with a 
 genius for the domestic and the fearful.] 
 
 What will your Italians say to a peer of England, 
 of one of the best families, tried for murdering his 
 servant with the utmost dignity and solemnity, and 
 then hanged at the common place of execution for 
 highwaymen, and afterwards anatomised ■? This 
 must seem a little odd to them ; especially as they 
 have not lately had a Sixtus Quintus. I have 
 hitherto spoken of Lord Ferrers to you as a wild 
 beast, a mad assassin, a low wretch, about whom I 
 had no curiosity. If I now am going to give you 
 a minute account of him, don't think me so far 
 part of an English mob as to fall in love with a 
 criminal, merely because I have had the pleasure 
 of his execution. I certainly did not see it, nor 
 should have been struck with mere intrepidity. — I 
 never adored criminals, whether in a cart or a tri- 
 umphal car — but there has been such wonderful 
 coolness and sense in all this man's last behaviom-, 
 that it has made me quite inquisitive about him — 
 not at all pity him. I only reflect, what I have 
 often thought, how little connection there is be- 
 tween any man's sense and his sensibility — so 
 much so, that instead of Lord Ferrers having any 
 ascendant over his passions, I am disposed to think 
 that his drunkenness, which was supposed to 
 heighten his ferocity, has rather been a lucky cir- 
 cumstance. What might not a creature of such 
 capacity, and who stuck at nothing, have done, if 
 his abilities had not been drowned in brandy 1 I 
 
 will go back a little into his history. His misfor- 
 tunes, as he called them, were dated from his mar- 
 riage, though he had been guilty of horrid excesses 
 unconnected with matrimony, and is even believed 
 to have killed a groom who died a year after re- 
 ceiving a cruel beating from him. His wife, a 
 very pretty woman, was sister of Sir William 
 Meredith,* had no fortune, and, he says, trepanned 
 him into marriage, having met him drunk at an 
 assembly in the country, and kept him so till the 
 ceremony was over. As he always kept himself so 
 afterwards, one need not impute it to her. In every 
 other respect, and one scarce knows how to blame 
 her for wishing to be a countess, her behaviour 
 was unexceptionable. f He had a mistress before, 
 and two or three children, and her he took again 
 after the separation from his wife. He was fond 
 of both, and used both ill : his wife so ill, always 
 carrying pistols to bed, and threatening to kill her 
 before morning, beating her, and jealous without 
 provocation, that she got separated from him by 
 act of parliament, which appointed receivers of his 
 estates in order to secure her allowance. This he 
 could not bear. However he named his steward 
 for one, but afterwards finding out that this John- 
 son had paid her fifty pounds without his know- 
 ledge, and suspecting him of being in the confede- 
 racy against him, he determined, when he failed 
 of opportunities of murdering his wife, to kill the 
 steward, which he effected as you have heard. 
 The shocking circumstances attending the murder 
 I did not tell you — indeed while he was alive, I 
 scarce liked to speak my opinion even to you ; for 
 though I felt nothing for him, I thought it wrong 
 to propagate any notions that might interfere with 
 mercy, if he could be thought deserving it — and 
 not knowing into what hands my letter might pass 
 before it reached yours, I chose to be silent, though 
 nobody could conceive greater horror than I did 
 for him at his trial. Having shot the steward at 
 three in the afternoon, he persecuted him till one 
 in the morning, threatening again to murder him, 
 attempting to tear off his bandages, and terrifying 
 him till in that misery he was glad to obtain leave 
 to be removed to his own house ; and when the 
 earl heard that the poor creature was dead, he said 
 he gloried in having killed him. You cannot con- 
 ceive the shock this evidence gave the court. 
 Many of the lords were standing to look at him — 
 at once they turned from him with detestation. I 
 have heard that on the former affair in the House 
 of Lords he had behaved with great shrewdness — 
 no such thing appeared at his trial. It is now 
 pretended that his being forced by his family 
 against his inclination to plead madness prevented 
 his exerting his parts ; but he has not acted in 
 anything as if his family had influence over him — 
 consequently his reverting to much good sense 
 leaves the whole inexplicable. The very night he 
 received sentence, he played at picquet with the 
 warders, and would play for money, and would 
 have continued to play every evening, but they 
 refused. Lord Cornwallis, governor of the Tower, 
 shortened his allowance of wine after his convic- 
 tion, agreeably to the late strict acts on murder. 
 
 * Sir William Meredith, Bart., of Hanbury, iu Cheshire. 
 The title is now extinet 
 
 + Slie afterwards married Lord Frederick Camphell, bro- 
 ther of tlie Duke of Ar^'vle, and was an excellent woman. 
 She was nnfortunately burned to death at Lord Frederick's 
 seat, Comlie Bank, iu Kent.
 
 EXECUTION OF EARL FERRERS. 
 
 iiy 
 
 This he much disliked, and at last pressed his 
 brother the clergyman to intercede, that at least 
 he might have more porter ; " for," said he, " what 
 I have is not a draught." His brother represented 
 against it, but at last consenting (and he did obtain 
 it) — then said the earl, " Nov? is as good a time as 
 any to take leave of you — adieu!" A minute 
 journal of his Avhole behaviour has been kept, to 
 see if there was any madness in it. Dr. Munro 
 since the trial has made an affidavit of his lunacy. 
 The XVashingtons were certainly a very frantic 
 race ; and I have no doubt of madness in him, but 
 not of a pardonable sort. Two petitions from his 
 mother and all his family were presented to the 
 king, who said as the House of Lords had unani- 
 mously found him guilty, he would not interfere. 
 Last week, my Lord Keeper very good-naturedly 
 got i>ut of a gouty bed to present another : the king 
 would not hear him. " Sir," said the keeper, " I 
 don't come to petition for mercy or respite ; but 
 that the 4000^. which Lord Ferrers has in India 
 bonds may be permitted to go according to his 
 disposition of it to his mistress, children, and the 
 family of the murdered man." " With all my 
 heart," said the king, " I have no objection ; but 
 I will have no message carried to him from me." 
 However, this grace was notified to him and gave 
 him great satisfaction ; but unfortunately, it now 
 appears to be law that it is forfeited to the sherilf 
 of the county where the fact was committed; 
 though when my Lord Hardwicke was told that 
 he had disposed of it, he said, " To be sure he may 
 before conviction." 
 
 Dr. Fearce, bishop of Rochester, offered his ser- 
 vice to him : he thanked the bishop ; but said, as 
 his own brother was a clergyman, he chose to have 
 him. Yet he had another relation who has been 
 much more busy about his repentance. I don't 
 know whether you have ever heard that one of the 
 singular characters here is a Countess of Hunting- 
 don,* aunt of Lord Ferrers. She is the Saint 
 Theresa of the Methcdists. Judge how violent 
 bigotry must be in such mad blood ! The earl, by 
 no means disposed to be a convert, let her visit 
 him, and often sent for her, as it was more com- 
 pany ; but he grew sick of her, and complained 
 thai she was enough to provoke anybody. She 
 made her suffragan, Whitfield, pray for and preach 
 about him ; and that impertinent fellow told his 
 enthusiasts in his sermon, that my lord's heart was 
 stone. The earl wanted much to see his mistress ; my 
 Lord Cornwallis, as simple an old woman as my 
 Lady Huntingdon herself, consulted whether he 
 should permit it. " Oh '. by no means ; it would 
 be letting him die in adultery '." In one thing she 
 was more sensible. He resolved not to take leave 
 of his children, four girls, but on the scaffold, and 
 then to read to them a paper he had drawn up, 
 very bitter on the family of Meredith, and on the 
 House of Lords for the first transaction. This my 
 Lady Huntingdon persuaded him to drop; and he 
 took leave of his children the day before. He 
 wrote two letters in the preceding week to Lord 
 Cornwallis, on some of these requests ; they were 
 cool and rational, and concluded w itl) desiring 
 him not to mind the absurd requests of his (Lord 
 
 • Lady Selina Shirley, daughter of an Earl Ferrers. 
 
 Seliiia Shirley, second daughter and eo-heiri'ss of Wahliing- 
 
 fon Earl Ferrers, and widow of Theophilua lI;L.>tings, ninth 
 
 earl of tluntingdon. .She was the peculiar putroiietis of 
 
 I enthusiasts of all sorts in religion. 
 
 Ferrers's) family in his behalf. On the last morn- 
 ing he dressed himself in his wedding clothes, and 
 said, *' He thought this at least as good an occasion 
 of putting them on, as that for which they were 
 first made." He wore them to Tyburn. This 
 marked the strong impression on his mind. His 
 mother wrote to his wife in a weak, angry style, 
 telling her to intercede for him as her duty, and to 
 swear to his madness. But this was not so easy ; 
 in all her cause before the Lords she had persisted 
 that he was not mad. 
 
 Sir William Meredith and even Lady Hunting- 
 don had prophesied that his courage would fail 
 him at last, and had so much foundation, that it is 
 certain Lord Ferrers had often been beat : — but 
 the Methodists were to get no honour by him. His 
 courage rose where it was most likely to fail, — an 
 unlucky circumstance to prophets, especially when 
 they have had the prudence to have all kind of pro- 
 bability on their side. Even an awful procession 
 of above two hours, with that mixture of pageantry, 
 shame, and ignominy, nay, and of delay, could not 
 dismount his resolution. He set out from the Tower 
 at nine amidst crowds, — thousands. First went a 
 string of constables ; then one of the sheriffs, in his 
 chariot and six, the horses dressed with ribbons ; 
 next Lord Ferrers, in his own landau and six, his 
 coachman crying all the way ; guards on each 
 side ; the other sheriff's carriage followed empty, 
 with a mourning coach-and-six, a hearse, and the 
 Horse Guards. Observe, that the empty chariot 
 was that of the other sheriff, who was in the coach 
 with the prisoner, and who was Vaillant, the French 
 bookseller in the Strand. 
 
 How will you decypher all these strange circum- 
 stances to Florentines ? A bookseller in robes and 
 in mourning, sitting as a magistrate by the side of 
 the Earl ; and in the evening, everybody going to 
 Vaillant's shop to hear the particulars. I wrote to 
 him, as he serves me, for the account ; but he in- 
 tends to print it, and I will send it you with some 
 other things, and the trial. Lord Ferrers first 
 talked on indifferent matters, and observing the 
 prodigious confluence of people (the blind was 
 drawn up on his side), he said,—" But they never 
 saw a lord hanged, and perhaps will never see 
 another." One of the dragoons w;is thrown by his 
 horse's leg entangling in the hind wheel : Lord 
 Ferrers expressed much concern, and said, — " I 
 hope there will be no death to-day but mine;" and 
 was pleased when Vaillant made excuses to him 
 on his office. " On the contrary," said the earl, 
 " I am much obliged to you. I feared the dis- 
 agreeableness of the duty might make you depute 
 your under-sheriff. As you are so good as to exe- 
 cute it yourself, I am persuaded the dreadful appa- 
 ratus will be conducted with more expedition." 
 The chaplain of the Tower, who sat backwards, 
 then thought it his turn to speak, and began to 
 talk on religion ; but Lord Ferrers received it 
 impatiently. However the chaplain persevered,' 
 and said he wished to bring his lordship to some 
 confession or acknowledgment of contrition for a 
 crime so repugnant to the laws of God and man, 
 and wished him to endeavour to do whatever could 
 be done in so short a time. The earl replied, — 
 He had done everything he proposed to do with 
 regard to God and man ; and as to discourses on 
 religion, " you and I, sir," said he to the clergyman, 
 " shall probably not agree on that subject. The 
 passage is very short ; you will not have time to
 
 120 
 
 THE TWINS OF RAVENNA. 
 
 convince me, nor 1 to refute you ; it cannot be 
 ended before we arrive." The clergyman still in- 
 sisted, and urged that at least the world would 
 expect some satisfaction. Lord Ferrers replied 
 with some impatience, — " Sir, what have I to do 
 with tlie world ! I am going to pay a forfeit life, 
 which my country has thought proper to take from 
 me. "What tlo I care now what the world thinks 
 of me? But, sir, since you do desire some confes- 
 sion, I will confess one thing to you ; I do believe 
 there is a God. As to modes of worship, we had 
 better not talk on them. I always thought Lord 
 Bolingbroke in the wrong to publish his notions 
 on religion. I will not fall into tiie same error.'' 
 The chaplain, seeing it was in vain to make any 
 more attempts, contented himself with represent- 
 ing to him that it would be expected from one of 
 his calling, and that even decency required, that 
 some prayer should be used on the scaffold, and 
 asked his leave at least to repeat the Lord's Prayer 
 there. Lord Ferrers replied, — " I always thought 
 it a good prayer ; you may u^e it if you please." 
 
 While these discourses were passing, the proces- 
 sion was stopped by the crowd. The earl said he 
 was dry, and wished for some wine and water. 
 The sheriff said he was sorrj' to be obliged to 
 refuse him. By late regulations they were enjoined 
 not to let prisoners drink from the place of im- 
 prisonment to that of execution, as great indecen- 
 cies had been formerly committed by the lower 
 species of criminals getting drunk. " And though," 
 said he, " my lord, I might think myself excusable 
 in overlooking this order out of regard to a person 
 of your lordship's rank, yet there is another reason 
 which I am sure will weigh with you. Your lord- 
 ship is sensible of the greatness of the crowd ; we 
 must draw up to some tavern; the confluence 
 would be so great that it would delay the expedi- 
 tion which your lordship seems so much to desire." 
 He replied he was satisfied, adding. — "Then I 
 must be content with this," and took some pig- 
 tail tobacco out of his pocket. As they went on, a 
 letter was thrown into his coach ; it was from his 
 mistress, to tell him it was impossible, from the 
 crowd, to get her up to the spot where he had 
 appointed her to meet and take leave of him, but 
 that she was in a hackney-coach of such a number. 
 He begged Yaillant to order his officers to try to 
 get the hacknej -coach up to his. " My lord," 
 said Yaillant, " you have beliaved so well hitherto, 
 that I think 'tis pity to venture unmanning your- 
 self." He was struck, and was satisfied with see- 
 ing her. As they drew nigh he said, '• I perceive 
 we are almost arrived ; it is time to do what little 
 more I have to do ;" and then taking out his watch 
 gave it to Yaillant, desiring him to accept it as a 
 mark of Jiis gratitude for his kind behaviour, add- 
 ing, " It is scarce worth your acceptance ; but I 
 have nothing else ; it is a stop watch, and a pretty 
 accurate one." He gave five guineas to the chap- 
 lain, and took out as much for the executioner. 
 Then giving Yaillant a pocket-book, he begged 
 him to deliver it to Mrs. Clifford his mistress, with 
 what it contained, and with his most tender regard, 
 saying, " The key of it is to the watch, but 1 am 
 persuaded you are too much a gentleman to open 
 it."' He destined the remainder of the money in 
 his purse to the same person, and with the same 
 tender regards. 
 
 When they came to Tyburn, his coach was de- 
 tained some minutes by the conflux of people ; but 
 
 as soon as the door was opened, he stepped out 
 readily, and mounted the scatibid : it was hung 
 with black by the undertaker, and at the expense 
 of his family. Under the gallows was a new-in- 
 vented stage, to be struck from under him. He 
 showed no kind of fear or discomposure, only just 
 looking at the gallows with a slight motion of dis- 
 satisfaction. He said little, kneeled for a moment 
 in prayer, said " Lord have mercy upon me, and 
 forgive me my errors," and immediately mounted 
 the upper stage. He had come pinioned with a 
 black sash, and was unwilling to have his hands 
 tied or his face covered, but was persuaded to 
 both. When the rope was put round his neck he 
 turned pale, but recovered his countenance in- 
 stantly, and was but seven minutes from leaving 
 the coach to the signal given for striking the stage. 
 As the machine was new, they were not ready at 
 it ; his toes touched it, and he suffered a little, 
 having had time by their bungling to raise his 
 cap ; but the executioner pulled it down again and 
 they pulled his legs, so that he was soon out of 
 pain, and quite dead in four minutes. He desired 
 not to be stripped and exposed, and Yaillant pro- 
 mised him, though his clothes must be taken off, 
 that his shirt should not. This decency ended 
 with him : the sheriffs fell to eating and drinking 
 on the scaffold, and helped up one of their friends 
 to drink with them, as he was still hanging, which 
 he did for above an hour, and then was conveyed 
 back with the same pomp to Sui-geon's Hall to be 
 dissected. The executioners fought for the rope, 
 and the one who lost it cried. The mob tore off 
 the black cloth as relics ; but the universal crowd 
 behaved with great decency and admiration, as they 
 well might, for sure no exit was ever made with 
 more sensible resolution and with less ostentation. 
 If I have tired you by this long narrative, you 
 feel differently from me : the man, the manners of 
 the country, the justice of so great and curious a 
 nation, all to me seem striking, and must, I believe 
 be more so to you, who have been absent long 
 enough to read of your own country as history. 
 
 In a subsequent letter, Walpole says — 
 That wonderful creature Lord Ferrers, of whom 
 1 told you so much in my last, and with whom I 
 am not going to plague you much more, made one 
 of his keepers read ' Hamlet' to him the night 
 before his death, after he was in bed — paid all his 
 bills before the morning, as if leaving an inn ; 
 and half an hour before the sheriffs fetched him, 
 corrected some verses he had written in the Tower, 
 in imitation of the Duke of Buckingham's epitaph, 
 Dubius sed non improbtis vixi. What a noble 
 author have I here to add to my catalogue I 
 
 LXXXIX.— THE TWINS OF RAYENNA. 
 
 [This elegant and interesting couple, brother 
 and sister, are supposed to have been the earliest 
 engravers, and printers of engraving, in Europe. 
 Their youth, their early death, and their accom- 
 plishments, make up a story which has the air of 
 being fictitious, especially as their works are no 
 longer extant ; though the book which first con- 
 tained the following account of them is thought to 
 be still discoverable in the library of the Yatican. 
 The narrative was transcribed by I'apillon, a wood- 
 engraver of the last century, a man of a grave and
 
 THE TWINS OF RAVENNA. 
 
 121 
 
 good reputation ; and it is credited by the Abate 
 Zani, and by Mr. George Cumberland, from the 
 last of which writers we have copied it. The en- 
 gravings were on the subject of Alexander and his 
 exploits, were done on wood, and designed and 
 executed by the parties at the age of sixteen, to be 
 given to their friends. Papillon says they were 
 " tolerably designed ;" and that the impression of 
 the whole, descriptive letter-press and all (appa- 
 rently the first proof from the block), was " of a 
 pale bill? colour, and seemed to have been done 
 with the hand only, passed several times over the 
 paper that rested upon the blocks ; the cavities of 
 the words, ill-cleared in some places, had given out 
 a stain in parts, and blotted the paper, which was 
 a litth' brown ; which occasioned the writing the 
 following words on the margin (of the frontis- 
 piece) : — ' It will be necessary to cut deeper the 
 grounds of these blocks, in order that the paper in 
 printing may no longer touch them.' " This was 
 inscribed in Gothic Italian, and " was undoubt- 
 edly by the hand of the Chevalier Cunio, or his 
 sister." The " tolerable designing"' will be ex- 
 cused by the early date of the curious performances, 
 said by Papillon to have been executed between 
 the years 1284 and 1285! Add to this the youth 
 of the parties, and their early disappearance from 
 the world, followed by the sister's lover, and the 
 whole appears a dream of Raphaelesque grace and 
 anticipation.] 
 
 The young and amiable Cunios, twins, brother and 
 sister, were the first children born to the Count de 
 Cunio by a noble and beautiful young lady of 
 Yerona, allied to the Pope Honorius IV., who 
 was then a cardinal. It Avas a love match against 
 the wishes of her parents ; who on the discovery of 
 it, by her pregnane}', dissolved the marriage, and 
 discarded the priest who had married them. This 
 noble young lady fearing the anger of her father 
 and that of the young Cunio, took refuge with one 
 of her aunts, near Ravenna, where she was delivered 
 of these twins : nevertheless, the elder Count 
 Cunio, from his affection to his sou (whom he 
 had forced to espouse another noble lady) per- 
 mitted them to take the care of bringing up the 
 children, which was ])erformed with all imaginable 
 tenderness and attention to their good education, 
 not only on the part of the count himself, but also 
 on that of the wife of his son, who conceived so 
 warm an affection for Isabella Cunio as to love 
 and cherish her as if she had been her own child. 
 Neither was the boy, Alexander Alberic. less 
 beloved ; who as well as his sister possessed con- 
 siderable talents and was of an amiable character ; 
 both profiting under their teachers, particuhiily 
 Isabella, who at thirteen was considered as a pro- 
 digy, for she understood and wrote Latin, com- 
 posed verses, and had become acquainted with 
 geometry and music, playing on several instru- 
 ments : she had also begun to design, and painted 
 very tolerably, with both taste and delicacy ; whilst 
 the brother, who was emulous of equalling her, 
 was constrained to confess that he could never 
 attain to her perfection. He was nevertheless one 
 of the most amiable young men in Italy, hand- 
 some as his sister, possessing a courageous, lofty, 
 and noble mind, and the talent rarely seen of 
 bringing to perfection whatever he undertook. 
 Hence they formed the delight of their parents, 
 \\ho so perfectly loved them that their cares or 
 
 pleasures were equally shared. At fourteen the 
 youth had acquired the art of horsemanship, prac- 
 tised the use of arms, and all the exercises of a 
 young man of quality, having learned Latin and 
 painting well. 
 
 The troubles of Italy having obliged his father 
 to take up arms, at his repeated entreaties he was 
 allowed to make his first campaign under his 
 eyes, and he had the command of a brigade of 
 twenty-five gentlemen, with whom as his first 
 essay, he attacked, forced, and compelled to take 
 to flight, after a vigorous resistance, near two 
 hundred of the enemy ; but his valour having 
 urged him too far, he found himself surrounded 
 by several of tlie fugitives, from whom, however, 
 he by his unequalled bravery disengaged himself, 
 ■■vithout any further harm than being wounded in 
 his left arm. His father, who was flying to his 
 succour, met him possessed of a flag of the ene- 
 my, which he had wrapped round his wounded 
 limb, and embracing him, full of joy at his 
 courageous conduct, he resolved to reward his 
 valorous deeds by making him (what indeed 
 he was entitled to from birth), a knight, on the 
 field of battle. He gave him therefore the accolade 
 on the spot where he had merited it by his reso- 
 lution ; and the youth, overcome with joy at the 
 honour conferred on him before the troops com- 
 manded by his father (already Count de Cunio by 
 the decease of his own), wounded as he was, 
 demanded and obtained immediate permission to 
 go and present himself to his mother, in order to 
 communicate to and partake with her the glory 
 and honours he had acquired ; the which leave 
 was more readily granted, as it afforded the count 
 an opportunity of manifesting to that noble and 
 afflicted lady (who had always remained with her 
 aunt, a few miles from Ravenna), the love and 
 esteem he always entertained for her, and which 
 he would certainly have realised by re-establishing 
 her in her former rights by a public espousal, if he 
 had not been obliged to retain that other wife 
 which his father had imposed on him, and by 
 whom he had several children. 
 
 The young knight now took leave, escorted by 
 the remainder of his troop, cf which eight or ten 
 had been killed or wounded ; and in this state and 
 honourable company (which disphiyed his merits 
 wherever he passed) he arrived at his mother's 
 abode, who gladly detained him two days ; after 
 which, at Ravenna, he paid his respects to the 
 wife of his father, who was so charmed by his 
 noble conduct and flattered by the attentions he 
 fhowed her, that she, in person, conducted him to 
 the chamber of his sister Isabella, not a little 
 alarmed at seeing his arm in a sling, and detained 
 him a few days in the city: but impatient to re- 
 turn to his father, in order to engage in new ex- 
 ploits, he took his departure before he was entirely 
 cured of his wounds. 
 
 The count his father, however, blamed him for 
 not having dismissed his corps and re-established 
 himself at Ravenna, forbidding him to serve during 
 the remainder of the camjiaign ; and a short time 
 after, when his arm was jjerlVctly cured, he sent 
 him back, alleging pleasantly that he could not 
 allow him to surpass others during the short time 
 they were likely to be in action. 
 
 A little time after it was that Isabella and him- 
 self commenced the composition, and worked to- 
 gether at tlie pictures, of " The Deeds of Alex-
 
 122 
 
 THE TRAGI-COMEDY OF THE MAJOR-DOMO. 
 
 aiuler." He afterwards made a second campaign 
 with his father, and returned to the painting con- 
 jointly with his sister, who attempted to reduce 
 them, and engrave them on wooden blocks ; after 
 which they were completed and printed, and pre- 
 sented to Pope Honorius, their relations and 
 friends. Then he joined the army a fourtli time, 
 accompanied by a young nobleman, named Pan- 
 dulpho, who, a professed admirer of the amiable 
 Isabella, Jjad determined to signalize himself in 
 battle, in order to become more wortliy of her 
 hand ; but this last campaign was a fatal one for 
 the illustrious youth Cunio, who was killed by 
 several cuts from a sword of the enemy, close to 
 his friend, who was also dangerously wounded in 
 defending bim. 
 
 The death of her beloved brother so affected 
 Isabella (who was now not nineteen) that slie 
 refused to marry, and died of a languishing sorrow 
 before she was twenty ; and her death was soon 
 followed by that of her lover, who had always 
 hoped by his affectionate attentions to induce the 
 talented and beautiful girl to render him happy. 
 
 The mother also expired soon after, unable to 
 support the double loss of two such dear and 
 amiable children ; and the count, who had been 
 cruelly aiHicted by the death of his favourite son, 
 expected that he too must sink after his angelic 
 daughter ; also the countess, who tenderly loved 
 her, fell ill from chagrin, and nothing but the 
 greatness of his soul hindered the count from the 
 same consequences. Happily the countess re- 
 covered by degrees, and some years after the 
 generous Count de Cunio gave my grandfather 
 these prints of the Deeds of Alexander, bound in 
 the ancient and gothic style — the covers made of 
 blocks of wood, covered by skin flowered in com- 
 partments and stamped with a hot iron, and with- 
 out gilding : the worms had entered and pierced it 
 in many places, and I have added to it the sheet 
 of paper on which I have inscribed this story. 
 
 XC— THE TRAGI-COMEDY OF THE 
 MAJOR-DOMO. 
 
 [A major-domo killing himself because there 
 was a deficiency in the dishes at his master's table 
 cannot but give us some ludicrous sensations in 
 the midst of our pity : yet that poor Yatel found 
 nothing ludicrous in his position is too certain ; 
 and in order to sympathize with the purely grave 
 sympathy which his fate seems to have excited, we 
 must pitch our imaginations into the court of 
 Louis XIV., where royalty was almost literally 
 worshipped, and the orders of nobility and his 
 other servants environed him (not to speak it pro- 
 fanely) in the manner of the celestial hierarchies; 
 the dukes being the cherubs, and those also par- 
 taking of the reflection of his dignity who, as 
 Milton says of his ministering angels, 
 
 " Only stand and wait." 
 
 If Racine died of dejection at the loss of Louis's 
 favour, it may be allowed to a major-domo to kill 
 himself out of an appreliension of it. 
 
 And see how gravely the office was estimated in 
 
 those days. One hardly knows whether Madame 
 
 de Sevigne is serious or bantering when she speaks 
 
 of Vatel as a "great" man, and one capable of 
 
 ! governing a state. But at any rate he had all the 
 
 delicacy and high sense of honour which was 
 thought peculiar to high station. 
 
 " Vatel," said the prince, in order to console 
 him for the deficiency of the roast meat, " nothing 
 could be more admirable than his majesty's supper." 
 
 " Your royal highness's goodness," replied Vatel, 
 " C07n2detes my unhappiness. I am soisible that 
 the roast meat was wanting at tioo tables." 
 
 Then there is a want of fish, and this want of 
 fish is the " last feather that breaks the horse's 
 back." However, we must not anticipate the 
 narrative of Madame de Sevigne. Poor Vatel was 
 most likely a very bilious gentleman, whose repu- 
 tation for worth and dignity had given him some- 
 what too profound a sense of what was expected 
 of him, and whose bad general state of health 
 made his impatience overflow at this otherwise 
 trifling jog given to the cup of his calamities. 
 
 It is as if a tragedy had been introduced in the 
 corner of one of the pictures of Watteau. Imagine 
 a feast " all over jonquils" — " all enchantment," as 
 Madame de Sevigne describes it, and then this 
 strange tnock-heroical spout of blood suddenly 
 bringing horror upon it, and staining its dandy 
 coat l] 
 
 " THE MARCHIONESS DE SEVIGNE TO HER DAUGH- 
 TER THE COUNTESS DE GRIGNAN. 
 
 "Friday evening, 24th April, 1671. 
 
 " From Monsieur de la Rochefoucault's. 
 "Well, here I make up my packet. I intended 
 to acquaint you that the king got yesterday to 
 Chantilli. He hunted a stag by moonlight: the 
 lamps did wonders, but the fireworks were a little 
 eclipsed by the brightness of our friend ; but in 
 fine the evening, the supper, and the entertain- 
 ment went off admirably well. The weather we 
 had yesterday gave us hopes of an end worthy of 
 so fine a beginning ; but what do you think I 
 learnt when 1 came here ? I am scarcely recovered 
 as yet, and hardly know how to tell it you : Vatel, 
 the great, the ingenious Vatel, late maitre d'hotel 
 to M. de Fouquet, and now in that situation with 
 the prince, a man so eminently distinguished for 
 capacity, and whose abilities were equal to the go- 
 vernment of a state, this man, whom I knew so 
 well, at eight o'clock this morning finding that the 
 salt-water he had sent for did not come at the time 
 he expected it, and unable to bear the disgrace 
 that he thought would inevitably befall him, ran 
 himself through with his own sword. You may 
 easily judge what a confusion so shocking an acci- 
 dent must have occasioned. Think too, that per- 
 haps the water might come in just as he was ex- 
 piring. I know no more of the affair at present, 
 and I suppose you think this full enough, I make 
 no doubt ; but everything was in the greatest con- 
 fusion. It must be very disagreeable to have an 
 accident of this kind break in upon an entertain- 
 ment that cost 50,000 crowns. 
 
 " Monsieur de Menars is to be married to Ma- 
 demoiselle de la Grange Neuville ; but 1 don't 
 know how I come to have the heart to speak to 
 you about anything but Vatel." 
 
 " Paris, Sunday, April 26, 1671. 
 
 " This is Sunday, 26th April, and this letter will 
 
 not go out till Wednesday; but it is not a letter: 
 
 it is an account that I had from Moreuil of what 
 
 passed at Chantilli with regard to Vatel. I wrote
 
 SHARP-SIGHTEDNESS OF A BLIND MAN. 
 
 123 
 
 to you last Friday that he had stabbed himself: 
 you have here the whole particulars of that affair. 
 The king arrived there on Thursday night : the 
 walk, the collation, which was served in a place 
 set apart for the purpose, and strewed with jon- 
 quils, were to their wish ; they went to supper, 
 but the roti was wanting at one or two of the 
 tables, by reason of their having been obliged to 
 provide several dinners more than were expected. 
 This seized Vatels spirits, and he was heard to say 
 several times ' I have lost my honour — I cannot 
 bear this disgrace — my head is quite giddy.' Said 
 he to Gourville, ' I have not had a wink of sleep 
 these twelve nights : I wish you would assist me in 
 giving orders.' Gourville did all he could to com- 
 fort and assist him, but the want of the roti (which 
 however did not happen at the king's table, but 
 bnnie of the other twenty-five), was always upper- 
 most with him. Gourville mentioned it to the 
 prince, who was so good as to go directly to Yatel's 
 apartments, and told him ' Everything is ex- 
 tremely well, Vatel : nothing could be more admi- 
 rable than his majesty's supper.' ' Your highness's 
 goodness,' re[died he, ' coni|)letes my unhappiness : 
 I am sensible that the roti was wanting at two 
 tables.' ' There is nothing in it. man,' said the 
 priace : ' do not perplex yourself, and all will go 
 well.' Midnight came — the fireworks did not suc- 
 ceed, they were covered with a thick cloud : they 
 cost 16,000 francs. At four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing Vatel went everywhere about, and found all 
 fast asleep ; he meets one of the under purveyors, 
 who was just come in with only two loads of 
 water. ' What,' says he, ' is this all"? ' ' Yes, sir,' 
 said the man, not knowing that Vatel had dis- 
 patched other people to all the seaports about. 
 Vatel waited for some time, no other purveyors 
 arrived, his head grew confused, he thought there 
 was no more water to be had. He flies to Gour- 
 ville : ' Sir,' says he, ' I cannot outlive this disgrace.' 
 Gourville laughed at him ; but however away he 
 goes to his apartment, and setting the hilt of his 
 sword againt the door, ran himself through the 
 heart at the third stroke, having first given himself 
 two wounds, which were not mortal. Just at that 
 instant the carriers arrived from all parts with the 
 water : Vatel was inquired for to distribute it ; 
 they ran to his room, knocked at the door, but 
 could make no one answer : upon which it was 
 broken open, and there he was found stretched 
 out and weltering in his blood. A messenger was 
 immediately dispatched to acquaint the prince witli 
 what had happened, who was just at his wits end 
 about it. The duke wept, for his Burgundy jour- 
 ney all depended upon Vatel. The prince related 
 the whole aft'air to his majesty with great concern. 
 It was looked upon as the consequence of a too 
 nice sense of honour in his way : some blamed 
 him, others praised him for this instance of cou- 
 rage. The king said he had put off this excur- 
 sion for above five years, because he was very sen- 
 sible what an infinite deal of trouble it must be 
 attended with, and told the prince he ought to 
 have had but two tables, and not be at the charge 
 of all, and declared he would never suffer him to 
 do the like again: but all this was too late for poor 
 Vatel. However Gourville endeavoured to supply 
 the loss of Vatel, which he did in great measure. 
 The dinner was elegant, the collation the same : 
 they supped, they went a walking, they hunted — 
 all was perfumed with jonquils, all was enchant- 
 
 ment. Y^esterday, which was Saturday, there was 
 the same over again, and in the evening the king 
 set out for Liancourt, where he had ordered a 
 niedia-noche : * he is to stay there three days. This 
 is what Moreuil told me, hoping I would acquaint 
 you with it. I wash my hands of the rest, for I 
 know nothing about it. M. d'Hacqueville, who 
 was present at the whole, will no doubt give you a 
 faithful relation of all that passed ; but nevertlieless 
 I write too, because his hand is not quite so legible 
 as mine, and the reason of my sending you so 
 many little circumstances is, because, were I in 
 your place, I should like them on such an oc- 
 casion." 
 
 XCI.— SHARP-SIGHTEDNESS OF A 
 BLIND MAN. 
 
 [The following story, ■which is a good commen- 
 tary on Solomon's saying, " The wise man's eyes 
 are in his head," is to be found in books of fiction ; 
 but if we are to take "the word of a prince" it 
 belongs to Real Life. The exordium gives it the 
 greater air of truth, inasmuch as the royal narrator 
 tells it of one of his own followers. The story, 
 says our authority, Camerarius, is mentioned by 
 Antonio di Palermo, thus : — ] 
 
 I LEARNT (says he) of King Alphonso that there 
 was a Sicilian born blind living still at that time in 
 the citie Gergenti, who had followed him often- 
 times a hunting, showing to the huntsmen (who 
 had their sights well ynough) the retraits and re- 
 pairing places of the wild beasts. Hee added fur- 
 ther, touching the Industrie of this blind man, that 
 having by his sparing and scraping gotten together 
 about five hundred crowns, which put him to a great 
 deal of care, he resolved (at least) to hide them in 
 a field. As he was making a hole in the ground 
 to that end, a gossip of his, being his neighbour, 
 espied him, who as soon as the blind man was 
 gone, searched in the earth, found the money, and 
 carried it cleane away. Two or three days after, 
 the blind man returning thither to visit his cash, 
 and finding nought there, like one altogether for- 
 lorne, he frets and torments himself, and after 
 much debating and discoursing concludes that no 
 man but his gossip could have plaied him such a 
 tricke. Whereupon, finding him out, he thus began 
 to say unto him, " Gossip, 1 am come to you to have 
 your opinion : I have one thousand crowns, and 
 the one-half of them I have hid in a safe place, 
 and for the other half I know not what to doe 
 with them, having not my sight, and being very 
 unfit to keej) any such thing ; tiierefore what ihinke 
 you : might I not hide the other half with the rest, 
 in the same place of safetie ? " The gossip approved 
 and commended his resolution, and going speedily 
 to the place carried back again the five hundred 
 crowns tliat he had taken away before, hojiing that 
 he should have all the whole thousand together. 
 A while after the blind man goes to his hole, and 
 finding there his crownos againe took them u]), 
 and coming home calleth for his gossip, saying 
 unto him with a cheerful voice, " Gossip, the blind 
 man hath seen better than he that hath two eyes." 
 
 * Media-ntwhe is u ilobh-meal just al'lt-r mi(lnif,'lil amoiif; 
 tlii^ Runian Catliolics.
 
 1J4 
 
 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS, THE POISONER. 
 
 XCII.— A TRAGEDY OF ABSURDITY. 
 
 {From the same Author.) 
 
 We read (saith Benianlin Scardeon) that in the 
 family of Liinino, at Padua, there were once two 
 brothers, who being on a sonimcrs day in tlie coun- 
 trey, went abroad after supper, talking togither of 
 many things. As they were standing and gazing 
 upon the stars that twinckled in the skie, being 
 then verie cleere, one of them began in merriment 
 to say to the other, " Would I had as many oxen 
 as I see stars in yond firmament." The other an- 
 swers him presentley, " And would I had a pasture 
 as wide as the firmament ;" and therewith turning 
 to his brother saith unto him " Where wouldst 
 thou feed thy oxen?" " Marrie, in thy pasture," 
 quoth his brother. "But how if I would not let 
 thee ? " said the other. •' I would (quoth the first), 
 whether thou wouldst or not." " What (replied 
 the second), in spite of my teeth V " Y'ea (an- 
 swers the other), whatsoever thou couldst doe to 
 the contrarie." Hereupon their sport turnes to 
 outragious words, and at last to furie, the one still 
 oiFering to be louder than the other, that in the 
 end they drew their swords, and fell to it so hot- 
 ley, that in turne of a hand they ran one another 
 thorow the bodie, so that the one fell one way and 
 the other another way, both weltering in their blood. 
 The j)eople of the iiouse hearing the bustle ran 
 towards them, but came too late, and carrying 
 them into the house, they both soon after gave up 
 the ghost. 
 
 XCIII. — THE MARCHIONESS OF BRIN- 
 VILLIERS, THE POISONER: 
 
 WITH NOTICES OF HER BY MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 
 
 [In the plaster-cast shops is a small, delicate, 
 plump little hand, dimpled and beautiful, which is 
 sold to artists as a model. You take it in yours, 
 handle it, admire it, almost fancy you are shaking 
 hands with the good-humoured and festive little 
 personage to whom it must have belonged. Y'ou 
 ask whose it was. and are told that it was that of 
 Madame de Brinvilliers, the famous poisoner. You 
 recoil as if you had been handling a toad. 
 
 We have mentioned this circumstance before, 
 perhaps more than once ; but we like to repeat it, 
 because it is salutary to see how beautiful beauty 
 is by nature, but how ugly it becomes when na- 
 ture is contradicted and moral deformity pollutes 
 it. If beauty does not represent goodness of na- 
 ture, it becomes something more offensive than 
 ugliness itself, because the contradiction seems 
 more monstrous. The woman seems turned to a 
 snake, a serpent, a witch : her smoothness growb 
 horrible, the beauty of her eyes becomes ghastly. 
 
 In such an excessive case, however, as that of 
 the miserable creature before us, we have always 
 the consolation of knowing that such enormity 
 must be a madness. There must be a deficiency 
 somewhere in her very conformation, most likely in 
 the brain, a want of something that bestows the 
 humanity common to others. Such a beauty is 
 merely a case which ouglit to have contained the 
 human being, but did not : it is nothing but a 
 moving and living mask. How came the soul to 
 be forgotten 1 AV'hat perversity of parentage or 
 nurture was it, that caused such a frightful dif- 
 ference from the kindly nature of the species ? 
 
 The following narrative is taken from the bio- 
 
 graphical dictionaries ; but we have added to it, 
 from ' Sevigne's Letters,' the lively notices of the 
 case as it was going forward, from the pen of that 
 charming writer. The reader is thus thrown back 
 into the time in which the horrors occurred, and 
 becomes one of the contemporaries that gossipped 
 and talked about it. We take the passages from 
 the translation, not having the original by us. J 
 
 Marguerite d'Aubrai, Marchioness of Brinvil- 
 liers, was born at Paris in 1651, being the daughter 
 of d'Aubrai, lieutenant-civil of Paris, who mar- 
 ried her to N. Gobelin, Marquis of Brinvilliers. 
 Although possessed of attractions to captivate 
 lovers she was for some time much attached to her 
 husband, but at length became madly in love with 
 a Gascon oflficer, named Goden St. Croix, who had 
 been introduced by the marquis, who was the ad- 
 jutant of the regiment of Normandy. Her father 
 being informed of this affair imprisoned the officer, 
 who was altogether an adventurer, in the Bastile, 
 where he was detained a year : a circumstance 
 which induced the marchioness to be more out- 
 wardly circumspect, but at the same time to nou- 
 rish the most implacable hatred to her father and 
 her whole family. While in the Bastile, St. Croix 
 learnt from an Italian, named Exili, the art of 
 composing the most subtle and mortal poisons, and 
 the result on his release was the destruction by 
 this means, in concurrence with his mistress, of 
 her father, sister, and two brothers : all of whom 
 were poisoned in the same year, 1670. During all 
 this time the marchioness was visiting the hospi- 
 tals, outwardly as a devotee, but as was afterwards 
 strongly suspected, really in order to try on the 
 patients the effects of the poisons produced by 
 her paramour. The discovery of these monstrous 
 criminals was made in a very extraordinary 
 manner. While at work in distilling poison, St. 
 Croix accidentally dropped the glass mask which 
 he wore to prevent inhaling the noxious vapour, 
 and the consequence was his instant death. No- 
 body claiming his effects, they fell into the hands 
 of government, and the marchioness had the im- 
 ])rudence to lay claim to a casket, and appeared so 
 anxious to obtain it, that the authorities ordered 
 it to be opened : when it was found to be full of 
 packets of poisons, with ticketed descriptions of 
 the different effects which they would produce. 
 Informed of the opening of the casket, the execra- 
 ble woman made her escape to England, whence 
 she passed to Liege, where she was arrested and 
 conducted to Paris. Being tried, she was con- 
 victed of the murder of her father, sister, and bro- 
 thers, and condemned to be beheaded and burnt. 
 In this dreadful situation she evinced extraordi- 
 nary courage, amounting almost to nonchalance. 
 On entering the chamber in which she was to be 
 put to the question by the torture of swallowing 
 water, she observed three buckets-full prepared, 
 and exclaimed, •' It is surely intended to drown 
 me, for it is absurd to suppose that a person of my 
 dimensions can swallow all that." She listened to 
 her sentence without exhibiting either weakness or 
 alarm, and showed no other emotion on her way 
 to execution than to request she might be so placed 
 as not to see the officer who had apprehended her. 
 She also ascended unaided and barefoot up the 
 ladder on to the scaffold. This woman, after all, 
 possessed some sense of religion : she went regu- 
 larly to confession ; and when arrested at Liege a
 
 THE MARCHIONESS OF P.RIN VILLIERS, THE POISONER. 
 
 12a 
 
 sort of general form was found in her possession, 
 whicli sufficiently alluded to her criminality to 
 form a strong presumption against her. What 
 adds to the atrocity of this wretch's character, she 
 was proved to have had connexions with many 
 persons suspected of the same crimes, and to liave 
 provided poisons for the use of others. Many per- 
 sons of quality lost their lives ahout this ])eriod, 
 and the investigation seemed likely to lead to the 
 discovery of so much guilt in this way, that it was 
 political!.}; but disgracefully put an end to. It was 
 su]iposed'that the indifference of the Marquis of 
 Brinvilliers to his wife's conduct induced her to 
 spare one so much in her power. She suffered on 
 tlie 1 7th July, 1676. 
 
 PASSAGES RELATIVE TO BRINVILLIERS, FROM THE 
 LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 
 
 " Paris, Wednesday, April 29th, 1676. 
 "Madame de Brinvilliers is not so much at her 
 ease as I : she is in prison. She endeavours to 
 pass her time there as pleasantly as she can, and 
 desired yesterday to play at piquet, because she 
 was very dull. They have fovuid her confession. 
 She informs us that at the age of seven years she 
 ceased to be a virgin, and that she had ever since 
 went on at the same rate ; that she had poisoned 
 her father, her brothers, one of her children, and 
 herself, but the last was only to make trial of an 
 antidote. Medea has less of this guilty skill. She 
 has owned this confession to be her own writing : 
 it was an unaccountable folly, but she says she 
 was in a high fever when she writ it ; that it is a 
 frenzy, an extravagance, which does not deserve to 
 be read seriously." 
 
 "Paris, Friday, May 1st, 1676. 
 " Nothing is talked of here but the transactions 
 and behaviour of Madame Brinvilliers. Could one 
 ever have thought of her forgetting the murder of 
 her father at confession 1 and then the peccadilloes 
 that she was afraid of forgetting were admirable. 
 She was in love, it seems, with this same Salute 
 Croix, she wanted to marry him, and for that pur- 
 pose gave her husband poison two or three dif- 
 ferent times. Sainte Croix, who did not care to 
 have a wife as wicked as himself, gave the good 
 man a dose of counter-poison : so that after being 
 bandied about between them, sometimes poisoned, 
 sometimes unpoisoned again, he at last is actually 
 making intercession for his dear rib. Oh, there is 
 no end of some people's follies 1" 
 
 " From Nemours, Friday, 26th June 1G76. 
 
 * * * S-' * 
 
 " She told me that she expected Mademoiselle 
 de Fiennes, and that she had heard that La Brin- 
 villiers had impeached a number of people, and 
 
 named 'the Chevalier de B , Mesdames de 
 
 G , and JMesdames de CI , as having poi- 
 soned Madame : nothing more. I believe all this 
 to be very false ; but it is very troublesome and 
 vexatious to be obliged to clear oneself of such 
 accusations. This she-devil has strongly accused 
 Penautier, who is thrown into prison beforehand. 
 The affair takes up all the attention of Paris, to 
 the prejudice of news from the army." 
 
 " Paris, Wednesday, 1st July, 1070. 
 ***** 
 
 " But now I shall return to the foolish piece of 
 
 news that Madame de Fiennes told me at Mon- 
 targis. There was not the least mention made of 
 Mesdames de CI , de G , nor of the Che- 
 valier de B : nothing could be more false. 
 
 Penautier was confined in Ravailliac's dungeon for 
 nine days, where he was almost killed, upon which 
 they removed him. His affair is a very disagree- 
 able one. He has powerful protectors: the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris and M. Colbert support him 
 openly ; but if La Brinvilliers continues to harass 
 him much longer, nothing can save him." 
 
 « Paris, Friday, July 3rd, 1676. 
 ***** 
 
 La Brinvilliers' affair still goes on in the same 
 manner. She communicated her poisons in pigeon 
 pies, by which a great many were killed ; not 
 that she had any particular reasons for making 
 away with them, but only did it out of mere cu- 
 riosity to try the effects of her drugs. The Che- 
 valier du Guet, who had been partaker of all these 
 pretty entertainments about three years ago, has 
 been languishing ever since. She inquired the 
 other day if he was dead : upon being answered 
 ' No ;' she said, turning her head on one side, 
 ' He must have a very stout constitution then.' 
 This M. de la Rochefoucault swears to be true." 
 
 "Paris, Wednesday, July 8, 1676, 
 
 5f- »!• "F # '(! 
 
 " I have sent M.d'Ormisson to desire the first 
 president to grant me an audience, but it seems he 
 cannot do it till after La Brinvilliers' trial is over. 
 Who would have thouglit that our affair should 
 have clashed with hers '? Poor Penautier's de- 
 pends entirely on hers ; but wherefore poison poor 
 Maturel, who had a dozen children ? To me his 
 disorder appears to have been very violent, and in 
 nowise sudden nor resembling the effects of poison ; 
 however, this engrosses the whole conversation 
 here at present. There has been found a hogs- 
 head of poisoned wine, of which six or seven 
 persons have already died." 
 
 " Paris, Friday, July 10, 1676. 
 * * * * * 
 
 " Penautier has been confronted with La Brin- 
 villiers. It was a very melancholy interview : 
 they were wont to meet upon more agreeable 
 terms. She has so repeatedly declared that if she 
 was to die she would make many others die with 
 her, that it is hardly to be doubted that she will 
 draw this poor wretch in to be a sharer of her 
 fate ; or at least to be put to the question, which is 
 a dreadful thing. The man has a prodigious num- 
 ber of friends, and tiiose of great consequence, 
 whom he has formerly had opportunities of ob- 
 liging, while he was in possession of his two 
 places: they leave no stone unturned to serve him, 
 and money Hies about in quantities u])on the occa- 
 sion ; but if he should be cast, nothing can possibly 
 save him." 
 
 "Paris, Friday, July 17, 1676. 
 
 " At length it is all over — La Brinvilliers is in 
 the air ; after her execution her jjoor little body 
 was thrown into a great fire, and her ashes dis- 
 persed by the wind : so that whenever we breathe 
 we shall draw in some particles of her, and by the 
 communication of the minute spirits we may be 
 all infected with an itch for poisoning, to our no 
 smtdl surprise. She was condemned yesterday, 
 and this morning her sentence was read to her,
 
 1?G SINGULAR DETECTION, AND SUDDEN AND FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE. 
 
 which was, to perform the ame7)de honorable in the 
 church of Notre Dame ; and after that to have her 
 liead severed from her body, her body burnt, and 
 her ashes thrown into the air. They were for 
 putting her to the torture ; but she told them there 
 was no occasion, for that she would confess every- 
 thing. Accordingly she was till five o'clock in the 
 evening relating the passages of her life, which 
 has been more shocking than was ever imagined. 
 She has poisoned her father no less than ten 
 times running, but without being able to destroy 
 him ; as likewise her brother, and several others, 
 and all was under the appearance of the greatest 
 love and confidence. She has said nothing against 
 Penautier. Notwithstanding this confession, they 
 gave her the question, ordinary and extraordinary, 
 the next morning, but this extorted nothing more 
 from her. She desired to speak with the pro- 
 curator-general : no one as yet knows the subject 
 of this conversation. At six o'clock she was car- 
 ried in a cart, stripped to her shift, with a cord about 
 her neck, to the church of Notre Dame, to perform 
 the amende honorable. After that was over she 
 was put again into the same cart, where I saw her 
 lying at her length on a truss of straw, only her 
 shift and a suit of plain headclothes, with a con- 
 fessor on one side and a hangman on the other : 
 indeed, my dear, the sight made me shudder. 
 Those who saw the execution say that she mounted 
 the scaffold with great courage. As for me, I was 
 on the bridge of Notre Dame with good d'Escars : 
 never, sure, was there such a concourse of people 
 seen, nor the attention of a whole city so fixed 
 upon any one event ; yet ask many people what 
 they have seeni Why, they will tell you they 
 have seen no more than I have done, the end of a 
 sinner ; but, in short, this whole day has been de- 
 dicated to the sight of this tragedy. I shall know 
 more particulars to-morrow, and you shall have 
 them at secondhand." 
 
 "Paris, Wednesday, 22ud July, 1676. 
 " Let me entertain you with a little more of the 
 history of La Briuvilliers. She died as she lived, 
 that is to say, very resolutely. She entered the place 
 where she expected to have been put to the torture, 
 and on seeing the preparations she said, ' They 
 certainly intend to drown me, for considering the 
 smallness of my size they can never pretend to 
 make me drink so much.' She heard her sen- 
 tence read to her without the least token of fear 
 or weakness, only towards the latter end of it she 
 desired them to begin it again, telling them that 
 the circumstance of the cart had struck her, and 
 made her lose her attention to the rest. In the way 
 to the exe'jution she desired her confessor to place 
 the executioner before her, that she might not, as 
 she said, have the sight of that rascal Desgrais, 
 who had taken her. He was before the cart on 
 horseback : her confessor reproved her for that 
 Kcndment, upon which she asked pardon, and 
 submitted to endure that disagreeable sight. She 
 mounted the ladder and the scaffold alone, and 
 with her naked feet ; and the executioner was a 
 quarter of an hour in dressing, shaving, and 
 ordering her for the execution, in an abusive 
 manner, which caused a great murmur among 
 the crowd, and was reckoned a great cruelty. 
 The next day her bones were gathered up as 
 relics, by the people, who said she was a saint. 
 She had two confessors, one of whom told her 
 
 I that she ought to reveal everything ; the other, 
 I that she ought not: she laughed at this diversity 
 I of opinion between the learned fathers, and said 
 I she believed she might very conscientiously do 
 I which of the two she pleased, and it pleased her 
 I to reveal nothing. By this means Penautier is 
 come off a little whiter than snow ; however, the 
 j public is not contented, and seems still to enter- 
 I tain some slight suspicion. But see the misfor- 
 tune of it : this creature refused to reveal what 
 they wanted to know, and told what nobody 
 demanded of her. For example, she said that 
 
 M. F had sent Glaser, the apothecary they 
 
 employed in preparing their poisons, into Italy, 
 to procure an herb, which is, it seems, a choice 
 ingredient in their mysterious compositions ; and 
 that she had heard of this pious pilgrimage of 
 his at Sainte Croix. You see what pains is taken 
 to load this miserable wretch with crimes, and to 
 finish his ruin ; but the truth of this information 
 is much suspected." 
 
 " Paris, Wednesday, 29th July, 1676. 
 " The world is extremely partial ; its partiality 
 has appeared even in the case of La Brinvilliers. 
 Never were such horrid crimes treated so favour- 
 bly : she was not put to the question : they even 
 gave her hopes of a pardon, and such hopes that 
 she did not expect to die ; nay, even when she was 
 mounting the scaffold, she asked whether it was in 
 earnest ? At length, her ashes are dispersed by the 
 wind : her confessor says she is a saint 1" 
 
 XCIV. — SINGULAR DETECTION, AND 
 SUDDEN AND FRIGHTFUL CATA- 
 STROPHE. 
 
 [This is almost the only thing worth reading in 
 a book which made some noise in its day, and which 
 exhibited the following extraordinary title-page : — 
 ' Memoirs and Anecdotes of Philip Thicknesse, 
 late Governor of Land-Guard Fort, and unfortu- 
 nately. Father to George Totichet, Baron Aiidley.' 
 Thicknesse was a flighty man, whose imprudence 
 exasperated a hasty, but apparently not bad dis- 
 position, and embroiled him with a number of 
 people ; among \\ hom were his own children. 
 The account of his squabbles are accordingly mere 
 exparte statements ; but there seems no reason to 
 doubt the truth of the striking and appalling cir- 
 cumstance before us. The Ford he speaks of was 
 his own father-in-law, a solicitor ; and the event 
 must have taken place too nearly within the recol- 
 lection of many persons, to render it probable that 
 he would have falsified it.] 
 
 The late Mr. Ford, a gentleman well acquainted 
 with the law, and the modes of discovering and 
 detecting infamous villains, was sent for by a 
 foreign minister, to trace a villain who had forged 
 his name and drawn large sums out of the hands 
 of his banker. Mr. Ford, observing that the 
 forged notes were all spelt according to auricular 
 orthography, instantly conceived that the forgery 
 was committed by a foreigner ; and soon after 
 strongly suspected the ministers own secretary 
 (then present), to be the forger. With this man, 
 however, he was left by the minister to consider 
 what were the most prudent steps to be taken to 
 make a discovery. After a little conversation 
 between them, Mr. Ford proposed inserting adver- 
 tisements in all the public papers, offering therein
 
 A VICTIM TO THE BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 127 
 
 a reward to the discoverer ; to which the secretary 
 very readily agreed : but Mr. Ford, under the 
 pretence of having left his spectacles at home, 
 desired the secretary to write, and that he would 
 dictate ; and so contrived it, that he introduced 
 into the advertisements every word which in the 
 forged drafts had been spelt according to auricular 
 orthography ; and as every word tallied to a tittle, 
 Mr. Ford retired, satisfied in his own mind that 
 he had discovered the man. The advertisements 
 were, however, printed in the public papers ; and 
 about a fortnight afterwards Mr. Ford wnited 
 upon the minister, but found only the secretary 
 at home. After mutual civilities, Mr. Ford placed 
 himself nearly v/s-a-vis to the secretary, who 
 asked him whether he had discovered the forger 1. 
 Mr. Ford, looking the secretary stedfastly in the 
 face, replied, — " I have.'' He then perceived 
 such a sudden change of countenance, that as 
 soon as the secretary had so far recovered his 
 alarm as to ask him, " Who is the man 1" Mr. 
 Ford, clapping his hand violently upon the knee 
 of the secretary, said — " You, sir, are the man !" 
 Conscious guilt struck him to the soul, and the 
 window being near and open he instantly jumped 
 out, and impaled himself upon the iron rails 
 before the door. 
 
 XCV.— A VICTIM TO THE BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 [From ' Travels in Spain,' by the Countess 
 d'Aunois, the lively authoress of the ' Fairy Tales.' 
 Some of her narratives in these travels are said to 
 be too much allied to her Fairy Tales ; but from 
 the romantic and impassioned nature of the 
 Spanish character, there seems no reason to doubt 
 the authenticity of the one before us.] 
 
 A CAVALIER of birth passionately loved a young 
 woman, who was only a jeweller's daughter, but a 
 perfect beauty, and heiress to a great estate. This 
 cavalier having understood that the most furious 
 bulls of the mountains were taken, and thinking 
 it would be a most glorious action to vanquish 
 them, resolved to tanrize, as they call it ; and for 
 that purpose desired leave of his mistress. She 
 was so surprised at the bare proposal, that she 
 swooned away ; and by all that power which he 
 had given her over himself, she charged him not 
 to think of it, as he valued his life. But in spite 
 of this charge, he believed he could not give a 
 more ample proof of his love, and therefore pri- 
 vately caused all things necessary to be got 
 ready. But as industrious as he was to hide his 
 design from his mistress, she was informed of it, 
 and used all means to dissuade him. In fine, the 
 day of the feast being come, be conjured her to be 
 there, and told her that her very presence would 
 be suflficient to make him conquer, and to acquire a 
 glory which would render him yet more worthy of 
 her. *' Your love," said she, " is more ambitious 
 than it is kind ; and mine is more kind than it is 
 ambitious. Go where you think glory calls you ; 
 you have a mind I should be there, you will fight 
 before me ; well, I do assure you that I will be 
 there ; but yet perhaps my presence will afford 
 you more matter of trouble than emulation." 
 However, he left her and went to the Pla^a- 
 mayor, where there was already a vast assembly ; 
 but scarcely had he begun to defend himself 
 against the fierce bull which assaulted him, when 
 
 a country youth threw a dart at this terrible 
 creature, which pierced him so deep that it ])ut him 
 to a great deal of pain. He immediately left the 
 cavalier that was fighting him, and roaring, ran 
 directly after him by whom he was wounded. 
 The youth thus frightened would have saved 
 himself, when his cap fell off, and then the love- 
 liest and longest hair which could be seen ap- 
 peared upon his shoulders, and this discovered the 
 combatant to be a maid of about fifteen or sixteen 
 years of age. Fear had put her in such a trem- 
 bling, that she could neither run, nor any way 
 avoid the bull. He gave her a desperate push on 
 the side, at the same instant her lover knew that 
 it was she, and was running to assist her. Good 
 God! what a grief it was for him to see his dear 
 mistress in this sad condition! Passion trans- 
 ported him ; he no longer valued his life, but grew 
 more furious than the bull itself, and performed 
 things almost incredible. He was mortally 
 wounded in divers places. On this day, certainly, 
 the people thought the baiting fine. They car- 
 ried these unfortunate lovers to her unhappy 
 father's house ; they both desired to be in the 
 same chamber, and though they had but a short 
 time to live, yet begged the favour they might be 
 married. Accordingly, they were married ; and 
 since they could not live together, yet at least 
 they were buried together in one and the same 
 grave. 
 
 XCVI.— THE MOTHER ACCORDED WITH 
 AND MADE MISERABLE. 
 
 [From Mr. Leitch Ritchie's 'Journey to St. 
 Petersburg and Moscow,' in Heath's ' Pic- 
 turesque Annual' for 1836, — a volume of genuine 
 amusement and information.] 
 
 I WAS invited to the consecration of a church 
 eighty or ninety versts distant (from Moscow), 
 and the lady who did me the favour was even 
 kind enough to send horses for me ; but in con- 
 sequence of some unfortunate equivoque, I had 
 otherwise disposed of myself. I regretted this 
 much, for tlie circumstances had in them not a 
 little of the strange and romantic. 
 
 The lady was born Countess OrlofT, and is a 
 niece of the famous Prince Gregory Orloft', who is 
 supposed to have been privately married to the 
 Empress Catherine II. She married, contrary to 
 the wish of her family, a nobleman of rank 
 inferior to her own, by whom she had one child, 
 a son. This boy grew up everything that a parent 
 could wish. Brave, handsome, generous, of the 
 highest blood of the country, and the heir of 
 immense wealth, he was beloved or flattered by 
 all ; but he was the idol of his mother. 
 
 In due time the young man loved ; but the lady, 
 although the daughter of a nobleman high in the 
 army, was not considered a match for him. The 
 mother, whose maternal pride and ambition were 
 thus menaced, was thrown into consternation. 
 She begged, prayed, threatened — all in vain : the 
 youth was firm. She at length yielded : for he 
 was her son, her only child, the one being in 
 whom her hopes, her aflections, her life were 
 centred. 
 
 But during the struggle his determination had 
 survived his constancy. His inother's tears, ex- 
 postulations, and reasoning — perhaps his more
 
 128 
 
 THE STORY OF COUCY. 
 
 intimate acquaintance with the object of his 
 attachment — peihajis even the jeers ot" his com- 
 railes, who laugiied at lier name, Prescovia, so 
 vulgar in Russia — perhaps all together liatl con- 
 spired to change his heart. At any rate, the 
 difficulties in the way of the match were no 
 sooner removed than he declared suddenly that 
 it was not his intention to marry. 
 
 The young lady had three brothers, and the 
 consequence may be foreseen. They declared 
 that he must either marry their sister, or fight 
 them all three, one after another. This only- 
 served to relieve liis heart, and to ennoble his 
 cause. He met the eldest brother; they fought 
 near St. Petersburg — and were both killed : the 
 unhappy youth crying with his last breath, " My 
 poor mother !" 
 
 This was ten years ago. Since that period the 
 mother has devoted her life to mourning. A chuixh 
 is now rising on the spot where her son fell ; and 
 another at her o-wn house at Otrada, to the conse- 
 cration of which I was invited, has been completed. 
 In the vaults of the monastery of Novospaskoi a 
 splendid monument has been erected to his me- 
 mory, where the commemorative service is per- 
 formed by the monks four times a week, and 
 where a lamp is kept perpetually burning beside 
 the tomb. When going to pray there herself his 
 favourite horse accompanies her, and on their 
 return she feeds the animal with white bread with 
 her own hands. At the anniversary of the fatal 
 duel she shuts herself up from the world for some 
 weeks, with the portrait, clothes, &c., of her dead 
 son arranged before her. She loads every one 
 with gifts and charities who chooses to claim 
 acquaintance with him, however slight. To this 
 hour she is in deep mourning. 
 
 XCVII.— THE STORY OF COUCY. 
 
 [This has been told in various shapes of fiction ; 
 and Mr. Dunlop has tacitly assumed it to be one 
 itself, and calls the bequest of the lover's heart to 
 his mistress a " singular present." But, in truth, 
 the bequest of a heart has been no very uncommon 
 one in the history of mankind ; and the story is 
 not only claimed to be an actual occurrence by 
 other writers, but is one of those, the very excess 
 of which being founded in the depths of human 
 passion, is less likely to have been invented than 
 to have taken place. It is also, like similar stories, 
 more interesting in its true shape than in its ficti- 
 tious, even though Boccaccio has told it : for there 
 is real love in the authentic account ; whereas, in 
 the other, we are not sure there was any l&ve at 
 all — that is to say, anything but mere intrigue. 
 
 James Howell, the author of the first letters 
 published in English, is the writer from whom we 
 take it; not, however, from his own book, but 
 from Burnett's ' Specimens of English Prose 
 Writers,' vol. iii., p. 248. It forms the subject of 
 a letter, the more curious, inasmuch as it is 
 addressed to Ben Jonson, and shows that Howell 
 was one of the men of letters of that day, who 
 agreeably to a pleasant custom they had, in honour 
 of the great critical poet, applied to him to be 
 called his " sons." 
 
 The following note is appended to the story : — 
 " This is a true story, and happened about the year 
 1180. It is related by Fauchet at large from an 
 
 old authentic French chronicle ; and he then adds, 
 Ainsi Jinircnt les ainours du Chastclam dii Coiici et 
 de la dame de Faicl. — Regnard de Couci was 
 famous for his chansons and chivalry, though still 
 more for his unfortunate love, which in the old 
 French romances became proverbial. This affect- 
 ing story gave rise to an old metrical English 
 romance, entitled ' The Knight of Courtesy,' 
 and was woven in tapestry in Coucy Castle, in 
 France."] 
 
 "to my honoured friend and father, 
 mr. b. jonson. 
 
 " Father Ben, — Being lately in France, and 
 returning in a coach from Paris to Rouen, I 
 lighted upon the society of a knowing gentleman, 
 who related to me a choice storj', which, perad- 
 venture, you may make use of in your way. 
 
 " Some hundred and odd years since there was 
 in France one Captain Coucy, a gallant gentle- 
 man of ancient extraction, and keeper of Coucy 
 Castle, which is yet standing and in good repair. 
 He fell in love with a young gentlewoman, and 
 courted her for his wife. There was reciprocal 
 love between them ; but her parents understand- 
 ing of it, by way of prevention, they shuffled up 
 a forced match betwixt her and one Monsieur 
 Fayel, who was a great heir. Captain Coucy here- 
 upon quitted France in great discontent, and 
 went to the wars in Hungary against the Turks, 
 where he received a mortal wound not far from 
 Buda. Being carried to his lodging, he languished 
 some days ; but a little before his death he spoke 
 to an ancient servant of his, that he had had many 
 proofs of his fidelity and truth, but now he had a 
 great business to intrust him with, which he con- 
 jured him by all means to do ; which was, that 
 after his death he should get his body to be opened, 
 and then to take his heart out of his breast and 
 put it in an earthen pot to be baked to powder ; 
 then to put the powder into a handsome box, with 
 that bracelet of hair he had worn long about 
 his left wrist, which was a lock of Madame 
 Fayel's hair, and put it among the powder, together 
 with a little note he had written with his own 
 blood to her ; and after he had given him the rites 
 of burial, to make all the speed he could to France, 
 and deliver the said box to Madame Fayel. The 
 old servant did as his master had commanded 
 him, and so went to France ; and coming one day 
 to Monsieur Fayel's house, he suddenly met him 
 with one of his servants, and examined him, because 
 he knew he was Captain Coney's servant ; and 
 finding him timorous and faltering in his speech, 
 he searched him and found the said box in his 
 pocket, with the note which expressed what was 
 therein : he dismissed the bearer, with menaces 
 that he should come no more near his house. 
 Monsieur Fayel going in, sent for his cook and 
 delivered him the powder, charging him to make 
 a little well-relished dish of it, without losing a 
 jot of it, for it was a very costly thing ; and com- 
 manded him to bring it in himself after the last 
 course at supper. The cook bringing in the dish 
 accordingly, Monsieur Fayel told all to avoid the 
 room ; and began a serious discourse with his wife. 
 Since he had married her, he observed, she was 
 always melancholy, and feared she was inclining to 
 a consumption, therefore he had provided her a 
 very precious cordial, which he was well assured 
 Avould cure her : therefore he made her eat up the
 
 A LOVE-STORY REALISED. 
 
 129 
 
 whole dish; and afterwards much importuning 
 him to know what it was, he told her at last she 
 had eaten Coucy's heart, and so drew the box out 
 of his pocket, and showed her the note, and the 
 bracelet. In a sudden exultation of joy, she with 
 a far-fetched sigh, said, This is a precious cordial 
 indeed; and so licked the dish, saying, It is so 
 precious that 'tis a pity to put ever any meat upon 
 it. So she went to bed, and in the morning was 
 found stone dead. 
 
 " This, gentleman told me this sad story is painted 
 in Coucy Castle, and remains fresh to this day. 
 
 " In my opinion, which vails to yours, this is 
 choice and rich stuff for you to put upon your 
 loom, and make a curious web of.* 
 
 " I thank you for the last regale you gave me at 
 your musaeum, and for the good company. I 
 heard yon censured lately at court, that you have 
 lighted tv,'o-fold upon Sir Inigo Jones, and that 
 you write with a porcupine's quill dipt in too much 
 gall. Excuse me that I am so free with you; 
 it is because I am, in no common way of friend- 
 ship. "Yours, J. H." 
 
 " Westminster, May, 3, 1635." 
 
 XCVIIL— A LOVE-STORY REALISED. 
 
 [We have given this title to our present 
 Romance, because it is really like a " thing in a 
 book." It might appear with advantage as an 
 elegant fiction in an annual, or in any other 
 medium through which the " course of true love " 
 does occasionally " run smooth.'" It is taken from 
 Mr. Inglis's amusing work mentioned in our last, 
 'Solitary Walks through Many Lands.' When 
 the author fairly recognises his gallant friend 
 again, married, and in so fitting a habitation, one 
 fancies that the parties ought to have struck up a 
 trio out of Mozart or Rossini, the adventure is so 
 very stage-like and operatic] 
 
 Civet, in the Netherlands, is in a manner joined 
 to Charleroi, excepting that it is outside of the 
 fortifications. It stands upon the Meuse in a 
 wonderfully pleasant situation ; but after residing 
 there for three months in Ardennes during winter, 
 the first appearance of anything like a cultivated 
 country in the opening of spring, and on a fine 
 day as this was, might seem somewhat beyond its 
 real deserts. " Charleroi ! Charleroi '." I repeated 
 to myself several times, when having inquired the 
 name of the town on the other side of the bridge, 
 I was answered, " Charleroi." I felt that it was 
 associated in my mind with some past incidents ; 
 liut what they were I was at first unable to 
 recall. Suddenly it broke upon me ; and I was 
 sitting with Durand and Elize, in the salon at 
 Avignon. Poor fellow ! said I, aloud ; for some- 
 how or other, I was firmly persuaded he had been 
 killed at Waterloo. But before proceeding, let me 
 go back several years, to give the reader some 
 information that may increase his interest in what 
 I have to relate. 
 
 I was sitting upon one of the high grounds on 
 the road between Aix and Avignon, looking down 
 upon the latter city, and buried in a deep reverie, 
 not connected with Petrarch and Laura, but in 
 which the history of the Popes was passing before 
 me, when a step close behind broke the lengthened 
 link of images, that like wave on wave had floated 
 on the sea of fancy. It was a French officer who. 
 
 with many apologies, hoped he had not disturbed 
 the reverie of Monsieur. The interruption was 
 rather in discord with the tone of my mind ; but 
 through the tinsel of French manner I thought I 
 could discover something beyond the glitter ; and 
 it has ever been ray rule in foreign travel to 
 encourage rather than repel the advance of 
 strangers. I accordingly answered with what 
 courtesy I was master of, — and we sat down 
 upon the brow of the hill together. The secrets 
 of a Frenchman, especially those in whose dis- 
 closure vanity may glean a little harvest, are 
 seldom very closely prisoned ; and I was soon 
 master of his budget. He was quartered at Aix, 
 and was thus far on his road to Avignon, to see 
 the sweetest girl in all France, by whom he was 
 tenderly beloved, and jolic comme un ange. He 
 possessed, he said, a small independency in the 
 north, near Charleroi, and was to be united to 
 Elize in a few weeks. I, in my turn, told him 
 that I was an Englishman, and a traveller potir 
 plaisir, — that I had come last from Lyons and 
 intended remaining a week at Avignon and in 
 the neighbourhood, before taking the road to 
 Nice. We descended to the city together, and 
 speedily found accommodation near the site of the 
 pope's dilapidated palace. My friend pressed me 
 to accompany him to the house of Elize, who he 
 assured me would be charmed to see me ; but I 
 excused myself on the score of fatigue, jiromising 
 however to pay my respects the next morning. 
 During the few days that succeeded my arrival at 
 Avignon, Monsieur Durand was my constant com- 
 panion. He carried me to be introduced to his 
 bride-elect, whom I found to be very far superior 
 to the generality of French women ; and I was 
 daily indebted to her, and her amiable family, 
 for the greater part of the pleasure 1 found at 
 Avignon. 
 
 One morning, about a week after our arrival, I 
 was surprised by the unexpected entrance of 
 Monsieur Durand, for I supposed him to be at 
 that time some leagues distant with a party to 
 which 1 had been invited, but which I had 
 declined joining, owing to my preparations for 
 setting out on the morrow. I was certain some- 
 thing important had brought Monsieur Durand — 
 though from his countenance I was quite unable 
 to guess whether he came to communicate good or 
 evil. He had just received a summons to repair 
 instantly to Aix, to march with the troops to which 
 he belonged, and join the army destined to oppose 
 the progress of Napoleon — the news of whose dis- 
 embarkation at Frejus had reached Aix but a few 
 hours before. " My union with Elize," said he, 
 " must be postponed for a little, until " — here he 
 checked himself : but when I glanced at the cross 
 of the legion of honour and the medal upon which 
 were inscribed " Jena " and " Austerlitz," I had 
 no difficulty in comprehending the cause of his 
 hesitation. It would perhaps have been difficult 
 for himself to tell whether I'amour, or recollec- 
 tions of la yloire, were at that moment the more 
 predominant. I parted from him with regret, 
 because he was of a kind and generous nature, — 
 and with no expectation of being ever again 
 thrown in his way ; and when a few months 
 afterwards I learned the event of the fatal strife, 
 in which so many of his countrymen had fallen, 
 I felt a severe pang for the probable fate of the 
 open-hearted Frenchman. 
 
 i
 
 130 
 
 THE DUKE OF ALVA AT A BREAKFAST, 
 
 Let me now return to Charleroi. It was a lovely 
 evening, and when I had taken some refreshment 
 I left my auberge to stroll a little way into the 
 country. Chance led me to the banks of the 
 Mouse, and as there could be no pleasanter path 
 than by a river side, I followed that which led up 
 the stream. When I had proceeded about two 
 miles, as nearly as 1 could guess, and when just 
 about to retrace my srcps, upon a sudden turning 
 I came in siglit of a cottage which for beauty I had 
 never seen equalled : it stood about a hundred 
 yards from the river, with a garden sloping down to 
 the stream. The cottage was cream-coloured, of 
 one story oiily, and almost completely covered 
 with the jasmine tree. The garden was one blow 
 of early spring flowers : auriculas, polyanthuses, 
 primroses, daitbdils, and many others which my 
 botanical knowledge does not permit me to name. 
 I thought 1 had never beheld a spot of more sweet 
 retirement, or one that I could more agreeably live 
 in all my days. I was standing gazing upon it, 
 thinking how happy its inmates might probably be, 
 and had laid my hand upon the little wicket gate 
 that led up the garden, merely by way of resting 
 my arm, when the door of the cottage opened and 
 a lady and then a gentleman appeared. I recog- 
 nised them in a moment : it was Durand and his 
 Elize. 
 
 We hear much commonplace about the insin- 
 cerity of the French : I wish to God all the world 
 had half the sincerity of the French colonel at 
 Civet. It has been my lot often to meet with a 
 kind reception from strangers, and therefore it is 
 that I think more favourably of mankind than mis- 
 anthropes would make us believe mankind deserves 
 to be thought of. This colonel had been rising 
 rapidly in the French army, rising to power and 
 riches ; but through the intervention of my country 
 his master had been humbled, the army to which 
 he had belonged beaten, and he had had to endure 
 the humiliation of seeing an English guard mounted 
 at the palace-gates of his king : yet if I had been 
 directly instrumental in making his fortune, I could 
 not have been received with greater kindness ; but 
 indeed, after I had passed a night under his roof, it 
 seemed to me that he had little to regret in the fall 
 of his patron, and he appeared to feel no regret. 
 Living in a beautiful country, in his own cottage, 
 with health and seeming competence, blessed witli 
 the endearments of a domestic life — an affectionate 
 wife and two sweet children, could he regret that 
 the clang of arms had passed away ^ Glory could 
 indeed no more circle his brows with tiie wreath 
 of victory; but peace might be around him, and 
 the interchange of affection and kind offices might 
 hallow his home, and light him through all tlie 
 journey of life. "My income," said he, "is 3000 
 francs a-year (120/. sterling). Half of that sum is 
 my pay, and the other half is the interest of my 
 wife's fortune. I have the cottage besides : I have 
 all I desire ; we live as we wish to live. There 
 arc my books — voila mes livres," said he; "not 
 many, but choice. Here are my music-books : 
 Josephine and I sing duets. I work in my garden, 
 from which we have fruit, and flowers, and vege- 
 tables, as many as we desire. I have a little horse 
 in my stable : sometimes I ride him, and some- 
 times I put Josephine upon him, and then I walk 
 beside her. I have a boat on the river, and in 
 warm evenings we row out together, and some- 
 times we take little Henri ; Mathilde is too young. 
 
 And at Charleroi I have one or two friends whom 
 I sec sometimes. I live nearly a thousand francs 
 within my income, so that I have no cares. For 
 every deserving stranger I have a bed, and a place 
 at my table. You see how we live," added he 
 (the conversation happening during dinner), " stay 
 with me as long as it is agreeable to you. We will 
 make you as comfortable as we can ; and when 
 you go away, do not forget the cream-coloured 
 cottage at Civet, and never pass within fifty miles 
 of us without coming to see us." Josephine 
 looked all that her husband said: and though it 
 would be absurd to suppose any real sympathy 
 between persons who knew so little of each other 
 as myself and my entertainer, yet after having been 
 din-iug many months alone, this address made me 
 feel my loneliness the more, and made me begin 
 to doubt if nature had destined me for solitude. 
 We cordially shook hands at parting, and I stepped 
 into the boat which was to glide down the river. 
 
 I mentioned in the first chapter, I think, that 
 this register is written from memory : I cannot 
 therefore tell more than I recollect ; and it is odd 
 enough, that tax my memory as I will, I cannot 
 recall anything of what I either saw or thought of 
 between Civet and Namin-. I have nothing more 
 than the recollection of gliding down the stream 
 in a sunshiny day, and seeing picturesque banks. 
 I must have passed through or close to the town of 
 Dinant, but I recollect nothing of it. I think I 
 was occupied with some vague dream about human 
 happiness, but I am very sure that I came to no 
 conclusion any way. 
 
 XCIX. — THE DUKE OF ALVA AT A 
 BREAKFAST IN THE CASTLE OF RU- 
 DOLSTADT, IN THE YEAR 1547. 
 
 [We are indebted for this curious historical anec- 
 dote to a miscellany published at the close of the 
 last century, and entitled ' Varieties of Literature, 
 from Foreign Literary Journals and Original Ma- 
 nuscripts.' The heroine of it is more interesting 
 than charming, yet she had a heart as well as a 
 will, and was truly fit to govern.] 
 
 Turning over an ancient chronicle of the sixteenth 
 century, says our authority, under the title of * Res 
 in Ecclesia et Politica Christiana gesta ah anno 
 1500 ad an. ICOO, auctore J. Soffing, theolog. doct. 
 Rudolst. 1(576,' I found the following anecdote, 
 which for more than one reason deserves to be 
 snatched from oblivion. In a piece under the 
 name of ' Mausolea manibus Metzelii posita a Fr. 
 JNIt'lch Dedekindo, 1738,' I find it confirmed; and 
 for this the reader is referred to Spangenberg's 
 'Mirror of Nobility,' vol. i., book xiii., p. 445. 
 
 A German lady, descended from a family long 
 renowned for valiant feats of arms, and which had 
 already given an emperor to Germany, on a parti- 
 cular occasion made the formidable Duke of Alva 
 tremble by her bold and resolute conduct. As the 
 emperor Charles V. on his return, in the year 1547, 
 from the battle gi Muhlberg to his camp in Suabia 
 passed through Thuringia, Catherina, countess 
 dowager of Schwartzburg, born princess of Hen- 
 ncberg, obtained of him a letter of safeguard that 
 her subjects might have nothing to suffer from the 
 Spanish army on its march through her territories : 
 in return for which, she bound herself to allow 
 the Spanish troops that were transported to Rudol-
 
 BOlSSrs ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. 
 
 131 
 
 stadt on the Saalbrucke to supply themselves with 
 bread, beer, and other provisions, at a reasonable 
 price in that place. At the same time she took 
 the precaution to have the bridge which s ood 
 close to the town demolished in all haste, and re- 
 constructed over the river at a considerable dis- 
 tance, that the too great proximity of the city 
 inio-ht be no temptation to her rapacious guests. 
 The inhabitants, too, of all the places through 
 which the army was to pass were informed, that 
 they 'Might send the chief of their valuables to the 
 castle of Rudolstadt. 
 
 Meantime the Spanish general, attended by 
 Prince Henry of Brunswick and his sons, ap- 
 proached the" city, and invited themselves by a 
 messenger whom they despatched before, to take 
 their morning's repast with the Countess ot 
 Schwartzburg. So modest a request, made at the 
 head of an army, was not to be rejected. The an- 
 swer returned was, that they should be kindly 
 supplied with what the house afforded ; that his 
 excellency might come, and be assured of a wel- 
 come reception. However, she did n»t neglect at 
 the same time to remind the Spanish general ot 
 the-- safeguard, and to urge home to him the con- 
 scientious observance of it. 
 
 A friendly reception and a well-furnished table 
 welcomed the arrival of the duke at the castle. 
 He was obliged to confess that the Thuringian 
 ladies had an excellent notion of cookery, and did 
 honour to the laws of hospitality. But scarcely 
 had they taken their seats, when a messenger out 
 of breath called the countess from the hall. His 
 tidings informed her that the Spanish soldiers had 
 used violence in some villages on the way, and had 
 driven off the cattle belonging to the peasants. 
 Catharina was a true mother to her people : what- 
 ever the poorest of her subjects unjustly suffered 
 wounded her to the very quick. Full of indigna- 
 tion at this breach of faith, yet not forsaken by her 
 presence of mind, she ordered her whole retinue 
 to arm themselves immediately in private, and to 
 bolt and bar all the gates of the castle : which 
 done, she returned to the hall, and rejoined the 
 princes, who were still at table. Here she com- 
 plained to them in the most moving terms of the 
 usa<'e she had met with, and how badly the impe- 
 rial word was kept. They told her, laughing, that 
 this was the custom in war, and that such trifling 
 disorders of soldiers in marching through a place 
 were not to be minded. " That we shall presently 
 
 the patriotic concern and the determined intre- 
 pidity she had shown, he entreated her to make 
 herself easy, and took it upon himself to bring the 
 Duke of Alva to consent to Avhatever should be 
 found reasonable ; which he immediately effected 
 bv inducing the latter to dispatch on the spot an 
 order to the army to restore the cattle without de- 
 lav to the persons from whom they had been stolen. 
 On the return of the courier with a certiOcate that 
 all damages were made good, the Countess of 
 Schwartzburg politely thanked her guests for t.ie 
 honour they had done her castle, and they in return 
 very courteously took their leave. 
 
 see," replied she, stoutly; "my poor subjects 
 
 must have their own, or by God ! (raising her voice 
 
 in a threatening tone) princes' blood for oxen s 
 
 blood." With this eniphatical declaration she 
 
 quitted the room, which in a few minutes was 
 
 tilled with armed men, who sword in hand, yet 
 
 with great reverence, planting themselves behind 
 
 the chairs of the princes, took place of the waiters. 
 
 On the entrance of these fierce-looking fellows, 
 
 Duke Alva directly changed colour, and they all 
 
 gazed at one another in silence and affright. Cut 
 
 off from the army, surrounded by a resolute body of 
 
 men, what had they to do but to summon up their 
 
 patience, and to appease the offended lady on the 
 
 best terms they could'^ Henry of Brunswick Avas 
 
 the first that collected his sjjirits, and smothered 
 
 his feelings by bursting into a loud tit of laughter, 
 
 thus seizing the most reasonable way of coming 
 
 off by turning all that had passed into a subject of 
 
 mirth. Concluding with a pompous panegyric on 
 
 C— BOISSl'S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. 
 
 r\n account of this intended family tragedy, 
 which we met with in the ' Varieties of Litera- 
 ture,' quoted in our last, reminded us of another 
 narrative of it, more complete, in Chalmers's ' Bio- 
 graphical Dictionary.' The latter is here ex- 
 tracted. We know nothing of Boissi ourselves : 
 we take the wit and humour attributed to him for 
 o-ranted; but piteous as his situation was, and 
 affecting in particular the spectacle of his wue and 
 child, we cannot look upon him as a man of a 
 ri^'ht spirit. He had affection, but not of the 
 deepest kind ; pride, but not of the highest order : 
 otherwise he would not have doomed his family to 
 death, nor scrupled to think his friends and fellow 
 creatures unworthy of being allowed to do him a 
 service for their sakes. Such catastrophes, m fact, 
 are much oftener the effects of the worst than the 
 best parts of sorrow ; of its anger, and spleen, and 
 self-estimation, rather than its suffering lor others. 
 We may guess what sort of temper was Boissi's, by 
 his feelings when he became prosperous : instead 
 of being thankful for the change, he only lamented 
 that it had not been of longer duration. Such a 
 man was not likely to have seen into the finer parts 
 either of prosperity or adversity. 
 
 There seems an inconsistency on the part of tiie 
 narrator, when he tells us that Boissi had no reli- 
 gion, and yet hoped to go to another and a better 
 world. He might, however, have had no very set- 
 tled notions of religion, and yet not have been 
 without a sense of the general goodness of the 
 Creator, and a probability that his lot would be 
 smoothed in another state of existence. VVhat he 
 wanted was a loving temper of faith ; the habit ot 
 seeing something so good and beautiful at work in 
 all things, that it never allows hope entirely to tor- 
 
 SlltP US 
 
 ' We hope we need not say we east no stones at 
 scenes like this : God forbid anything so absurd 
 or monstrous. We have tasted too much of trouble 
 ourselves, as well as of the sweets of joy and friend- 
 ship ; but we speak of it in this manner to guard 
 a-ainst any false conclusions from such scenes m 
 times of agitation and struggle like the present, 
 and to show in what real manhood and lovmgness 
 consist.] 
 
 Louis de Boissi. a celebrated French comic writer, 
 of native wit and genuine humour, was born at Vic, 
 in Auvergne, in 1594. He came early to 1 aris, 
 and began to write for the stage. The rest of his 
 life is a moral. As has often been the fate of ex- 
 traordinary favourites of the Muses, though he 
 laboured incess.mtly for the public, his works pro- 
 cured him only a competency of fame— he wanted
 
 132 
 
 BOISSrS ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. 
 
 lii'oiul ; and while the theatres and coffec-liouses of 
 Paris were ringing witli phuulits on l\is uncominon 
 talents to promote their mirth, he was languishing 
 with a wife and child under the jiressure of the 
 extremest poverty. Yet melancholy as his situa- 
 tion was, he lost nothing of the pride which forhad 
 him to creep and fawn at the feet of a patron. 
 Boissi had friends who would readily ftnc relieved 
 him, hut they were never made acquainted with 
 liis real condition, or had not the friendly impetu- 
 osity which forces assistance on the modest suf- 
 ferer. He at length hecame the prey of distress, 
 and sunk into despondency. The shortest way to 
 rid himself at once of his load of misery seemed to 
 him to be death, on which he speculated with the 
 despair of a man who had none of the consolations 
 of religion. His wife, who was no less weary of 
 life, listened with participation as often as he de- 
 claimed, in all the warmth of poetic rapture, on 
 the topic of deliverance from this earthly prison 
 and the smiling prospects of futurity, till at length 
 she took up the resolution to accompany him in 
 death. But she could not bear to think of leaving 
 her beloved son, of five years old, in a world of 
 misery and soi-row : it was therefore agreed to take 
 the child along with them on their passage into 
 another and a better, and they made choice of 
 starving. To this end they shut themselves up in 
 their solitary and deserted apartment, waiting their 
 dissolution with immovable fortitude. When any 
 one came and knocked, they fled trembling into a 
 corner for fear of being discovered. Their little boy, 
 who had not yet learned to silence the calls of 
 hunger by artificial reasons, whimpering and crying 
 asked for bread, but they always found means to 
 quiet him. 
 
 It occurred to one of Boissi's friends that it was 
 very extraordinary he should never find him at 
 home. At first he thought the family had changed 
 their lodgings, but on assuring himself of the con- 
 trary he began to be alarmed. He called several 
 times in one day, and at last burst open the door, 
 when he saw his triend, with his wife and son, 
 extended on the bed, pale and emaciated, scarcely 
 able to utter a sound. The boy lay in the middle, 
 and the husband and wife had their arms thrown 
 over him. The child stretched out his little hand 
 towards his deliverer, and his first word was 
 
 " Bread I " It was now the third day that not a 
 morsel of food had entered his lips. The parents 
 lay still in a perfect stupor; they had never heard 
 the bursting cipen of the door, and felt nothing of 
 the embraces of their agitated boy ; their wasted 
 eyes were directed towards the boy, and the ten- 
 derest expressions of pity were in the look with 
 which they had last beheld him, and still saw him 
 dying. Their friend hastened to take measures 
 for their recovery, but could not succeed without 
 difficulty : they thought themselves already far 
 from the troubles of life, and were terrified at 
 being suddenly brought back to them. Void of 
 sense and reflection, they submitted to the attempts 
 that were made to recall them to life. At length 
 a thought occurred to their friend, which happily 
 succeeded : he took the child from their arms, and 
 thus roused the last spark of paternal tenderness. 
 He gave the child some bread to eat, who with 
 one hand held it, and with the other alternately 
 shook his father and mother. It seemed at once 
 to rekindle the love of life in their hearts, on per- 
 ceiving the child had left the bed and their em- 
 braces. Niiture did her office : their friend pro- 
 cured them strengthening broths, which he put to 
 their lips with the utmost caution, and did not 
 leave them till every symptom of restored life was 
 fully visible. 
 
 This transaction made much noise in Paris, and 
 at length reached the ears of the Marchioness de 
 Pompadour. Boissi's deplorable situation moved 
 her. She immediately sent him a hundred louis- 
 d'ors, and soon after procured him the profitable 
 place of editor of the ' Mercure de France,' with a 
 pension for his wife and child if they outlived 
 him. His ' CEuvres de Theatre' ai-e in nine vols. 
 8vo. His Italian comedy, in which path he is the 
 author of numerous pieces, has not the merit of 
 the above. His early satires, of which he had 
 written many, being remembered, prevented his 
 admission into the French Academy till he was 
 sixty years of age, though he was well entitled to 
 that honour by his labours and talents twenty 
 years sooner. He died April, 1658, complaining 
 in his last moments that his misery was not short- 
 ened by an earlier death, or his felicity extended 
 by longevity. 
 
 London : Piinted by W. Ct-owEs and Sons, 14, Charing Cross.
 
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