u MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES. PUBLISHER'S NOTE. Six hundred and forty copies of this New Edition printed for England, and four hundred for America, Each copy numbered and type distributed. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES BY /SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL BARONET ALSO BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Illustrated witb Sii Engravings LONDON JOHN C. N1MMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND MDCCCXCI TO SIR JOHN STIRLING-MAXWELL, Dolume IS DEDICATED. VOLUME THE SIXTH. SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL, BART. From a photograph by T. Rodger ; St. Andrews ; engraved in mezzotint by R. B. Parkes Frontispiece PORTRAIT OF W. H. PRESCOTT. From a drawing by George Rich- mond, R.A., in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle; engraved by R. B. Parkes To face page 64 PORTRAIT OF RICHARD FORD. From an oil painting by W. H. Phillips, at Keir; engraved in mezzotint by R. B. Parkes To face page 112 PORTRAIT OF SIR ROBERT STRANGE. From an engraving by him- self, after a medallion in crayons by J. B. Greuze; engraved by R. B. Parkes To face page 128 PORTRAIT OF JACOBUS AUGUSTUS THUANUS (DE THOU). From an engraving by Jacob Chereau, after a pastel drawing j engraved in mezzotint by R. B. Parkes To face page 320 VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF LIBRARY AT KEIR, 1891. Photo-etched by W. L. Colls To face page 460 THE PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. National Proverbs of Scotland Proverbs in general well explored . Author's early collection Bibliographic of M. Duplessis Subsequent collections Complete series of books on pro- verbs, 2,000 vols. Bibliography . . . . , A proverb defined .... Its antiquity Many lost . . . Ephemeral phrases . " And no mistake "... " The Bill, the whole Bill," &c. . "A heavy blow," &c. . "Aliens in language," &c. . "He might do what he would with his own " . " Property has its rights," &c. " Judicious bottle-holding " "The right man in the right place "..... Present age cannot be fertile in pro- verbs VOL. VI. PAGE PAGE 4 Modern complexity 9 4 Field of proverbs occupied 9 4 James Howell's Proverbs, 1659 9 '4 Many borrowed .... 9 5 Best proverbs common to all nations 10 Some native, others exotic 10 5 Proverbs of " home "... 10 5 Of vain labour .... 10 5 " A bird in the hand " II 6 Climatic differences of expressing 6 same idea .... II 7 " Carrying owls to Athens " . II 7 " Coals to Newcastle " II . 7 Conflicting interests II 7 "Ways and means " II 7 Oriental despotism .... II Social conditions .... 12 8 Natural features .... 12 8 National peculiarities 12 8 12 Southerns prolix . ... 12 8 Northerns terse .... 12 Italians and Spaniards . 12 9 Orientals prolix .... 13 CONTENTS. Scottish proverbs reflect national characteristics . . . 13 David Ferguson's collection . . 14 Kelly's 14 Ramsay's . . . . 14 Henderson's 14 Gaelic Proverbs . . . '14 Mackintosh's . . . . -14 Many of Southern origin . .14 Others characteristic . . .14 " Taking the breeks from a Hieland- man" 16 Celtic endurance . . . .16 Proverbs in Scottish vernacular . 16 Proverbs born in the country . .17 Rarely in the city or the seaport . 1 7 Agricultural figures . . .17 " Talking of shop ". . . .18 Aggression . . . . .18 Struggle with obstacles . . .18 Scotland's early struggles . .18 War of Independence . . -19 Restoration to prosperity . . 19 Lowlands 19 Revival of arts and letters . .19 The Scot abroad . . . .20 Scottish reformers . . . .20 Jurisprudence . . . . .20 Education 20 Famous men 21 The Union 21 Literature . . . . .21 Criticism . . . . .21 History 21 PAGE Fortitude . . . . .22 Patience, &c 22 Independence 23 Courage 23 Prudence . . . . 23 Worldly prudence . . . -23 Rectitude 24 Scorn for shams . . . .24 National caution . . . -24 Religious element in Scottish char- acter 25 Few Scottish proverbs on religious forms . . . . .26 Continental proverbs against priests 26 France, Italy, and Spain . . 27 Scotland ...... 28 Sir David Lindsay . . . .28 Dunbar ...... 29 David Ferguson . . . .29 Proverbs made by men . . .29 Proverbs against women . . .30 Solomon's . . . . 30 Oriental 30 Arab ...... 30 Marriage 31 Chivalrous proverb . . . .32 Proverbs of tener adverse than favour- able 32 Reason ...... 32 Extent of subject . . . -33 Many still uncollected . . .34 Growing reverence for the past . 34 Good proverbs precious, and easily picked up . 35 II. A FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. Refranes of Nunez . Enumeration . 37 37 Proverbs relating to priests and friars 38 Additions to these . . -;8 CONTENTS. xi III. WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA, PAGE PAGE Some proverbs of common origin 41 Some parallel to European 4 6 The Adagia of Erasmus, 1500 . . 42 " First catch your hare " . 47 Sixteenth century collectors . . 42 " Owls to Athens," &c. . 47 Refranes of Nunez . . 43 Proverbs sneering at women . 47 West African proverbs . . 43 Majority of proverbs worldly . 48 Nearly all native 44 Some philosophical . 48 Their local colour . . , 44 Heroic sentiment of the Ojis . 49 Proverbs on evils of poverty . . 46 Burton's collection . . ' fc . 49 IV. ADAGIA OF ERASMUS. First edition very rare . . 51 Erasmus's preface . . . . 53 Title-page * ro C7 V. JJ WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. General sorrow at his death . 55 Miscellaneous writings . 60 In England . . . . ' 55 Ferdinand and Isabella . 60 Ancestry distinguished . . 56 Difficulties from deficient eye-sight . 60 Prescott "the Brave" 56 His perseverance .... 61 Captain Linzee . 56 Writing-machine .... 61 Father Judge Prescott . 57 Difficulties in finding a publisher . 62 Mother . . . 57 Publication, and great success of the Prescott's birth C7 62 His education .... O/ 57 In England 63 Loss of an eye at college . . 57 Judgment of Edinburgh Review &3 Travels in Europe . , 58 Quarterly, by Ford 63 Did not see Spain . . 59 Germany, France, and Spain . 64 Return and marriage . . 59 Conquest of Mexico .... 64 Habits and studies . 59 Conquest of Peru .... 64 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE Both well received . . . -65 Literary recognition of Prescott . 65 His income 65 Philip II. begun, but not finished . 66 Second visit to England, 1850. . 66 His popularity . . . . 67 Dinner at Greenwich . . .68 Dines with Sir R. Peel . . . 69 Mistaken for M. Scribe . . .70 Tour in Belgium . . . . 70 D.C.L., Oxford . . . .70 Scotland 71 Portraits by Phillips and Richmond 7 1 Returns home 71 Sequel to Robertson's Charles V. .71 Notice of Abbott Lawrence . . 71 Loss by decision of House of Lords on copyright . . . -72 Part of Philip II. published . . 73 Prescott attacked by apoplexy, 1858 74 Rev. Mr. Milburn's recollections of his visit to Prescott . . -74 Their conversation on England . 75 Last illness 76 Sudden death, 28th January 1859 . 77 Funeral 77 Family 78 His merits as a writer . . . 78 His narrative . . . . -79 On manners and literature . . 80 Always quotes his authorities . . 80 His essays . . . . .81 Testimonies to his personal worth . 82 Mr. Bancroft . . . .83 Ticknor 83 Dr. Walker 83 VI. TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. Affluent circumstances . . .85 Birth 86 Boyhood 86 College days 86 Accidental loss of his eye . . 86 Scholastic honours . . . -87 Study for the bar, interrupted by illness 87 His patience . . . . -87 Recovery 87 Voyage to St. Michael's . . .88 Leaves for England . . .88 Paris, &c 88 Oxford, Cambridge, &c. . . .89 Returns home . . . . .89 Marriage . . . . . 89 Events of his life . . . .90 Studies English, French, Italian, German, Spanish . . .90 Choice of a subject . . . .90 Decides on Ferdinand and Isabella 91 Troubled by his eye . . .91 Arrangement of his study . . 92 Progress of his work . . .92 His noctograph . . . .93 Power of mental composition . . 93 Exercise ...... 93 Publication of Ferdinand and Isa- bella 93 First edition, 1837, quickly ex- hausted . . . . 94 Published in England . . -94 Favourable criticisms . . -94 Conquest of Mexico published . . 95 English editions . . . -95 English opinions . . . -95 Rogers 95 Hallam 95 CONTENTS. xui PAGE Humboldt 95 Essays, 1845 96 Conquest of Peru . . . .96 Published in England . . .96 Testimonies of Ticknor and Maria Edgeworth . . . .96 Second visit to Europe, 1850 . . 96 Presentation at court . . -97 Visits Mr. Rogers . . . -97 Macaulay 97 Lockhart . . . . . . Two vols. of Philip II. published, PAOB 97 97 Its success . . . . Account of the abdication of Charles V Third vol. of Philip II. . Macaulay's criticism Illness, 1858 Last illness and death, 1859 . 99 VII. RICHARD FORD (i). Death of Mr. Ford Ancestry . .... Education and study for the bar Continental travels Tastes ..... Visits Spain, 1830 . Returns to England Writes for Quarterly First separate work, 1837 , Visits Italy Collects Majolica . . . Handbook for Spain Publication, 1845 . . . Success Its merit .... Second edition, 1847, abridged 101 Third edition, 1855, restored . 105 101 Gatherings from Spain . . 106 IO2 Campaigns of Wellington . 106 I O2 His political views . . 106 IO2 A Tory 1 06 102 Life of Velazquez . . 107 1O2 His style . 107 103 His knowledge of art . 107 IO3 His sketches .... . 108 103 Connoisseurship . 108 104 His collections . 108 IO4 Wilson's pictures . . 109 I5 Ford's library . 109 I5 His social characteristics . 109 I5 Decline of his health . no IDS Marriages, and family . no VII. RICHARD FORD (2). Birth . Ancestry . Ill . in Visits Spain, 1830 . His epitaph . - . Wife's death . . Travels in Europe . Return . . 112 . 112 Second marriage Handbook for Spain 112 112 112 112 "3 XIV CONTENTS. Its value Its severity Part of first edition cancelled Publication Its popularity . Gatherings from Spain . PAGE H3 114 114 , 114 114 114 His descriptions of bygone Spain . 115 Contributes to the Quarterly . .115 Essay on the war in Spain . . 1 16 His political views . . . .116 His house 117 Death 117 VIII. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. Name 119 Family of Strange . . . .119 Ancestry and birth of Strange . 120 His brothers . . . . .120 He enters the legal profession . 1 20 Passion for the sea . . . . 121 Experimental trip . . . .121 Adverse advice . . . .121 Relinquishes the sea, and returns to law 121 His drawings . . . . .122 Apprenticeship to Cooper . .122 Condition of art in Scotland . . 123 Jameson . . . . . .123 J. B. Medina 123 Medina knighted . . . .123 De Witt 123 The younger Medinas . . .123 Aikman 124 Snubert 124 Ramsay 124 Runciman 124 Strange's master, Richard Cooper . 124 Class of work .... 125 Death of Strange's brother . -125 Home-sickness . . . .126 and returns to Visits Kirkwall, Edinburgh Leaves Cooper Rebellion 126 126 126 His engagement to Isabella Lumisden 126 A strong Jacobite . . . .126 He works for the Jacobites . .127 Portrait of Prince Charles . .127 Now very rare . . . .127 Joins a Jacobite regiment . .128 Engraves Jacobite paper money . 128 Culloden 129 Jacobite plans frustrated . .129 His account of the battle . .130 Returns to Edinburgh . . .131 His escape from capture . . -131 Marriage . . . . .132 Goes to London . . . .132 Returns to Edinburgh . . .132 His works 133 Portraits, &c 133 Book plates ..... 133 Miniature portraits of the Stuarts . 133 Goes to Rouen . . . -133 Compatriots at Rouen . . .134 Hamilton of Bangour's Litany . 134 Studies under Descamps . . . 1 34 Descamps 135 Strange removes to Paris . .135 Learns dry-point . . . .135 Le Bas 136 The " Death of the Stag " . .136 Engraves pictures by Vanloo and Wouvermans . . . -137 CONTENTS. PAGE Returns to London . . . . 137 Occupation 137 His engravings popular . . .138 Praised by Mengs, &c. . . .138 Removes to Co vent Garden . .138 Increase of his fame . . -139 Plans a visit to Italy . . . 139 Obstacles 139 Quarrel with Allan Ramsay . .139 Leaves England . . . .142 Paris and Florence . . . .142 Rome ...... 142 The Vatican 143 Naples 143 Foreign recognition . . . 143 Popular in Italian society . . 143 Interviews with Cardinal of York . 143 Returns to England . . . 144 Winters in Paris . . . -144 Elected a member of the French Royal Academy . . . 144 Returns to London .... 144 Jealousy of English artists and critics . . . . -144 Jealousy and Meekness . . . 145 Guide's Magdalene refused by Society of Artists .... 145 Head by Guercino accepted . . 145 Letter to Lord Bute . . . 145 Royal Academy excludes engravers 146 Strange's retaliation . . .146 His collection of old masters . .146 Sells some drawings . . . 147 Exhibition and sale of old masters, 1769-71 147 Paris, 1775-80 . . . .147 London, 1780 147 Daughter Mary dies, 1784 . .147 Death of Princes Octavius and Alfred 148 Apotheosis, by B. West, engraved by Strange .... 148 PAOB Knighted by George III. . . 148 Press criticisms .... 149 Prosperity . . . . . 149 Sons ...... 149 His wife's advice . . . .150 Paris, 1789-91 . . . .150 Volume of prints . . . -150 Death, 5th July 1792 . . .150 Personal effects . . . . 151 Stock of prints . . . -151 Plates destroyed . . . -151 His zeal for his art . . . -151 His work . . . . .152 Subjects 152 Effect on national taste . . .152 Reputation 153 Appreciation by critics English and Italian . . . . 154 Lady Strange 154 Her character . . . .155 Her business capacity . . . 155 Letter to her brother . . . 155 Her domestic life , * . 157 Her shrewdness . . . .157 Her Jacobitism . . . .158 Strange and Lumisden . . .160 Andrew Lumisden, under-secretary to the Chevalier St. George . 161 He becomes full secretary . .162 His duties . . . . .162 Mission to France . . .162 Various duties . . . .163 His life with Charles Edward . 163 Is dismissed . . . .164 Goes to Paris . . . .164 Income . . . . .164 Return home, and free pardon . 164 His works . . . . .164 Death in Edinburgh, 1801 . . 165 Exiled Stuarts .... 165 Mr. Dennistoun . . . .165 His Dukes of Urbino . . .165 XVI CONTENTS. PAGE Sketch of his life . . . .165 Projected History of Dumbarton- shire 166 Continental tour . . . .166 Sale of his land . . . .166 Buys property in Renfrewshire . 166 Marriage 167 Travels 167 Winters in Rome . . .167 Summers in Italy and Germany, &c 167 Collections 167 Edinburgh 167 Sale of his collection . . . 167 Works 168 Reviews 169 His evidence on the National Gallery 169 IX. THE DUKES OF U RBI NO. Urbino 171 Its importance in Art . . .171 Its Counts 171 Fortunate in a historian . . .172 Early history 172 Federigo, second Duke . . . 173 His period 173 Italian soldiership . . 1 74 Condottiere . . . . -174 Federigo's feats . . . . 175 His character . . . .176 His gains 176 Government . . . .176 Beneficence 176 " Busy as the bonnet of Federigo " 177 Palace 177 His book-collecting . . .177 His libraries and their contents . 1 78 Plan of his collection . . .178 Magnificence . . . . 179 Sumptuous books . . . .179 Removal of his books to the Vatican . . . . . 179 Death 180 Guidobaldo 1 1 80 Early distinction . . . .180 Varying attitude of the Pope . 181 Exiled to Venice . . . . 181 Return to power . . . .181 His court 181 Castiglione 182 The Fregosos and Bembo . .182 Bel Bernardo Dovizzi . . .182 Duchess Elizabeth and her nieces . 182 Giovanni Sanzi . . . .182 Raffaelle 182 Giovanni della Rovere . . .182 Duke Francesco Maria . . .183 Reign 183 His temper 183 Becomes captain-general of Venice 183 Power of Charles V. . . .184 He meets Emperor at Bologna . 184 Captain-general of the League . 184 Place and fame . . . .184 Duke Guidobaldo II. . . .185 Palace 186 Marriages, &c 186 Duke Francesco Maria II. . . 186 Lepanto 186 Great abilities . . . .186 Husband of Lucrezia d'Este . 186 His passion for reading and book- collecting 187 CONTENTS. xvii PAGE PAGE 187 Church of St. Francis at Assisi . IQ2 Birth of a son .... / 187 Raffaelle y 194 Desire to retire .... 187 Pottery of Urbino . 195 Resigns ducal chair to his son 188 Mr. Ford's collection . 196 His son's death .... 188 Literature of Urbino . 196 His death 188 Vittoria Colonna 197 The Borgias 188 Tasso . 197 Popes Sixtus IV. and Julius II. 189 Bembo ..... . 197 Military incidents .... 189 Castiglione .... . 197 Extracts ...... 190 The Courtier .... 197 St. Francis of Assisi . 190 Italian euphuism . 198 TJmbrian art . . IQI IQQ * y* IQ2 Contents and ffood index ' * 7? * y ~ - o ~ - X. DEVISES AND MOTTOES. Art of " Devise " .... 20 1 Revival ..... 2O5 Its province 201 Radowitz's collection 2O5 Reverence for the " Devise " . 2O I Survey of subject . 2O6 Antiquity of its origin 202 History . 2O6 2O2 Ancient ..... . 2O6 Alciati 2O2 French . 2O7 Impreses ..... 203 German . 2O7 Ambrosio Morales .... 203 Meaning of a " devise " . . 2O7 William Camden .... 203 Rules of Paul Jovius . 208 Otto Venius ..... 2O3 Preference for emblems of action . 209 The De Brys ..... 203 Devises on Love and War . 2IO Bonasoni ..... 203 Martial . 2IO General use and popularity 2O3 Amatory . 211 2O4 Proverbs ..... . 212 Decadence of Devises 2O4 Bibliography .... 213 2O5 Omissions . 21T, XI. J ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. Seals their antiquity 215 Biblical references to seals . 216 Lacedaemonians . . ... 215 Arabian Nights . 216 Greek .... . . . 215 Private seals . . . . 216 Egypt and China .... 215 Alexander .... . 217 XV111 CONTENTS. Darius 217 217 217 217 217 217 217 2lS Sylla Pompey .... Liicuilu.s .... Maecenas .... Macrianus .... Historical value of seals and coins Use of seals in the North Anomalous adaptations of gems and intaglios 218 Earliest English seal, 1066 . .219 Introduction of their use, and sig- nificance . . . . .219 Degrees 219 Royalty 219 Laity 219 Importance increased with growth of heraldry . . . .219 Ecclesiastical seals .... 220 Laing's collection . . . .221 Scottish seals . . . . .221 Mr. Laing and his work . . .221 Earliest Scottish example . . 222 Duncan II 222 Alexander III. .... 222 Robert I. ..... 222 David II. 223 Mary of Gueldres .... 223 PAGE Value in regard to costume, &c. . 223 Glasgow seals ..... 224 Edinburgh . . . . .224 Wax seals . . . . . 225 Few have mottoes .... 225 Mottoes came later . . . 225 Impreses ..... 225 French and Italian .... 225 Recent introduction of mottoes and crests into heraldry . . . 226 Crests individual .... 226 Sir John Hamilton .... 226 Supporters still more modern . . 227 Royal supporters of Scotland . . 228 Maxwells of Polloc . . . .228 Designs of old seals . . . 229 John Napier's seal .... 229 Old wax seals superior to modern . 230 Colour of wax varied and signifi- cant 230 Green 230 White 230 Yellow 230 Red 231 Lead 231 Blue 231 Conclusion . . . . .231 Omissions 232 XII. SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. National holidays . " Tauromachia "... French illustrations inaccurate Spanish spiritless . " Tauromachia " accurate Mr. Ford's letterpress His description of a bull-fight . Act I. 235 Madridenian disregard for horses . 240 236 Incident 240 236 Act II 241 237 Saltro tras el cuerno 242 237 Act III., and last . . . . 243 237 Illustrations *. 246 237 Bull - fight the oldest popular 237 amusement . 246 CONTENTS. PAGE Ethics of bull-fighting . . . 246 Contrast with British " sport " . 247 Bull-fighting and game-preserving proa and cons .... 248 Bull 248 Fox 248 The bull-ring 248 Thessalian bull-fight . . . 249 Bull- fighting borrowed from Moors . 249 First recorded bull-fight, 1107 . 249 Combatants formerly knights . . 249 D. Pedro Nino .... 249 Pizarro 249 Charles V 249 Don Sebastian .... 250 The bull-ring in reign of Philip IV. . 250 Salgado's description . . . 250 Bull-fight for Charles I. of England 251 On second marriage of Philip IV. . 251 On marriage of Charles "V. . .251 Sixteenth century bull-fights more bloody and fatal than now . 251-2 Church averse to bull-fights . . 252 Mariana ...... 253 Decline of bull-fighting . . . 254 Famous bull-fighters, and their feats 254 XIII. RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. Acknowledgment of honour . . 257 Its value ...... 258 Appeal to the young . . . 258 Fortunes of country in their hands . 258 Scotland's future .... 259 Invocation to cultivation . . 259 Purpose of universities . . . 259 Importance of improving opportuni- ties 260 Learn the art of learning . .261 Methods various . . . .261 Powers need exercise . . .261 Moral discipline .... 262 Duty of obedience to golden rule . 262 Error of indulging in private reading 263 Work and play .... 263 Walpole's recreation . . . 263 More reading and less thinking now- a-days ..... 264 Desultory reading .... 264 Pleasure of books .... 264 Extent of printed matter . . 265 Special subjects . . . . 265 Works on Tuscany .... 265 Proverbs 265 Heraldry 266 British Museum .... 266 English publications . . . 266 Reading with a special purpose . 266 Choice of a profession . . . 267 Competitive examinations . . 267 Learned professions . . . 267 Knowledge always useful to the lawyer and physician . . 268 Church 269 Reasons for caution . . . 269 Changes of opinion .... 269 Changes in the university . . 269 Changes in thought, in literature, theology, and churches . . 270 Advice to theological students . 272 Office of Rector . . . .273 Creation ...... 273 Objections ..... 273 Support ...... 274 University representation in Parlia- ment ...... 274 Conclusion ..... 2/6 XX CONTENTS. XIV. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. PAGE A book reflects its author . . 277 Style 277 Hallam 278 Macaulay . . . . 278 Subject 278 Historians of their own times . . 278 Spanish, Scotch, Venetian, French . 279 Bernal Diaz 279 His History .... 280 Its object 281 Goes to the New World . .281 Cuba 281 Mexico . . . . .281 Conquest of Tlascalla . . .281 City of Mexico .... 282 Montezuma seized . . . 282 Narvaez' mission to bring back Cortes 283 Narvaez captured by Cortes . 283 The Woeful Night . . .283 Forces of Cortes .... 283 Style of narrative unpretentious . 284 His knowledge and reading . 285 Style simple .... 286 Character of Cortes . . . 292 John Knox 298 His History 298 Its purpose ..... 299 Laing's edition of his History . 304 Questions of the Reformation . 305 His sincerity .... 306 His impatience of others . . 307 His History hastily written . . 308 Reflects passions of the day . . 309 Rizzio's death . . . . 39 Siege of Leith .... 309 George Wishart's Life . .310 Wishart's power of prophecy .311 Knox's portraits of his contem- poraries true . . . .313 Minute in personal details . .313 Conversations with Queen Mary . 314 First interview . . . -315 His sense of the ludicrous . .316 Battle of the Crosses, at Glasgow 317 Act of Parliament of 1 543 . .317 Analogy to Sydney Smith . . 317 His sneers at hypocrisy . .318 His promise to preach at St. Andrews, in spite of the Arch- bishop's threat . . . .318 His jests . . . . .319 His plain language . . . 320 Value of his History . . . 320 Paolo Paruta 320 Born 1540 321 His offices ..... 321 His Venetian History . . .321 Sultan Selim II 322 Covets Cyprus .... 322 Nicosia taken .... 322 Venetian fleet helpless . . 322 The League formed . . . 322 Fall of Famagosta . . . 323 Battle of Lepanto not followed up 323 Separation of the Christian fleet . 323 Late re-assembling . . . 323 Inglorious result .... 324 Death of Pope Pius V. . . 324 Weakness of Gregory XIII. . 324 Peace concluded .... 324 Venice retires from the League . 324 Paruta's narrative and style . 324 Its tone and temper worthy of a statesman .... 325 Position of Venice peculiar . -325 CONTENTS. Venice neither Turk nor Christian 326 Her tendency to intellectual free- dom ...... 326 Jealousy and distrust of Venice . 326 Her power on the wane . . 326 Withdrawal of Venice a breach of the League . . . . 327 Treaty had been broken by King of Spain . . . . . 327 Earlier League . . . -327 Doubts as to Emperor's good faith 327 Displeasure of Gregory XIII. and Philip II 328 Venetian views of Spain and the Pope 328 Reports of Venier and Foscarini . 329 Venier's conduct at Lepanto . 329 Indignation of Don John of Aus- tria 329 Venier's recall .... 329 Foscarini's appointment . . 329 PAGE Paruta's impartial spirit . . 330 Style of his work .... 330 Jacques Auguste de Thou . . 330 His History of European affairs . 331 Its vast plan . . . -331 Its scope . . . . .331 Its great epoch .... 332 His preference of Latin . .332 Affairs of France and the Nether- lands 332 The Moriscos .... 333 Plantin Press .... 333 Saxon campaign .... 333 St. Bartholomew .... 333 His moderation and impartiality contrary to tendency of the age 333 Omens of St. Bartholomew, vari- ously interpreted . . . 334 Results of his impartiality . . 334 Offence to both parties . . 334 His historical rule . . -335 XV. THE FALL OF TWO EMPIRES 1814 AND 1870. Choice of subject .... 337 Events on Continent . . . 337 Fall of two French Empires . -337 French revolutionary governments . 338 First Empire 338 Lieutenant Bonaparte . . . 338 Battle of the Sections . . .338 Commands in Italy and Egypt . 339 His return . . . . -339 Coup-d'ttat 339 First Consul 339 Emperor, 1804 .... 339 His triumphs and checks . . 339 His power in Europe . . . 340 His rule in France .... 340 His theory of domestic government 341 Dark spots 341 Britain and Portugal . . .341 Culmination of his star, 1811 . . 342 Defeat of Austria .''-. . . 342 His marriage ..... 342 His power ..... 342 Downfall of First Empire . . 343 Government by circumstances . 343 Dictates to Russia .... 343 The Czar resents .... 344 War 344 Invasion of Russia .... 344 Burning of Moscow . . . 344 French retreat .... 344 Route to Russia .... 344 " Pit of kings " 344 xxn CONTENTS. Defection of Sweden, Prussia, &c. . 345 Lutzen and Bautzen . . . 345 Armistice ..... 345 Attitude of Austria . . . 345 Terms offered to Bonaparte . . 345 Alternatives 346 Declines peace .... 346 Insults the three powers by his pro- posals ..... 34^ Alliance of Russia, Prussia, and Austria 347 Armistice ends .... 347 Forces of the allies .... 347 Napoleon's forces . . . -347 Comparison 347 Siege of Dresden .... 347 French victory .... 348 Subsequent reverses . . . 348 Napoleon retreats .... 348 Reaches Leipzic .... 348 Battle of Leipzic .... 349 French retreat .... 349 Erfurt 349 Appeal for " money and men " . 349 Desertion of Bavarians . . . 349 Defeat of Bavarian-Austrian army . 350 French reach the Rhine . . . 350 Fall of Westphalia and Cassel . 350 French discomfiture . . . 350 French miscalculation . . . 350 Bad news of Holland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Flanders . -351 France exhausted . . . .351 Napoleon's return to Paris . -351 Renewed proposals for peace . . 352 Answer delayed .... 352 Allies resolve to march on Paris . 352 Measures for resistance . . . 353 Napoleon joins army, 1814 . . 353 Collision at Brienne . . . 353 French victory .... 353 Reverse by Blucher . . . 353 Victories at Champaubert, Mont- mirail, Chateau Thierry, Vau- champ Defeats Austrians and Russians Congress at Mannheim . New offers of peace Armistice of Troyes Offers neglected . . , . Battles of Craonne and Laon . Retires on Soissons . . . . Advance of allies . Napoleon turns . . . . News of fall of Paris His plans . Abdication, &c Subsequent events . Napoleon's behaviour Elba Empire of the Hundred Days . Waterloo . Second Empire . Louis Napoleon's early career . Imprisonment at Ham . Fame of name of Napoleon Revolution of 1847 . Louis Napoleon President Loyalty of National Assembly Coup-d'ttat, 2nd December 1852 Excuses for it . Value of plebiscite .... M. Thiers Second plebiscite .... Napoleon Emperor .... Character of the coup-d'&at British approval .... Subsequent military despotism Comparison of the two Empires Influence of Napoleon III. on Europe Quarrel with Turkey Italian war, 1859 .... Magenta and Solferino . 353 354 354 354 354 354 354 354 355 355 355 355 355 356 356 356 356 357 357 357 357 358 358 358 358 359 359 359 360 360 360 361 36i 361 361 362 362 362 362 CONTENTS. xxi 11 PAGE Its objects ..... 362 His perfidy as to Savoy and Nice . 363 Commercial treaty with England . 363 Military and diplomatic failures . 363 Mexico, 1860 363 Intervention of France, England, and Spain .... 364 Conferences prove abortive . . 364 French breach of terms . . . 364 Spain and England adhere . . 365 Results 365 End of Mexican affair . . . 365 Prusso- Austrian War, 1866 . . 365 France's claims refused by Count Bismarck .... 365 Secret treaty with Holland . . 366 Internal administration of Napoleon III 366 Paris 366 Debt 366 Railways, &c 366 Commercial schemes . . . 366 Public scandals . . . -367 Government . . . . 368 Liberal tendencies .... 368 Plebiscite 368 Friendship of Emperor to England . 369 State of account between him and England 369 Russian war ..... 369 Trade with France .... 369 Indian mutiny .... 370 Italian revolution .... 370 Large British armaments . . 370 Naval . . . . . . 370 Fortifications . . . . 370 Volunteers ..... 370 Secret treaty as to Belgium . . 370 The balance 371 His words and his official expressions 371 Second Empire one of the first Great Powers ..... 371 PAGE French chances in the Italian war . 371 Comparisons Austria and France ; Napoleon and Francis Joseph . 371 Napoleon's sense of insecurity . 371 Did not lead to preparation . . 372 Prevailing weakness . . . 372 Quarrel with Prussia as to the Ho- henzollerns and the crown of Spain 372 Secret treat}' ..... 372 French duplicity .... 373 State of France before war . . 373 Army . . . , .373 Emperor's command . . . 373 The Campaign of '1870 . . . 374 Emperor's plans found impractic- able 374 His ignorance of enemy's move- ments 375 Napoleon's personal doings . . 375 The Prince Imperial's " baptism of fire" 376 Germans cross the Rhine . .376 Weissenburg ..... 376 Worth 376 French retreat on Metz . . . 376 Emperor at Chalons . . . 377 Rheims 377 Resigns command to Bazaine . . 377 Sedan 377 Surrender of Sedan by Napoleon . 377 Effect of news at Paris . . . 378 Escape of Empress .... 378 Exit Napoleon III 378 Contrast between two Napoleons . 378 The uncle 378 The nephew . . 379 His remark as to officers' baggage . 380 His own 380 Nelson's remark on General Mack . 381 Napoleon's implicit faith . .381 His incompetence .... 381 XXIV CONTENTS. XVI. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Reasons for honouring memory of Scott 383 Extent of his services to his country 383 Amount of his work . . . 384 As translator .... 384 As original writer . . . 384 As poet 384 As prose writer .... 384 Miscellaneous writings . . . 384 Professional and mercantile occupa- tion . . ." . . . 384 Scott as a poet .... 385 Ballad collectors and writers . . 385 Prevailing tastes .... 385 Border Minstrelsy .... 386 Lay of the Last Minstrel . . . 386 Scott's supremacy in metrical ro- mance . . . . . 386 Historical romances . ' -. . 387 Moore's references to him . . 387 His lyrics 387 Their world-wide fame . . . 388 As a writer of prose fiction . . 389 Waverley Novels .... 389 The author's first acquaintance with them 389 Effect of Waverley .... 390 Kemiworih, Nigel, Durward . . 390 Scott's characters .... 390 Their reality 391 His history 391 The Covenanters . . . . 391 His Scotch characters emphatically Scotch . ' . . . . 392 His work has intensified Scotch nationality as well as British . 393 His effect on material prosperity of Scotland 393 PAGE His ease of composition . . . 394 His two sermons .... 395 Observations of Hazlitt and Captain Basil Hall . . . .395 His haste in writing . . . 396 His genius exceptional . . . 396 His influence on literature . . 397 His verse 397 His disciples ..... 397 Byron 397 Macaulay ..... 397 Aytoun 397 Father of historical romance . . 397 Stimulation to historical re- search 398 His style copied by historians . 398 Hallam 398 Macaulay 398 Carlyle . . . . . 399 His own character and life . . 399 Lockhart's Life of Scott . . . 399 Contemporary appreciation . . 399 Appreciation abroad . . . 400 His friends . * . . . . 400 His high appreciation of others . 401 His reminiscence of Burns . .401 His kindness 401 His desire for posterity . . .401 His shrewd, practical side . . 402 His feudal ideas .... 402 His politics 403 His weakness 404 Reluctance to face disagreeable facts 404 His energy against difficulties . . 404 His financial struggles . . . 405 His sacrifices 405 Events of the century . . . 405 CONTENTS. XXV XVII. RECTORIAL ADDRESS: EDINBURGH. Thanks 407 Predecessors in office . . . 407 Opponent ..... 407 Performance of duties . . . 408 Interest in audience . . 408 Value of time ..... 409 The past . ... . . . 409 The future ..... 409 Collective influence on society . . 409 Exhortation to diligence and use of faculties ..... 410 Order of education disputed . . 410 Ancient languages . . . .411 Their value in grasping English . 412 Labour required . . . .412 Disadvantages of ignorance of an- cient life . . . . .412 Two objections to classical teaching its inefficiency ; time occupied 413 Once real ; now removed . .413 Guarantees of efficiency . . .413 Classical learning worth time . . 414 Studies hard at first most fruitful . 414 But conquest brings strength . .415 Investigation of truth . . .415 Side studies . . . . .415 Extent of knowledge . . . 415 Bodleian library . . . .416 Historical writers . . . .416 Native historians recent . . .416 Hume ....... 416 Advance during century . . .417 Modern British historians . .417 Dr. Arnold's advice ., . .417 Select a special period . . .417 Read the contemporary writers . 418 By-ways of history . . . .418 VOL. VI. PAGE Montaigne's Essays . . . .418 His Journey 418 De Thou 419 Value of the judicial faculty . . 420 Grote 421 Dean Stanley's sermon on Grote . 421 Sober-mindedness .... 422 Cool judgment .... 423 Abolitionist politicians . . . 423 Study national and foreign history . 424 Party 424 Change of opinion .... 424 Mr. Freeman's change of party . 424 Southey's . . . . . 425 Religious questions .... 425 Suggestions 426 Problems, past and present . . 426 Free inquiry . .... 426 Its attractions .... 426 Its hopes . . . . 426 Conflicting principles . . . 426 Rash speculations . . . .427 Teaching with knowledge . . 427 Rule of Descartes .... 427 University education of women . 428 Women's influence on men . . 428 Favourable to their education . 428 Women entitled to education . . 429 Medical education of women . . 429 Some opinions favourable . . 429 Appeal from female students . . 429 Arguments against .... 430 Answer 430 Few female medical students . -431 Women should get a degree . . 432 Means difficult .... 432 Their claims and arguments . . 432 C XXVI CONTENTS. Strong case .... PAGE 433 PA.OB Demands of female students . . 434 Matriculation and its conditions 433 Difficulties 434 Custom against 433 Prize 435 XVIII. CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS: GLASGOW. Distinguished predecessors . . 437 Duke of Montrose .... 437 Constituency . : i : -'--'i . . 438 Office formerly filled by bishops . 438 Marquess of Hamilton first layman, and first elected by the Senatus 438 Election now by General Council . 439 Changes in University and the world 439 France, Italy, America, Germany . 439 Glasgow . ''. '" l 'i - M : j '' . 439 Modern progress .... 440 University losses .... 440 Senatus : its past and present . . 440 Religious tests abolished . . . 440 University growth and government 441 Parliamentary franchise conferred . 441 Change of position . . . .441 The old College and its recent fate . 442 The Alcala, its rise and splendour . 442 Now desolate and deserted, while Glasgow flourishes . . . 442 Present buildings incomplete . . 443 Thought by some too ambitious . 443 But provided for future . . . 444 Worthy of stately architecture . 444 A University should be artistic . 444 Athenian ..... 445 European . \'"" ". ' '.' . 445 English 445 Cambridge 445 Eton . . " '. 445 Ancient liberality compared with present . .''.' . 445-6 Hunterian collection . . . 446 Proposal to sell it ... 447 Glasgow cannot permit it . . 447 Advantages of poverty . . . 448 New governing body successful . 449 Hopes of government aid slender . 449 Secondary education . . . 450 Effects of Education Act of 1872 . 450 Monotony 450 Depressing . './ f ." '" | . 451 Remedies . . . . 45 1 University education of teachers dis- couraged, but desirable . . 452 Higher class schools required . . 452 Bursaries . . . . . . 452 Revision of Code .... 452 University entrance examinations . 453 Cost of improvement must be pro- vided voluntarily . . -453 Endowed Schools Commission . . 454 Existing endowments . . . 454 Glasgow endowments . . . 454 Suggestions for Scotch Commission . 455 Public bequests public property . 455 Ought to be managed on modern principles 456 Other matters managed by State . 456 Objections 457 Conclusion 458 BIBLIOGRAPHY :-,' 461 INDEX . . jr. ^ :;.. .. 485 E SIDES his historical works, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell made many smaller, but equally interesting contributions to literature ; and, as most of these are generally inaccessible, it has been deemed desirable that the more impor- tant of them, as well as his scholastic addresses, should be brought together. A bibliography of his literary and artistic productions is given by the Editor. Thanks are tendered to the Earl of Carlisle for kindly permitting Richmond's portrait of Prescott to be en- graved for this volume. EGBERT GUY. THE WERN, POLLOKSHAWS, May 1891. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. T has not been thought advisable to in- clude a memoir of Sir William Stirling- Maxwell in this edition of his writings, but the following facts are given as throwing some light on the circumstances under which the books were written. William Stirling was born at Kenmure, in Lanarkshire, on March 8, 1818. He was the only son of Archibald Stirling of Keir and Elizabeth Maxwell, daughter of Sir John Maxwell of Nether Pollok. He was educated in the private school of Mr. Langley, Vicar of Olney, in Buckinghamshire, and at Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1839. After leaving Cambridge Mr. Stirling spent some time abroad, visiting the Levant and various parts of Europe. He returned from Syria in 1842, and four years later he printed privately some of his Songs of the Holy Land, of which a larger collection was published in 1 848. xxx BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. He succeeded to his father's estates in 1847. In the following year he published the Annals of the Artists of Spain the result of long study and of several Spanish journeys. The part of the Annals which deals with the life of Velazquez was afterwards re-written, and published separ- ately in 1855 under the title of Velazquez and his Works. In 1852 Mr. Stirling published the Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V. In 1857 he was already at work at Don John of Austria. This book, although it was not published until 1883, five years after the Author's death, was left by him quite ready for the press, the proof-sheets corrected, the illustrations chosen and arranged. In 1853 Mr. Stirling was returned to Parliament as Member for Perthshire ; he continued to represent the county until the general election of 1868, when he was defeated. In 1866 he succeeded to the name, baronetcy, and estates of his uncle, Sir John Maxwell of Nether Pollok. Between 1868 and 1874 Sir William Stirling-Maxwell devoted much of his increased leisure to the prepara- tion of several volumes of facsimiles of engravings and woodcuts of the sixteenth century. In 1874 he was elected again to Parliament, and re- mained the member for Perthshire until his death. Sir William spared no pains to be accurate in his BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. xxxi writings. There are at Keir numerous cases filled with, notes in his handwriting, proofs and corrections, books bearing on the subjects, and copies made by himself, or by his orders, of documents in the archives of Rome, Venice, the Hague, and Madrid. The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V. and Velazquez and his Works were translated into French, German, and Spanish during the author's life ; and he watched with delight the evidence of public appreciation of his books shown by the increasing prices paid for them at sales. Much of his work was done in the British Museum, where his private writing-desk was constantly kept for him in the Inner Library. To the paper, type, printing, ornaments, and binding of his books, Sir William gave the minutest attention, and every detail was arranged by himself. All of his books, and especially Don John of Austria, were written slowly, in the intervals of a great number of other duties and occupations. As a Member of Parliament, and a Trustee of the British Museum and National Gallery, and in other public capacities, Sir William devoted a great deal of time to public business, and had to attend to a very large correspondence. When he was at Keir, he spent much of his leisure time in his library, arranging his books of Proverbs, Emblems, and the Arts of Design. His large collection of engravings was kept in the most perfect order. He xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. had books filled with a collection of ornamental alpha- bets and initial letters. It was his habit to spend spare moments in the designing of cyphers and devices, of which many examples appear as ornaments in his books, while others were collected into books on their own account. Sir William took a great interest in the various photo- graphic processes invented in his lifetime which were applicable to the reproduction of engravings, and of every sort of typographical ornament. A great number of expe- riments were carried out for him, and some of the results appear in his privately printed volumes of facsimiles, and in the great variety of his book-plates. For his home at Keir Sir William had the greatest affection, and he loved to have it full of his friends. He took great delight in the improvement of the house and gardens, the planting of cypresses and pine-trees, and the breeding of Shorthorn cattle and Clydesdale horses. Sir William married, in 1865, Lady Anna Leslie Mel- ville, second daughter of David, Earl of Leven and Mel- ville, by whom he had two sons. Lady Anna died in 1874, and Sir William married secondly, in 1877, the Honourable Mrs. Norton, who died in the same year. A few months before his death Sir William was made a Knight of the Thistle. He died of a fever at Venice on the i5th of January 1878. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES. i. THE PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND* N offering some remarks to the Stirling School of Arts at the opening of its session, I believe I am amply justified by facts in first congratulating the Society on the success of its past and on the prospects of its future. By means of the Society the inhabitants of this town and neighbourhood have had an opportunity of hearing several men of approved ability and reputation lecture on sub- jects of the highest scientific and literary interest ; i An address to the School of Arts, at Stirling, ou the opening of the session 1855-56. VOL. VI. A* PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. of reading many valuable books, and so of deepen- ing the foundations or extending the sphere of their acquirements, or, at the least, of giving their minds, weary with daily business, a healthful change of moral and intellectual air. By these lectures, by this library, and by the prizes awarded by the Society, the young have been stimulated to the acquisition of useful and agreeable knowledge, to the cultiva- tion of their judgment and taste, and to the forma- tion of those habits of mental industry and activity so essential to a successful career. To state what has been done seems to me a sufficient cause for not troubling you with reasons why it has been done, and why it ought to be done again, and, if possible, done still better. If you invited a scientific lecturer here to give you a popular account of our textile manufactures, I believe you would be rather surprised, perhaps rather wearied, if he spent half-an-hour in insisting in November and a northern latitude on the comfort of wearing clothes. If M. Soyer were to lecture on cookery, I cannot suppose that he would think it advisable to dilate much on the pleasures and advantages of eating in the abstract. So, having been honoured, as a man of letters, by an invitation to address you, I think I should waste my time as well as yours if I spent any considerable portion of it in expatiating on the use and import- ance of literature. Not that I should not have PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. abundant precedents for so doing. I have heard or read many speeches, addressed by various eminent persons to meetings of this kind, which were nothing else but beautiful panegyrics upon knowledge and the cultivation of the mind stirring appeals to victualling and clothing associations against fasting and going naked. To speak or write thus would have been highly proper in the days of the patri- archs, when men after their labour sat down to eat and drink, and rose up merely to play ; or even in the days of Cicero and Atticus, when for one man who read or wrote, half a million went to see the Gaul and Dacian cut each other's throats in the amphitheatre. But why insist on a thing about which our meeting here to-night is a proof that we are all agreed ? The existence of your Society one amongst a thousand societies with similar objects ; your library one amongst ten thousand local libra- ries ; the audience I have the honour to address ; the book-club ; the penny newspaper ; the long shelves of excellent books, sold at our railways at prices for which, fifty years ago, primers could not have been obtained ; the letters of private soldiers now fighting our battles in the Crimea, letters which many brave and honest Peninsular generals were just as incapable of writing as of writing " Hamlet " all these things prove that the love of intellectual culture has become universal, that literary skill is PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. every day diffusing itself over our people, and that the importance of literature to the life of a nation is a position that needs no longer to be maintained by argument or enforced by the resources of eloquence. Holding this opinion, I thought I should best serve the ends of those who have invited me here if I chose some topic less vague than the objects and advantages of your Society. I propose, there- fore, to address you upon the National Proverbs of Scotland, and upon their value as illustrations of our national history and character. And first of all, a few words on the study of proverbs in general. Like most other by-ways of knowledge, it has been much more trodden than those who turn aside into it are usually prepared to expect. Indeed, the first feeling awakened in the mind of the way- farer is wonder at the extent of the traffic and the amount of pick-and-shovel work which has been done upon the road by unknown or forgotten hands. Some eight or nine years ago I began to collect books on proverbs, and was surprised to find how soon my collection numbered fifty or sixty volumes. At this stage of my career, however, the admirable Bibliographic of proverbs by M. Duplessis appeared, and my surprise at my own success was changed into dismay at the unexpected extent of the field upon which I had entered. From this accurate and laborious compilation I learned that there existed National Proverbs of Scotland. Proverbs in general well ex- plored. Author's early col- lection. Biblio- (ivaphie of M. Du- plessis. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. on the subject of proverbs no less than 893 separate works, and that, as many of these had passed through several editions, and had been greatly altered and enlarged in the process, it would often be necessary to procure more than one edition in order to possess the work in a complete form. Since Duplessis wrote, many important collections of proverbs have appeared in various languages ; I have met with a considerable number of old collections which had escaped his notice ; and I believe I am within the mark when I say that a complete series of books relating to proverbs would probably number 2,000 volumes. What has been done and is doing in this somewhat obscure corner of the field of letters is but a specimen of the activity which pervades it all. Bibliography, or the science which registers, describes, and classifies books, the natural history of books, would of itself fill a large library. Truly the royal proverbialist had reason to exclaim, that " of making of many books there was no end." A pioverb has been defined, by an eminent living statesman, 1 with much felicity and general applause, as " the wisdom of many and the wit of one." Like many other definitions, it is not of universal appli- cation, for there are some proverbs which are not wise, and many more which are not witty. The 1 [Lord John (afterwards Earl) Russell.] Subse- quent col- lections. Complete series of books on proverbs, 2,000 vols. Biblio- graphy. A proverb defined. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Its anti- quity. Many lost. Dutch proverb, " Self's the man," the German one, " Once is never," appear to me to be neither wise nor witty. That eminently base saying, " One must howl with the wolves," has some cunning, but cer- tainly no wit. It may be conceded, however, that every proverb must have seemed wise at some time, or it could not have obtained that currency which is a proverb's most essential condition. The definition of a proverb would be more accurate, though less terse and epigrammatic, if it ran thus, "The thought of many spoken by one, and echoed by all." The great charm of a proverb lies in its antiquity ; its coming to us stamped with the authority of ages and the approval of distant generations. From the beginning of time men must have been seeing and doing and suffering things, out of which arose these small crystallisations of thought and experience. Those which have passed from age to age, from people to people, from land to land, and from language to language, or which have been born at once under various skies, and in various races and tongues, are but the hoary survivors of buried and forgotten multitudes. Many an adage must have been brought forth, and must have died with the circumstances and people which gave it life and circulation, long before Solomon sat down in his golden house to chronicle the wisdom of the mart and the wayside. Even amongst ourselves, in an PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. age and country by no means favourable to these flowers of the common, we see something of the same process going on. A neatly expressed thought, a felicitous, a forcible, a ludicrous, or unfortunate phrase catches the public ear, and is straightway in the public mouth. For a week or two, a month or two, or even a year or two, you find it recurring in speeches and articles, in private conversation, in the railway, or on the street, and then it dies and is forgotten. Young people grow up, and if you use it in their presence they ask you what it means ; and in due time antiquaries or biographers will exhume it, and probably place an incorrect version of it in an entirely wrong mouth. With us, these phrases generally come from the region of politics. There was, for example, the Duke of Wellington's characteristic " and no mistake," words taken from his letter to Mr. Huskisson, when that statesman conceived that there had been a mistake in the acceptance of his resignation by the Duke. There was " the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," of the Keform times. There was the famous admission of one statesman, that his reform of the Irish Church was "a heavy blow and great dis- couragement" to that institution. There was the unguarded remark of another, that the Irish were " aliens in language, aliens in blood, and aliens in religion " words upon which many of you will Ephemeral phrases. "And no mistake." "The Bill, the whole Bill," &c. "A heavy blow,'' &c. " Aliens in language," &c. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. "He might do what he would with his own." "Property has its rights, "&c. "Judicious bottle- holding." "The right man in the right place." remember to have read comments in certain letters bearing the address of the " First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea." A noble duke, in some fierce election contest, declared that "he might do what he would with his own," and the phrase became the most remarkable event of a long and somewhat noisy political career. Long afterwards, another statesman put forth a counter- declaration, that if " property had its rights, it also had its duties," a phrase which bids fair to become, and deserves to become, a political proverb. More recently, the present Prime Minister, 1 being then Foreign Secretary, informed a deputation of foreign exiles that his policy was a system of "judicious bottle-holding," an unlucky and ignoble metaphor for which Punch is still grateful to his lordship. The popular phrase of the day is now "the right man in the right place " one containing as much confusion of idea as ever lurked beneath a smart and epigrammatic sound. Thus each year yields its crop of sayings to the thrashing-floor where time and common-sense winnow and sift it, garnering the grain and blowing away infinite clouds of chaff. It is not until it has stood repeated winnowings that a saying, however full of meaning and truth, may be said to have ripened into a proverb. 1 [Viscount Palmerston.] PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. An age of books and railways, schools of art, and popular education, cannot be fertile of proverbs. These " ancient free Franklins and denizens of England," as they have been called, belong less to the England of steam and telegraph than to the England where Gurth, in his brass collar, kept the swine of Cedric beneath the oaks. Thought takes a wider range and a more rapid flight ; ideas are more abundant, more complex, and more changing; im- pressions are more frequent, but less strong ; and a happy saying, though it may be chronicled as a good thing, seldom is allowed time to crystallise into a proverb. The subdivisions of feeling, interest and habit have become as minute and as countless as those of labour ; and sentiments so expressed as to come home to them all are naturally of rare occur- rence. Besides, the fields in which proverbs expati- ate, the conduct of life, the virtues, vices and follies of man, have long ago been so thoroughly laboured by popular philosophy that every inch of ground in them seems to be already occupied by a time- honoured adage. James Howell published, in 1659, a book which he called Divers Centuries of New Sayings, which may serve for Proverbs for Posterity. Of these many were old, borrowed by Howell, with his usual freedom in literary conveyance ; and of those which perhaps were the fruit of his own brain, although they are not deficient in point and Present age cannot be fertile in pro- verbs. Modern com- plexity. Field of proverbs occupied. James Howell's Proverbs, 1659. Many borrowed. 10 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Some native. Others exotic. Proverbs of " home." smartness, posterity has not promoted any one to the rank of a proverb. Best pro- Many of the best and oldest proverbs are common verbs com- mon to all to all nations. They deal with thoughts and feel- nations. ings which are common to all mankind. Some, like the oak, are native to many soils ; others, like our pine and larch, though of foreign extraction, cannot be distinguished from the natives. The thought common to many countries is often embodied in images peculiar to each. It is pleasant to trace the familiar phrase of to-day back to remote antiquity, or to detect in it the disguise of a foreign costume. " Home is home, be it never so homely," is a proverb dear to us all. It was used lately by a traveller with a whimsical alteration to suit his individual case, which seemed to be that of a lover of the country " in populous city pent." " Home is home," said he, as he prepared to leave the train, " though it be Preston." He perhaps did not know that the ancient Greeks used to say, " One's own house is the best of houses ; " that the Spaniards say, " My own house, though small, is the best house of all;" and that it was a classical jest in Greece to apply the proverb to the tortoise, who carries his home on his back. Of vain labour or short-lived union we often express our sense by using the figure of "a rope of sand," often without being aware that the venerable image is Of vain labour. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. ii Greek, and was in use among the Athenians who fought at Salamis. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," says the sententious Englishman. "A thousand cranes in the air," says the Arab, "are not worth one in the fist." " An egg to-day," says the Spaniard, "rather than a fowl to-morrow." The physical varieties of climate and natural products are often finely marked by common phrases and popular figures. Here, if we are drenched with rain, we say we are "wet to the skin;" farther south, in France, people are " wet to the bone ; " while the more copious tears of a southern sky are said by the Spaniard to penetrate " to his marrow." The ancient Greek used to speak of " carrying owls to Athens ; " the Hebrew of " bringing oil to the City of Olives ; " the Persian of " taking peppers to Hindostan " each meaning what we mean when we talk of "sending coals to Newcastle." "Two of a trade never agree," say we ; " The potter is the enemy of the potter," said the Greeks of the time of Hesiod. " Cut your coat according to your cloth," says the prudent Englishman ; and the Arab is of the same opinion, but considering it a breach of good manners to expose his feet in sitting, he expresses it thus, " Stretch your legs according to the length of your cloak." How mournfully the state of society and public feeling under the old Oriental despotisms is depicted in this Bengali adage, " He who gives blows "A bird in the hand." Climatic differences of express- ing same idea. "Carrying owls to Athens." " Coals to New- castle." Conflicting interests. " Ways and Oriental despotism. 12 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Natural features. is a master ; he who gives none is a dog " ! The social condition of Egypt may be read in the proverbs of conditions. Q a j ro as completely as in the best book of travels. " The riches of Egypt are for the foreigners therein," and " The miller steals by handfuls, but the landlord by mule-loads." And in others how beautifully rise before us its rich landscape fringed with desert, its palm-groves, and picturesque life! "He is a bad rider, yet he gallops among the date-trees ; " " The camel has reached the sycamore ;" "A well is not to be filled with dew." Nations, like men, may be judged not unfairly by the sentiments which are most frequently on their lips, and by their manner of delivering these senti- ments. With the exception of the quick-witted Greek, who delighted and still delights in terseness and closely packed meaning, the Southern people use much longer proverbs than we of the North do. We love pith and point, and seldom use a word that can be done without, except perhaps when tempted by some happy jingle of rhyme. The Italians and Spaniards, people especially rich in proverbs of all kinds, have many excellent short ones, but brevity is by no means considered by them as the soul of wit. The Italians have many sayings of this magnitude, " When a man is an anvil, he must suffer ; when he is a hammer, he must strike." The Spaniard in- dulges in such as this, " Said the mother toad to her National peculiari- ties. Greeks. Southerns prolix. Northerns terse. Italians. Spaniards. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 13 Orientals toadlings, ' Come hither, my little angels, for verily ye are coloured blossoms.' " I remember but one of our own that resembles this in length or style " ' Many masters,' quo' the puddock, when ilka time o' the harrow took him a-tide." The Orientals are still prolix. more tolerant of proverbial prolixity ; that " time is money " is a fact not yet acknowledged by the people of the north and the east of the Mediterranean ; closing a bargain implies pipes, coffee, and much desultory conversation ; and the adage naturally luxu- riates into apologue. A gluttonous guest's conduct at table is thus graphically described by the Arab " who dips with him in the dish : " " His hand de- scends upon the meat like the foot of crow, and it comes up like the broad hoof of a camel." Here is something akin to our "Jack of all trades, and master of none," presented in the flowing robes of Eastern imagery. " If you say to the camel-bird (one of the Arabic names for the ostrich), ' Carry,' he will answer, ' Nay, I cannot, because I am a bird ; ' if you say to him, ' Fly,' he will reply, ' Nay, I cannot, because I am a camel.' ' The language, the sentiments, and images of our Scottish proverbs are admirable exponents of our national character. In those which remain to us, the istics. aspect of our country, the habits and pursuits of our people, and somewhat even of the current of our history will be found faithfully reflected. I say in Scottish proverbs reflect national character- PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. those which remain to us, because our proverbs have not been collected with that patience and skill which have been bestowed upon our popular poetry. The David first printed collection of them is that of David Fer- Ferguson's . collection, guson, minister 01 Dunlermlme, a tract of twenty-two leaves, printed at Edinburgh in 1641, and again in 1675, 1706, and 1785. In 1721 the collection of Kelly appeared, and in .1737 that of Allan Ramsay, both of which have been reprinted. The latest and the largest collection is that formed by Andrew Hen- derson, published in 1832, with an introduction by the poet Motherwell. Besides these, a book of Gaelic proverbs, with a translation, was published, in 1785, by Donald Mac- intosh, a native of Athole, and was reprinted in 1819. Of this work, not being a Gaelic scholar, I can judge only by the translation. But by far the greatest part of its contents appears to me to be of Southern origin. Such proverbs as these, "Better a living dog than a dead lion," " The mouse knows when the cat is not at home," "The one-eyed man is king among the blind," can hardly be supposed to have been born beyond the Grampians. Others, however, have a pleasant flavour of peat-reek and of the days of caterans and cattle-lifting " Long is the arm of the needy" and "The entrails of the hornless animal on the head of the horned " are adages that well suit the character and habits of those who were the terror Kelly's. Ramsay's. Hender- son's. Gaelic proverbs. Macin- tosh's. Many of Southern origin. Others cha- racteristic. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 15 of the homesteads round the rock of Stirling. "Weak is the shoulder of the brotherless when men gather to the fray " forcibly describes the mingled feelings of affection and mutual helpfulness which formed the bonds of clanship. The take-care-of-number-one principle, laid down so tersely by Louis XV. in his " After me, the deluge," was almost as well expressed by the Celt, in an image which must have come home to many dwellers on the Teith or Forth, "Break the bridge when I am over." Here also are a couple of precepts illustrating in a highly picturesque and poetical manner the doctrine of the Highlander as regards trespass and poaching, and the various as- pects of his mountain torrents : " A salmon from the stream, a wand from the wood, and a deer from the hill are three thefts that no man need be ashamed of." " The dun water at the leaf's fall, the black water at the root's springing, and the grey water in May are the three worst floods that flow." There is another of the same lengthy and Oriental caste to which I would especially call the attention of any Gaelic scholar who may happen to be present. He will find it in Macintosh's volume, Letter I. No. 193, page 124. It cannot fail to strike with extreme surprise those who share or who have observed the modern admiration for the kilt surprise increased by the commentator's note informing us that the proverb i6 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. " Taking the breeka from a Hie- landman." Celtic endurance. Proverbs in Scottish vernacular. is supposed to be used by a chieftain : " As it is the trews' liking to be among raiment, so it is my liking to be among my men." From this it would appear that the Lowland adage which symbolises attempting an impossibility under the figure of taking " the breeks from a Hielandman," is not founded upon any very ancient fact or feeling. The position here assigned to the trews that of chieftain of the ward- robemakes it highly probable that the older chief- tains did not hold that article of dress so cheap as their successors have agreed to do. I will cite but one more sentence from honest Donald, one which seems as native to the Highlands as their heather. It paints to the life the patient, passive endurance of the Celt, that quality which stands him in such good stead in the backwoods and amidst the hardships through which he often carves his way to fortune abroad, and which, running in his native glens to the rankest seed of idleness, is the origin of so much of his misery at home. The words are these, " He that waits long enough at the ferry will some time or other get across." Let us now come to the proverbs in the good old Scotch vernacular, that racy Anglo-Saxon flavoured with the French of the days of the House of Valois. Many, of course, are common not only to both sides of the Tweed, but indeed to the whole world ; and there are probably very few which are not PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. common to people whose circumstances were so simi- lar as those of the Lowland Scots and the Northern English. Kelly was right when he determined to set down as Scottish all the sayings which he had met with in ordinary use in Scotland. In Scotland, as elsewhere, proverbs were first born in the country, and were first current in the mouths of shepherds and husbandmen. The images in which they deal be- long to the field and the forest, the rural homestead, or the wayside change-house ; very rarely to the city and the seaport. When Scotland began to have cities and seaports, she had almost ceased to produce proverbs. It is thus that our fathers of the olden time uttered truths as old as the world : " Ae scabbed sheep fyles the haill flock." " As the auld cock craws, the young cock learns." " Saw thin, shear thin." " An ill reaper ne'er had a gude heuk." Such agricultural figures as these soon stamped themselves on the language. Our favourite pursuit, or weapon, or argument, was said to " come to our hands like the bow o* a pint-stoup " a drinking vessel not altogether superseded by the tea-cup. The English, being a nation of archers, said of a thing, of which the speaker washed his hands " You may make a shaft or a bolt of it," you may do with it what you please. We used, and indeed still employ, a rural and parochial figure to express the same idea " You may mak' a kirk or a mill o't." What is called VOL. VI. Proverbs born in the country. Rarely in the city or the sea- port. Agricul- tural figures. i8 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. "Talking of shop." Aggression. Struggle with obstacles. Scotland's early struggles. in modern English " talking of the shop," was the subject of a pleasant old alliterative adage "Cadgers are aye crackin' o' crook-saddles." The ways of a frugal man are described, by saying that " he comes aftener wi' the rake than the shool." And aggression may be forbidden, or bad excuses unmasked, by these excellent maxims : " Ye may drink o' the burn, but not bite the brae ; " and, "If ye steal na my kail, brak na my dike." The early history of all nations which have had a career worth recording at all is the history of the struggle of mind with matter, of man with obstacles, which at first sight appear to bar his progress, but which in reality nerve his energies and develop his powers for fresh exertion and nobler success. It is when the struggle is most severe and the obstacles most weighty, when the pioneer seems most over- tasked and the head of the column most over- matched, that the story is fullest of interest and instruction. There is hardly a people with a place in the world's history, and a footing in every corner of the globe, which appeared, five or six centuries ago, less likely to achieve these distinctions than our- selves. When we sent the learned townsman of Stirling, James VI., to England, we fondly believed him descended from above a hundred royal ancestors ; and, at the Union, Scottish pride and jealousy were somewhat soothed by the concession to our country PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. of the title of " the ancient realm." We can now afford to laugh both at the fables which Buchanan took so much pains to clothe in Ciceronian Latin, and at the grotesque line of imaginary monarch s with which the coarse pencil of De Witt has covered the gloomy gallery of Holyrood. Our appearance on the stage of history really dates from our War of In- dependence, which was virtually closed in 1314, on the neighbouring field of Bannockburn. Out of that great struggle the modern and actual Scotland arose. The task which then lay before her was to restore the ruined hamlets which served her for towns, to revive industry, to recall to the pursuits of peace the intelligence which had been long concentrated upon war, to construct, amidst bloodstained ruins, a system of law and polity, and, in fact, to prove to the world that her independence was worth the sacrifices and sufferings with which it had been purchased. All this was to be done in the narrow territory which lay between the open frontier of powerful and exas- perated England, and the mountain fastnesses of the Celtic savage. The wonder is not that the task was performed slowly, painfully, rudely, with many an anxious pause, many a bitter error, many a bloody episode, but that it was performed at all. It was so well performed that the revival of arts and letters in the fifteenth century, the awakening of human thought from the lethargy of ages, found the Scot War of Indepen- dence. Restora- tion to prosperity. Lowlands. Revival of arts and letters. 20 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. The Scot abroad. Scottish reformers. Jurispru- dence. Education. ready to be up and doing with men of fairer lands and happier fortunes. When that moral dawn ap- peared, he saw it and was glad. Scotland was too poor to attract to her seminaries the foreigners, who, flying westward before the Turk, brought the wealth of classic lore to the marts of Italy ; her sons there- fore went forth to bring the good seed home to her soil. Her soldiers had already been distinguished in fields of French and Italian war; her scholars, coming to learn, not unfrequently remained to teach, in cloisters and colleges beneath the shadow of the Alps or the Apennine. In learning and refinement the court of James IV. yielded nothing to that of his brother of England ; and in Dunbar, the sweet bard of " The Thrissel and the Rose," Queen Margaret found a poet more worthy than any she left beyond the Tweed to wear the laurel of Chaucer. Our reformers in the next age have been reproached for the unnecessary destruction of abbeys and cathedrals; but they knew at least how to honour the forum and the school. Out of the deluge of religious strife and feudal rapine, civil war and political convulsion, arose in this little kingdom a system of jurisprudence, and a system of education, in which the light of modern experience and the wisdom of imperial parliaments has found more to imitate than amend. In the seventeenth century, during which our Stuarts wore the three crowns the centuiy during which, perhaps, PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 21 Scotland suffered the most and advanced the least, she gave not only the heroic figure of Montrose to our martial annals, but also a Napier to science, a Drummond of Hawthornden to poetry, and a Burnet to historical literature. The Act of Union, so truly described by the statesmen of Anne, in her speech from the throne, as a " union of the greatest im- portance to the wealth, and strength, and safety of the whole island," removed many obstacles from the path of the Scot, opened fresh fields for his activity, and gave a new impulse to his enterprising spirit. He has proved himself worthy of the great people with whom he has been incorporated. The annals of Great Britain are full of his national names. Scotchmen have commanded troops that have been led by Marlborough and Wellington ; they have sat with honour in the chairs of Olive and Hastings ; they have marched in the van in agricultural im- provement and in several departments of mechanical invention and scientific research ; the name of Scott is only less dear to Englishmen than the name of Shakespeare ; British critical literature, properly so called, took its rise in Edinburgh ; the first really popular historian of England was a Hume ; and in spite of the anxieties and excitement of the war, Eng- land is waiting with eager expectation for a new in- stalment of her history from the pen of a Macaulay. These are the results of the spirit which won Famous men. The Union. Literature. Criticism, History. 22 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Proverbs. Fortitude. Patience, &c. the battle of Bannockburn ; results far beyond the thought of the wisest heads or the most sanguine hearts around the standard of Bruce. As might be expected, the qualities which have shaped the des- tinies of Scotland are those which are mainly incul- cated in her proverbs. The famous story of Bruce's spider, often baffled, never disheartened, and at last successful, points the moral which pervades nearly the whole of our proverbial philosophy. Fortitude, patience, hopefulness, resolution that no odds can daunt, are preached in a hundred forms, and enforced by a hundred familiar images : " Set a stout heart to a stay brae." "A wight man ne'er wanted a weapon." "Naething is difficult to a weel- willed man." " Hope weel and hae weel." " Blaw the wind ne'er so fast it will lown at last," are indi- viduals of a whole legion of precepts. At how many periods of our history was it not well for our leaders to remember that " A' is na tint that's in peril," or to counsel disheartened followers to "Dree out the inch, when ye hae tholed the span." Tame submis- sion to an abject lot on account of its safety seems to be contemptuously animadverted on in this ex- clamation, " Happy man ! that canna be herried." If the bitter experience of many a poor Scottish adventurer was formalised in the saying, " A proud heart in a poor breast has much dolour to dree," many a bold spirit also sustained itself in hard times PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 23 by the reflection, " As gude bauds the stirrup as he that loups on ; " and many a weary pedlar, plodding along the humble path in which our commerce first developed itself, has been cheered by recollecting that " A foul foot makes a full wame." While courage and constancy are advocated, due honour is paid to valour's better part, discretion. We must know how to dare, but we must also know why and when to dare. Let the advantages of an enterprise be carefully confronted with its cost and risk. " Win the horse or lose the saddle," if you are so minded, but see that you do not "Tine the half- merk whinger for the ha'penny whang." See that your means are sufficient to accomplish your end. " Eaise nae mae deils than ye are able to lay." " He that hews ower hie, the spails will fa' in his ee." " It will be lang ere ye cut Falkland wood wi' a pen- knife." The object of our endeavour is not to be foregone or jeoparded for the sake of some casual gratification or amusement. " Fleyin' a bird's nae the gate to grip it." Indeed, the weak point of our proverbial philosophy is the earnestness and copious- ness with which it insists on exclusive devotion to the immediate object in view, or to the main chance. Hence the ignoble maxim, " Better kiss a knave than cast out wi' him," and others of that kind, of which it is impossible either to approve the morality or deny the worldly prudence. But against such as Indepen- dence. Courage. Prudence. Worldly prudence. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Rectitude. Scorn for shams. National caution. these must be set many of an opposite character, such as "Right wrangs nae man," " It's a sin to lie on the deil," " An ill-won penny will cast down a pound." There is no sentiment more largely ex- pressed than an honest scorn for mere names, for shams and pretences of all kinds. " A gude fellow is a costly name." " An inch o' a nag is worth a span o' an aver." " He's na the best wright that hews the maist spails." " Weel is that weel does." Nor is any caution more frequently and forcibly prescribed than caution in speaking or writing. " Silence grips the mouse." " Nae plea is the best plea." " There's naething ill said that's no ill taken." There is per- haps none of our proverbial counsel that is so gene- rally observed as that which the aforesaid precepts embody. We have of course our rash speakers and hasty writers ; but I believe we have fewer of them than our neighbours. Our caution is some- times carried to a ludicrous extent ; and I remem- ber an incident which marks in a striking manner the difference between Irishmen and Scotchmen in this matter. Some years ago, two eminent foreign lawyers came to this country, commissioned by their government to inquire into the practice and principles of British jurisprudence. From London they were sent to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh they were to proceed to Dublin. The great O'Con- nell trial was just over, and Mr. O'Connell was PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. enjoying the honours of a brief martyrdom in prison. The legal strangers being anxious to see him, asked some of their friends on the Scottish bench whether they might with propriety gratify this wish. "No," said their lordships, "the wish is very natural, but you had better repress it ; a visit to Mr. O'Connell might, in your position, sub- ject you to criticism that had better be avoided ; we recommend you to give up the idea." The travellers went to Dublin, and submitted this opinion to a celebrated ornament of the Irish bench. " Such nonsense ! " said the Irish judge; " the Scotch don't understand us. I know Mr. O'Connell par- ticularly well ; I tried him, and, therefore, nobody has a better right to give you a letter of introduc- tion, which is most heartily at your service." The lawyers saw the political lion in the cell where he held his temporary court ; and I never heard of any consequent misunderstanding between the Cabinet of St. James's and the foreign government which, I beg you to observe, I have abstained from naming. There is one element in the Scottish character and history which appears to be wanting in her pro- verbs, that is, the religious element. It is difficult to explain how it comes that we have no proverb touching upon the disposition of the Scot "to spare no arrows," as Knox himself phrased it, in the field of polemical controversy. For if the Religious element in Scottish character. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Few Scotch proverbs on religious forms. Continen- tal proverbs against priests, &c. future historian of religious opinion may point to Scotland as one of the countries where vital truth has been nobly upheld, he will assuredly point to her as one of those where matters of doctrine the most obscure and insignificant, have been contested with the most insensate fury. One very beautiful pro- verb we have, which, lending itself to various uses, may be taken as an expression of faith in the gradual growth and spread of large-hearted Christian charity, the noblest result of our happy freedom of thought and discussion "The e'en brings a' hame." Even as regards the externals and machinery of religion, our proverbs are very few and common- place. It is not so in those lands where the pomp and circumstance of priestcraft weathered the storms of the Reformation. In the sixteenth century, all the languages of Europe must have abounded in saws reflecting on the ignorance of the physician, the venality of the lawyer, and the hypocrisy of the priest. Italy and Spain are still rich in adages of this kind ; but theology is infinitely more obnoxious to their attacks than law or physic. The proverb was an opponent too subtle to be caged and gagged by the Inquisition : it wandered at will through street and cloister ; mingled with the crowd where the gay procession with banner and chant and taper went by ; lingered at cathedral portals, or at the terrible door of the Holy Office, exposing the PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 27 vices and frailties that lay beneath the bishop's purple and the friar's serge, the delusion of miracles, the foolishness of the pulpit, the pride of mock humility, the ugliness of affected holiness; giving men a vent for their honest indignation ; and re- cording a kind of popular protest against spiritual dictatorship and ecclesiastical infallibility. The France. Frenchman remarks "that the wrath of friars is the wrath of devils in hell;" and "No pay, no prayers." The Italian speaks thus kindly of his Italy. clergy "The life of the physician, the goods of the lawyer, and the soul of the priest are in great peril." "The monk's charity brings you to the door." " Neither the priest, nor the friar, nor the nun, nor the fowl, know when they have had enough." But s P ain - it is the Spaniard whose quiver is especially full of such slings and arrows against the Church. Amongst his favourite figures for greed and gluttony are these " The Abbot of Carzuela, who ate the stew, and asked for the dish ; " or, " The Abbot of Bamba, who gave what he could not eat for the good of his soul." Then there are " 'Neath friar's cowl and nun's hood, never look for any good." " Parson, friar, and Jew, these for friends eschew." "The friar who begs for God, begs for two." " A Jew for trading, a friar for hypocrisy." I lately saw a copy of the Spanish proverbs published by the Comendador Nunez just 300 years ago. In the fly-leaf, and in PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Scotland. Sir David Lindsay. handwriting which seemed nearly contemporary with the volume itself, some former possessor had amused himself by copying out some seventy or eighty pro- verbs about monks, with a few additions of his own. At the end of the list was this characteristic note " Out of so many proverbs about monks, there are only two that speak well of them." l Turning to our Scottish collection, I find several severe things directed against lawyers, but against our divines I have not met with any but these three " It's kittle shooting at corbies and clergy." " Nae penny, nae paternoster." " Priests and doos mak foul houses." The second and third of these are obviously old. The last reminds me of a Spanish saying in which the same sentiment is expressed in the following dramatic manner " ' God be praised,' says the friar as he goes out ; ' the meat is all eaten ; and the floor all dirt,' says the master as he comes home." Our literature before the Reformation abounds with evidence that our unreformed Scottish clergy were no better than their brethren abroad. Sir David Lindsay delights in attacking the cloth. In one passage, alluding to the prelates of his day, he indignantly exclaims " Others' sauls to save it sets them well, Syne sell their ain sauls to the deil ! " 1 [See Article II., infra, p. 37, et seq.] PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 29 and in another poem, called "Kittie's Confession," Kittie is sent " with ane plak, to buy ane masse, Frae drucken Sir John Latinless." D unbar, himself in orders, does not spare the rod any more than the Lyon king-at-arms. It is im- possible, but that facts which justified such satire, and public opinion which relished it, must have provoked and produced the inevitable sarcasm of popular wit; and Scotland was, doubtless, as rich in anti-monastic and anti-clerical proverbs as she was in drunken curates and profligate bishops. That the proverbs have died out with the particular scandals which gave them birth, is much to the credit of the Reformed Church and her numerous branches. It is a fact also noticeable, as proving how evanescent a flower the adage sometimes is. I do not know how old David Ferguson, our first collector, was when he died in 1598; but he must have conversed with men who had heard mass in the chapel at Holyrood, who had known the streets of Edinburgh swarming with cowls, and who had seen " the great idol of St. Giles " drowned in the Nor' Loch. There is one thought which can hardly fail to occur on the most cursory perusal of any book of proverbs, that they were made by men, and not by women. The Marquis of Santillana, who first col- Dunbar. David Ferguson. Proverbs made by men. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Proverbs against women. Solomon's. Oriental. Arab. lected Spanish proverbs, called his gatherings " Cas- tilian proverbs, used by the old wives at the fireside." There are many of them to which I greatly doubt whether any wife, old or young, ever gave any credit or currency. The lion in the fable told the man that if lions could paint, hunting pieces would be quite different things from those produced by the Rubenses and Landseers of the days of ^Esop. So, if women had done for proverbial literature as much as they have done for poetry and history and science, the teeth of our popular saws, and the stings of our proverbial epigrams, would not be turned against the fair sex so invariably as they are turned in every language with which I have any acquaintance. The King of Israel himself, finely as he paints the virtues of woman, does at least equal justice to her vices, and, above all, loves to recur to the vigour and alacrity of her tongue. The modern Oriental, in his proverbs, as in his practice, regards woman merely as an object of sense. Hear how the Arab, smoking his pipe in the shade, analyses her six ages in one of the long-drawn adages of his ancient language "From 10 to 20, a repose to the eyes of beholders ; from 20 to 30, still fair and full of flesh ; from 30 to 40, a mother of many boys and girls ; from 40 to 50, an old woman of the deceitful ; from 50 to 60, slay her with the knife ; from 60 to 70, the curse of Allah upon them, one and all ! " PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. The view of matrimony taken by the same philo- sopher is so full and comprehensive, I grieve also Marria e to add, so just an epitome of nearly all that I find in our western proverbs on the same subject, that I shall give it you as the very creed and comfort of the old bachelor "Marriage is a joy for a month, and sorrow for a life ; a paying-down of money ; a breaking of the back, and a hearkening to a woman's tongue." The Spaniard, upon whose language and character the East has so strongly stamped itself, is much of the same opinion. "Weddings," he says, " are made of fools." " Of a bad woman beware, and don't trust a good one." The French- man is not quite so bad, for he admits in several proverbs the preciousness of a good wife. But he is full of many other sayings, of which the gist may be given in a very short one " Who hath a wife, also hath strife." Our own country, I regret to say, is hardly more courteous or less cynical. " Glasses and lasses are bruckle ware ; " " Maidens should be mini till they're married, and then they may burn kirks," are average specimens ; while one of the most brutal in sentiment thus ventures to trifle with that pearl of poetry, a woman's tear "It's nae mair pity to see a woman greet than to see a goose gae barefoot." The truth is, that the ideas of chivalry and the devotion to woman, professed at tournaments, and PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Chivalrous proverb. Proverbs oftener adverse than favourable. Reason. sometimes actually displayed in mediaeval courts and camps, never descended to that humble level of humanity on which proverbs grew and flourished. I remember but one saying which speaks of woman in a chivalrous tone, but that is poetical and graceful enough "White hands can do no hurt." It is a Spanish adage, and, so far as I know, the single exception in which the Castilian makes some atone- ment to the fair object of his practical homage and theoretical contempt. Amongst our own proverbs, there is one which implies a confession that woman has not been justly treated in those which view her conduct and character with so much suspicion and harshness. We are a cautious and matter-of-fact, not a chivalrous people, so there is nothing about white hands in it, but this simple admission of an undoubted fact "Mony a ane wytes their wife for their ain thriftless life." The general tendency of proverbs to decry the fair sex will partly explain itself if we observe how the tendency of all proverbs is towards blame rather than praise. Anger, disappointment, and vexation are much more likely to shape themselves into pointed and memorable forms of speech than the gentler feelings of contentment, pleasure, and fond- ness. I do not believe that the most admirable execution of the most difficult command in peace or war ever produced an adage so remarkable as PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 33 either of these two, which, nevertheless, may pos- sibly have had their origin in a slight delay, or a trifling blunder, on unimportant occasions : " As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him." " Send you to the sea, and ye'll no get saut water ! " The novelist delights to paint the lofty scorn of Rebecca or the fine malice of Becky; but the raptures of Adeliza and Ferdinand even Mrs. Radcliffe leaves to the reader's imagination and the blank page be- tween the chapters. So the barbed darts of reproach shot by impatient husbands or deluded lovers have fastened themselves in the popular memory, while expressions of confidence and gratitude and tender- ness, no less true and no less common, have passed away and been forgotten. These are a few of the thoughts and speculations Extent of 1-1 i TII-IT subject. to which our national proverbs naturally lead. I have indeed failed in my treatment of a fine subject if I have not made it apparent that it is far too large to be exhausted in a single lecture. I trust I have, in some degree, indicated its length and breadth, the richness of the soil, and the variety of the scenery. Let me repeat that it has never been properly mapped or described. To do this worthily would be a work of great labour and time. But it is a work in which all may assist, and in which little can be done without much general co-operation. VOL. VI. 34 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. Many still uncol- lected. Let all who take an interest in the old idioms and locutions of our language, whenever they hear any idiomatic or proverbial phrase not familiar to their ears, note it down. If it be already registered in one or other of our collections, the time and trouble wasted is not great; if it be not registered, it is possible that it might have died with the tongue from which you took it, and so have been lost for ever. I believe the number of good old saws still floating as waifs and strays on the tide of popular talk to be much greater than might at first appear. A hundred and thirty years ago, honest Kelly boasted that he had outdone Erasmus himself by presenting his countrymen with three thousand of their national proverbs ; but at the same time he very candidly con- fessed that he believed there were many hundreds which he either had never heard or had forgotten to record. It is one of the good signs of our times that we are every year becoming more reverent in our feel- ings towards the relics of the past. No Government would now order the destruction of the ceiling of the great hall of Stirling Palace, and treat its beau- tiful and characteristic carvings as if they were old packing-cases. We live in better days. The public is interested in the preservation of public monu- ments ; and I remember that a certain speculator was quite as severely handled by the press for his Growing reverence for the past. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. 35 Good pro- audacity in pulling down, to make way for a building of his own, a certain leaden King William in a well- known metropolitan square, as he was for the other offence with which he was charged gilding a por- tion of the lead and exhibiting it as a monster nugget from the gold-diggings. Let not those less palpable but not less precious antiquities floating in the minds of the people be worse treated than monuments built with hands or carved in brass or marble. A really good proverb is a coin as fine as verbs pre- any that ever was struck in the mints of Sicily ; an ancient phrase or rhyme is often not less curious and valuable than a Runic cross from Angus or lona, or even than a mediaeval chessman from an abbey of the Hebrides. They who would protect the ruin or possess the curious knick-knack must be Beaumonts or Beckfords ; they must have land, leisure, influence, at the very least some money or some house-room. The operations of the proverbialist need none of these appliances. His curiosities may i i picked up. be picked up by the way or in the market, and they may be enshrined with perfect security in the pages of Notes and Queries. Not only can they be more cheaply acquired than those which adorn the gallery or the museum, but they belong to higher regions of art, they deal with deeper principles, they appeal to wider sympathies, and they yield a far greater amount of intellectual enjoyment. and easily II. FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. 1 N a copy of the Refranes o Pro- verbios en romance que nuevamente colligio y glossd el Comendador Hernan Nunez (fol., Salamanca, 1555), in Lord Stuart de Eothesay's library, sold by Messrs. Sotheby, May and June 1855 (Catalogue, p. 189, lot 2,620, 2, 153.), I found, in handwriting which seemed of the sixteenth century, the following enumeration of the proverbs according to their alphabetical order: Los Refranes de A son B . C D E F G . H . I . L 1047 222 500 607 9OI 32 81 289 100 648 1 Contributed to the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. ii. Item 12. 1856. II. Refranes of Nuuez. Enumera- tion. 38 A FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. II. Los Refranes de M eon .,". . . 536 N 568 169 P ..... 454 Q 1052 R 89 S 428 T 303 V 224 X 7 Y 34 Z 8 Son todos los Refranes 8299 * Proverbs relating to The owner of the volume had likewise amused priests and friars. himself by copying out a number of the proverbs relating to priests and friars, upon which he makes the following remark : ijgr De tantos refranes de frayles solos dos les son favorables. Of so many proverbs concerning friars there are only two which speak favourably of them. Additions to these. To these proverbs he has added the following, which had not occurred to Nunez : Si en esse portal obscuro No quiere entrar el jumento, Ponle tin avito de frayle Y se colara al momento. If a donkey stops at a doorway dark Stock-still with stifftned knees, Put tJie weeds of a friar on the quadruped's back And in he'll quickly squeeze. 1 In the MS. the total is incorrectly stated 8331. A FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. 39 Amigo de pleitos ; poco dinero ; Amigo de medicos ; poca salud ; Amigo de frayles ; poco honnra. Fond of law-pleas ; little wealth ; Fond of doctors ; little health ; Fond of friars ; little honour. Frayles sobrand' ojo alerte ! Where friars abound, keep your eyes open ! Tres generos ay de frayles ; unos buenos buenos ; otros malos malos ; otros ni buenos, ni malos ; los buenos buenos son los canonizados ; los malos malos los que andan solos azotando calles ; los ni buenos ni malos los que estan pintados. There are three kinds of friars ; some very good, others very bad; others neither good nor bad ; the very good are the canonised ; the very bad are those that go tramping through the streets ; the neither good nor bad are those in pictures. Siempre fray fulano, estas matandonos, aca fuera ; quien en tu celda estubiera para no verte jamas. 1 Friar So-and-so, you are always tormenting us out here ; he who would never see you must stay in your cell. II. 1 There is a punning proverbial stanza which has the same idea : Don Agelio Fierabras El de la persona ex-casa Que nunca en tu casa estas ; i Quien estuviera en tu casa Para no verte jamas ? Don Agelio de Fierabras Of the spare person, You are never at home. He who would not see you Must live in your house. Excasa or escasa is used in the sense of not at home, not en casa, as well as spare. A FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. II. Frayles, vivir con ellos, y comer con ellos, y andar con ellos, y luego vendellos, que assi hazen ellos. As for friars, [you ought] to live with them, and eat with them, and walk with them, and then sell them, as they do themselves. Dios os libre de hidalgo de dia y de frayle de noche. God deliver us from a gentkman by day and a friar by night. III. WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA* HOSE who are familiar with prover- bial literature must have noticed that some proverbs, in idea, and a few even in actual form, are com- mon to all languages and nations. Founded upon man's observation of man, of the feelings and the passions, the strength and the weakness, the good and the evil of which we all partake, it would be strange if the experience of one portion of the human family were to be found greatly at variance with that of another or of the rest. But of the proverbs of Europe at least there appears to be a reason, beyond their origin, amongst kindred peoples, existing under conditions 1 A Book of Proverbial Philosophy, Idioms, Enigmas, and Laconisms. Compiled by Richard F. Burton, late Her Majesty's Consul for the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po. London : Tinsley Brothers, 1865. [From The Shilling Magazine, May 1865, vol. L, edited by Samuel Lucas. Tcste Ed. Walford, Esq.] III. Some pro- verbs of common origin. WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. III. The Ada- ffiaof Eras* mus, 1500. Sixteenth century collectors. not very dissimilar, why it is now difficult, and per- haps impossible, to assign to the great majority any distinct nationality. For nearly four hundred years proverbs have been collected and studied by those who wrote books and by those for whom books are written. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, Erasmus made them a popular branch of literature. The first edition of his Adagia appeared in 1 500, and, before 1 600, upwards of fifty editions had been printed in various parts of Europe. The proverbial sayings of antiquity, gleaned by the great scholar in the course of his vast reading, were thus garnered for modern use, and became part of the common stock of modern thought. Many of them had doubtless long before passed from the learned to the vulgar tongues, and had never fallen out of circu- lation. Wafted abroad in sermons, in the fugitive writings born of the controversies of the Eeformation, and in the talk of those to whom Latin was still a daily instrument of social intercourse, many a for- gotten saw of Greece and Rome now once more became current, and found its way into the verna- cular of Paris and London, Basle and Bologna. The sixteenth century gave birth to a very con- siderable number of collectors of natural proverbs, translated sometimes into Latin, sometimes into other modern languages. The rich repertory of Sancho Pansa, provided in great measure, more than WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. 43 fifty years before Cervantes wrote, in the Refranes of the learned Nunez, gave a European currency to the proverbial wealth of Spain; and Nunez had, in 1555, pointed out many instances of proverbs which the Castilians used in common with the Italians and the French. A foreign proverb appositely used on any striking occasion by an eminent or popular speaker was not unlikely to root itself in any language. The proverb, also, was an intellectual commodity, which was sure to pass from land to land through the agency of those whose business is most remote from book-learning or the arts of peace. And after the lapse of so many centuries, during which printing, commerce and war have co- operated to remove ancient, moral and physical landmarks, and to make the special possession of each age and country the common heritage of man- kind, it is hard indeed to assign its precise parentage to any proverb which does not, in some local name, bear the stamp of its birthplace, or, in its colouring and imagery, wear the garb of its native clime. Of the present collection of 2,859 proverbs, idioms, and laconisms, gathered from various scattered sources by the industry of one of the most enterprising of English travellers and most graphic of Eagle-hunters, and considerably increased by his own observation and research, it may be truly said that it opens to the English reader a fresh mine of proverbial lore. in. Refranes of Nuflez. West African proverbs. 44 WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. III. Nearly all native. Their local colour. Few of the original works from which portions of the present volume have been derived have been of a kind to command much general attention. They are, for the most part, grammars or vocabularies of various West African dialects, compiled by French, German, or English missionaries, or books of travels written by persons little skilled in the practice of literature. It was a happy idea thus to bring to- gether all that has up to this time been gleaned of the popular wisdom of the children of Ham. There is no reason to doubt that nearly all the African proverbs which are here presented to us are home-growths of the African mind. Accra and Yoruba and Oji shrewdness and worldly wisdom have hitherto had but few opportunities of improving themselves by the study of foreign models, or of casting their native thought in moulds from foreign lands. Some traces of missionary teaching may be found in texts of Scripture which appear to have become proverbial. In the Accra sayings, " A good word removes anger," and " No man puts a piece of new cloth into an old garment," and perhaps in the Oji adage, "When a person does his business let him do it, for death is coming on," may be found rays reflected from the philosophy of Syria. But in by far the greater number the local colour is distinctly visible. They lead us into the vast unfamiliar forests of the tropics, where the serpent glides, and the elephant WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. 45 browses, and the monkey chatters, or by the banks of strange rivers haunted by the alligator and crocodile. The palm-tree and the palm-nut are the subjects of frequent similes and allusions. "When you cut down a palm-tree with your father's slave," says the Oji proverb, " he will call you friend," which, being interpreted, means that he will presume on the familiarity which sharing his labour occasions or implies. " If you pound palm-nuts, some will stain your cloth," say the Accras. The Yoruban observes that "Palm-leaves do not rustle untouched," and that "The elephant is not caught in bird-snares." The Accra philosopher, having remarked that two of a trade seldom agree, expresses it by the tropical image, "Two crocodiles do not lodge in the same hole ; " and, in a similar manner, he rebukes a boaster by reminding him that, " Though the tongue say it is long, it cannot vie with the boa-constrictor." One Oji proverb conveys Solomon's precept, that there is a time and place for all things, in the fol- lowing form : " The chameleon says speed is good, and slowness is good ; " and another very striking aphorism in the same language represses the arro- gance of conquest or prosperity by the caution, "When you eat a monkey's hand, look at your own." Of those simple truths with which the proverbs of all nations deal, the West Africans offer us some in. 4 6 WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. III. Proverbs on evils of poverty. Some parallel to European. new and picturesque illustrations. They are rich in proverbs proclaiming the evils of poverty: "Want of money," say the Yorubans, " is the father of dis- grace;" and they also hold that "a poor man has no relatives." "The poor man's pipe does not sound," says the Accra proverb ; " The poor man's ivory is a hog's tooth," say the Ojis. The tendency of a bad workman to quarrel with his tools is noted in the Accra language by an allusion to the pad which supports a burden borne on the head : "If thou art weak, thou sayest that the pad is not good." That progress must be gradual, and that our work must be chosen with due regard to our powers, is thus expressed in the same language : " A child does not break a land tortoise, but he can break a snail." " Love me, love my dog," is recognised in a negative form in the Oji proverb, " When a person hates you, he will beat your animals." The venerable maxim, "There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip," is attributed by the same people to the monkey, the cunning Reynard of the African -ZEsop : " The monkey says that what has gone into his belly is his, but what is in his mouth is not his." "Nul bien sans peine," "Nae gains without pains," say the French and the Scotch. "No good without trouble" is the almost identical proverb of the Wolofs. In their language, also, the well-known culinary direction of Mrs. Glasse respecting the WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. 47 hare, which has hecome proverbial in ours, seems to have been anticipated in the adage, "Before cooking, you must have provisions." That "Two heads are better than one " is indicated in the Accra tongue in the similar form : " One head does not go a-counselling ; " and amongst the Wolofs by " Two eyes are better than one." And of the world-wide fling at the folly of carrying goods to a market already overstocked, of sending " owls to Athens," " pigs to Smyrna," " dates to Tunis," or " coals to Newcastle," we have a new and whimsical example in the Oji protest against importing into Hua certain personal war-trophies, much prized by the modern Abyssinian and the ancient Philistine. Africa, like Europe, indulges in a good deal of proverbial sneering at the sex. " If a woman speaks two words, take one and leave the other," is a Kanuri saying, which, in some form, will be found in most languages on this side the Mediterranean. In many other respects the social and political experience of savage life is also the experience of the civilised man. Every great captain, from Nimrod downwards, would agree with the Yoruban soldier or statesman who first promulgated in that language the doctrine that "A store of food is the best equipment for war." Joseph Surface is a character, it would seem, well known amongst the Wolofs, who say, " A man may be bad, if only his tongue be good." There is much poli- iii. "First catch your hare." "Owls to Athens," &c. Proverbs sneering at women. WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. III. Majority of proverbs worldly ; some philo- sophical. tical sagacity in the Accra adage, " A poor man does not watch over the town ; " and a cosmopolitan know- ledge of courtly and official habits is shown in another saying of the same people : " If you wash a king, you will wash yourself with some of his soap." The sel- fishness which takes no thought of posterity, and makes " After me the deluge " its motto, is rebuked by the interrogative proverb of the Yorubans, "Though you are about to die, need you break up the mortar for firewood ? " The Wolofs have a saying which bears upon the courtesies of social greeting, and which is equally true on the Gold Coast and Pall Mall "I have forgotten thy name, is better than I know thee not." While the majority of proverbs in all languages deal with common things, the experience of every- day life, and the protection of individual interests in the warfare of the world, some few are instinct with higher thought and inculcate a nobler philosophy than that which regulates the market-place. Some of these rare jewels shine amidst this garnered harvest of African worldly wisdom. The vanity and nothing- ness of life, and the perpetual presence of death in the haunts of the living, have seldom been more touchingly confessed than in the Yoruban phrase, which thus announces the birth of a son or daughter, " He begat a gravedigger " a boy ; or " a mourner " a girl. The Yorubans have another proverb which, WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. 49 although its full meaning is perhaps somewhat ob- scure, is suggestive of a calm and tolerant rule of conduct worthy of a higher state of society : " Com- pare things with things and words with words, and then forgive, that you may be praised." The Ojis have a sentiment which proves that the African mind has a side truly heroic : " When your relation dies, you do not die ; but when he is disgraced, you are disgraced also." Our thanks are certainly due to the judicious and laborious compiler and collector, who has in this volume afforded us so much interesting material for the study of the intellectual and moral nature of a large portion of the negro race. Written during " the dreary solitude of a rainy season in the Tropics," the book affords a new illustration of the truth of the remark of Lord Stanley, in proposing Captain Burton's health at the farewell dinner on the 4th of April, at the St. James's Hall, that in a life of less than forty-five years he had achieved " more study, more authorship, and more enterprise and adventure than would suffice to fill up the lives of half-a-dozen ordinary men." Minds of his extraordinary stamp find their chief repose in new fields of labour, and the explorer and geographer entirely employed the en- forced leisure of the season, which debarred him from travel amongst the mountains and rivers of West Africa, by exploring and expounding the proverbial VOL. VI. III. Heroic sentiment of the Ojis. Burton's collection. 5 WIT AND WISDOM FROM WEST AFRICA. in. wisdom of its people. May all success attend the present volume in its progress from the publisher's counter to the hands of the reader, and its dis- tinguished author in the " fresh fields and pastures new " which await him in South America. IV. ADAGIA OF ERASMUS. 1 HE first edition of the Adagia of Erasmus is one of the rarest of a class of books now in great request amongst collectors. None of the bibliographers who have recorded or described it appear to have seen it. Nopitsch (Literatur der Sprichtworter, 8vo, Niirnberg, 1822, and second edition, 1833, p. 177) registers it merely as D. Erasmi Adagiorum Collec- tanea, per Joannem Philippum Germanum : Lutet. Paris, 1500-4. Brunet gives the title a little more fully, while Ebert merely records the fact of the publication. Hain (Repertorium JBibliographicum, 4 vols. 8vo, Stuttgardt et Paris, 1827) professes to give the title at full length ; but as he deviates from his usual and useful practice of marking the length of the lines, it is to be presumed that his transcript 1 Contributed to the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Pliilobiblon Society, vol. i. Itena 17, 1-854. IV. First edition very rare. ADAGIA OF ERASMUS. IV. Title-page. was not made from the book itself. Duplessis (Bibliographic Pardmiologique, 8vo, Paris, 1847, p. 10) appears to have followed Hain. All of these bibliographers have fallen into the mistake of de- scribing the book as in 4to, whereas it is really in 8vo. The following is the exact title transcribed from the copy in my possession, the black letter being printed in red ink, the Koman letter in black, except the five last words in the last line : 3DeCpderfi ^erafmt l&oterdamf teteru majimeque gnturn paroemfacu id eft aba^'orum collectanea opujx qum nobu turn ad omne tel Ccn'pture tel fermonte jre* nu0 tenufta dum inGgnienduq. mini in modu coducf-- [bile. 3id quod tta demu fntelliffeti0adoleCcete0opttmi: Iju^ j'ufmodi delictiss et Iitteca0 tjcaca0etorationequotidtaj nam affuefcetfjs afperpre* feapite erpet^uctam racu t^efauru tantillo nurnulo tenale tobtgf redimite : multo preftanttora propediE accepturi: a Ijec boni confuluen-- (Balete. In the centre of the page is the woodcut mark of the printer, Jean Philippe, with his initials, I. P., and a scroll inscribed in red Koman letter, In noie scte trinitatis : Duobus in locis libellus hie prostat : In magistri Johanis Philippi offi- cina : cuius quide turn industria : tnm sumptu nitidissimis formulis est emaculatissime impresaus : In uia diui Marcelli ad diuine trinita- tis signum : Rursu in via diui Jacobi ad Pellicani qua vocant notam. Four preliminary leaves, including the title, on ADAGIA OF ERASMUS. 53 the back of which Erasmus's preface begins, pre- ceded by a complimentary epistle to him by "Publius Faustus Andrelinus, poeta regius." Sheets a to i inclusive, each containing sixteen pages not num- bered. The colophon on the last page is : Impressum hoc opus Parrhisiis : in Via diui Marcelli : ac domo que indicatur Diuina Trinitas : Augustino Vicentio Caminado a medis uindicatore : M. Johane Philippe Alamano, diligentissimo impressore. Anno M. Vc. IV. Colophon. V. WILLIAM HICK LING PRE SCOTT. 1 HE tidings of the death of the great American historian have been re- ceived in Great Britain with hardly less sorrow than in the United States. It is by their common literature that the two nations are most constantly and powerfully reminded that they are intellectually one people. The men of letters of the one address themselves, and belong also to the other ; the feelings, the hopes, the aims, and the interests of the better literary life, are the same on both sides of the Atlantic ; and those, therefore, who write in the common language of free men, are the most important ties between the two great free States of the world. As one of the best writers of English, Mr. Prescott would be deeply lamented in England, even if he 1 Reprinted, with considerable additions, from Fraser's Magazine for March 1859. V. General sorrow at his death. In Eng- land. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Ancestry distin- guished. Prescott "the Brave." Captain Linzee. had never set foot in the old country. But by personal visits to our shores, by his warm reception of our travellers, and by constant literary intercourse, he had formed so many connections with us, that in London as in Boston, there is for many of us much bitter grief and disappointment in the thought that we shall see no more "that fine and cordial face, nor again be cheered by his warm-hearted greeting." l Mr. Prescott is not the first of his lineage whom his country has delighted to honour. His grand- father, Colonel William Prescott, of Pepperell, led the republican forces at Bunker's Hill, and was called by Washington, Prescott the Brave, a higher distinction than many of our English military peer- ages, and any of the usurped titles with which French Imperialism decorated its ferocious and faith- less captains. In the same contest, Captain Linzee, maternal grandfather of Mrs. Prescott, commanded the sloop Falcon, part of the royal fleet which, from the river, galled the American lines with a murderous fire. The swords of the two warriors eventually crossed, in bloodless encounter, as trophies on the library wall of the historian. 2 The son of Prescott the Brave became the Prescott the learned in the 1 Notice (attributed to the pen of Mr. Hillard) in the Boston Courier, Saturday, January 29, 1859. * Homes of American Authors, by R. Griswold, 8vo, New York, 1853, p. 1 29. The notice contains much information alxnit Mr. Prescott's houses and his habits. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 57 law, the able and esteemed Judge William Prescott, of Boston, who, in turn, was the father of him whom we now deplore, and who has so greatly extended in new fields the renown of the family name. The wife of the lawyer was Catherine, daughter of Thomas Hickling, of the island of St. Michael's, for many years United States Consul at the Azores. Their son was born at Salem on the 4th of May 1796. When he was twelve years old, the family removed to Boston, where he was placed in the academy of Dr. Gardiner, a pupil of the once famous Dr. Parr. Three years later, in 1811, he entered Harvard College; and he graduated there in 1814. His university career gave promise of future excellence. It was at Harvard College that he was first seen by his friend, Mr. Bancroft; and the occasion was when young Prescott stood forth to recite to a distinguished audience in the old meeting-house at Cambridge, a pleasant little Latin poem on Spring, 1 composed by himself, and fraught with " a grace and elegance which at that early day pointed out dis- tinctly the course of life to which he was called." 2 While at college he had the misfortune to lose, by an accident, the sight of one of his eyes. He was obliged to return home and remain for many months 1 [The poem seems to have been on " Hope." See infra, p. 87. ED.] 2 Speech of Mr. Bancroft at the New York Historical Society, New York Times, Thursday, February 3, 1859. V. Father, Judge Prescott. Mother. Prescott's birth. His edu- cation. Loss of an eye at college. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Travels in Europe. shut up in total darkness. There his fine nature displayed itself in all its characteristic sweetness and serenity : "In all that trying season," said his mother, in after years, "when so much had to be endured, and our hearts were ready to fail us for fear, I never in a single instance groped my way across the apart- ment to take my place at his side that he did not salute me with some hearty expression of good cheer, as if we were the patients and it were his place to comfort us." l Although the injury to the organ became in time hardly perceptible, it so weakened the other eye as to debar him from any profession or pursuit in which strong eyesight was indispensable. His father's large practice at the bar had happily enabled him to realise a fortune which rendered his son independent of professional toil, and enabled him to follow the bent of his inclinations. From the various paths open to him, the young man's choice was soon made, and literature betimes became the business as well as the pleasure of his life. Soon after leaving college he was advised to travel for the benefit of his health. He therefore crossed the Atlantic, and spent two years in wanderings in 1 Speech of the Rev. N. L. Frothinghain at the Massachusetts Historical Society, February i, 1859. Boston Courier, February 2. The injury to the eye appears to have beeu the effect of a blow. At the same meeting, Mr. John C. Gray alluded to the kindly tone in which Mr. Prescott was wont to speak of " the unfortunate young man who had almost deprived him of sight." WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 59 England, France, and Italy. It is remarkable that he did not visit the country with which his name will be inseparably connected, and that the bodily eye of the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Philip II., never looked upon those fascinating and inspiring scenes which he has painted with so much graphic art the snowy peaks and sunny dales which smile around the Alhambra, the grey hills and tawny plains whose landmark is the solemn Escorial. On his return to Boston in improved health he married Susan, daughter of Thomas C. Amory, one of the most eminent merchants of that city, and settled down to a life of literary labour which was rarely interrupted. He was very methodical in the apportionment of his time, and seldom allowed his hours of study to be interfered with. An early riser both in winter and summer, he strengthened his frame by daily exercise on horseback and on foot, often taken alone for the purpose of digesting the results of the day's reading. 1 Many years were spent in laying the foundation of that fine series of historical works which forms his enduring monument. He first made himself master of the literature of the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. With the latter, indeed, his acquaintance was so familiar and extensive that he at one time 1 Speech of Mr. Bancroft, New York Times, Thursday, February 3, 1859. V. Did not see Spain. Eeturn and marriage. Habits. Studies. 6o WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Miscel- laneous writings. Ferdinand and Isa- billa. Difficulties from de- ficient eye- sight. contemplated an elaborate work on the literature of Italy. Of his careful and various reading, occasional fruits appeared in the critical papers which he contri- buted to the North American Review. These, with his biographical notice of Charles Brockden Brown, the novelist, written for Spark's American Biography, were collected in 1845, in the volume entitled Criti- cal and Historical Essays. Having at last chosen the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella as the subject of a more serious and prolonged work, he commenced it somewhere about the year 1827. He had already formed a consider- able collection of materials, and more were on their way from Europe. For some years his eyesight had been sufficiently strong to admit of his using it for many hours a day in reading. But just before his new acquisitions arrived in Boston, his eye suffered so severe a strain probably from over-exertion that he enjoyed no use of it again for reading for several years. u I well remember," he says, 1 " the blank despair which I felt when my literary treasures arrived, and I saw the mine of wealth lying around me which I was forbidden to explore. I determined to see what could be done with the eyes of another. I remembered that Johnson had said in reference to Milton, that the great poet had abandoned his projected History of England, finding it scarcely possible for a man without eyes to pursue an historical work requiring reference to various authorities. The remark piqued me to make the attempt." 1 In a letter to a friend quoted in the New York Herald, January 31, 1859. See also the Preface to the Conquest of Mexico. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 61 v. His per- severance. As an experiment, he employed a reader, who knew no language but his own ; taught him to pro- nounce Castilian with accuracy sufficient for his own earnest ear ; and with this inadequate assistance pursued "his slow and melancholy way" through Mariana and other historians, filling no less than seven quartos. Finding that his indomitable per- severance began to overcome the great difficulty, he obtained the aid of a more learned reader, and dic- tated copious notes as he went along. When the mass of these memoranda amounted to forty or fifty pages, he had them carefully read over to him, and he then ran over in his mind the chapters into which he proposed to digest them. This process he repeated five or six times, until the chapter was not only sketched but composed, and in a great measure corrected. He then took a blind man's writing- writing- machine, a wooden frame traversed with wires, and fitted with carbonised paper, and, with indefatigable stylus, threw off " pretty glibly " page after page of hieroglyphics, which were in due time read to him, corrected, and transcribed for the press. It is not to be wondered at that a work conducted in this tedious manner, involving great research, and exe- cuted with the most scrupulous fidelity and the highest finish, occupied ten years of the author's life. It was also pursued, as Mr. Prescott himself informed the present writer, in such secrecy and 62 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Difficulties in finding a publisher. Publica- tion, and great success of the work. silence, that his most intimate friends were ignorant of his daily occupation. When completed, the book was submitted to his father, and endorsed with the approval of that able man. Still no publisher could be found to undertake the speculation. Despairing of obtaining one, and not choosing to publish it on his own account, the author was content to know that his work was not condemned to "the silence and great insecurity of manuscript." To facilitate the labour of revision, he had privately printed three copies. Two of them he placed in public libraries ; and with the philosophic calmness which was so characteristic both of the man and his writings, re- signed himself to the disappointment of having reaped from his toil no reward beyond the elucida- tion of truth and the improvement of his own faculties. The disappointment, however, was not destined to be lasting. A publisher more enter- prising than his fellows was found in England, and in Mr. Bentley ; and, at the end of 1837, Ferdinand and Isabella made their appearance in a literature in which they were hardly known, and in a world by which they had been almost forgotten. In America, where Mr. Prescott was known to men of letters as one of the ablest and most amiable of the brotherhood, the work was at once received with the acclamations which it deserved, and which far exceeded the modest expectations of the author. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. Since Eoscoe's Lorenzo the Magnificent, no such historical success had been achieved in our language. In England, the progress of the book's reputation was naturally less rapid. Twenty years ago we were not accustomed, as we now are, to look across the Atlantic for regular contributions of the highest class to every department of our common literature. Addisonian Irving, Cooper the Wizard of the West, the tender Bryant, the stilted Channing these and a few more formed the entire list, not certainly of able American writers, but of American writers familiar to the English reader. It was some months ere the new candidate for favour received the public recognition which he deserved. Not until January 1839 was he reviewed in the Edinburgh; but the reviewer did full justice to his ability, industry, and impartiality, and pronounced the book " one of the most successful historical productions of our time." * The verdict of the Quarterly was not given until June, when it was conveyed to the world in one of the most racy and eloquent of the essays of the late lamented Mr. Ford. That safe and pleasant guide to Spain and all things Spanish did not refrain from pointing out certain blemishes of style and taste with a playful sarcasm, which Mr. Prescott confessed to us many years afterwards, in his simple, honest 1 Edinburgh Review, No. cccxxxviii. p. 404. In Eng- land. Judgment of Edin- burgh. Review. Quarterly, by Ford. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. V. Germany, France, Spain. Co-nquett of Mexico. Conquett of Peru. way, that he did not much like, but which, neverthe- less, his good sense approved, and by which his sub- sequent works probably in some degree benefitted. In all essential points, however, Mr. Ford expressed his high admiration of a history on which no man in England was so fitted to pass judgment as himself; and he cordially bade the historian welcome to the eminent place which he had at once achieved in English letters. He bade him not fear competition with Mr. Irving; and he concluded his paper by characterising the book as " by much the first his- torical work America has yet produced, and one that need hardly fear a comparison with any that has issued from the European press since this century began." Germany, France, and Spain acknow- ledged the new historian by transplanting his work into their respective languages ; and the Spanish capital did him and herself honour by electing him a Member of her Royal Academy of History. Six years later, in 1843, tne Conquest of Mexico (in three vols. 8vo), and in four years more, in 1847, the Conquest of Peru (in two vols. 8vo), proved that the industry of Mr. Prescott was stimu- lated by success, and that his skill was considerably heightened by practice and experience. In his first work he had been forestalled by his countryman, 1 Quarterly, No. cxxvii. p. 58. W . H . PRES C OTT. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. Irving, by whose delightful pen the public had been made acquainted with the life of the great Genoese who gave the New World to Spain, and with much that was most romantic and picturesque in the struggle which banished the Moslem from Western Europe. In these new histories Mr. Pres- cott led his readers into, what were to most of them, fresh fields and pastures new. Both works were re- ceived in both hemispheres with immense applause ; with Ferdinand and Isabella they have been fre- quently reprinted ; and they bid fair to remain, for many an age to come, the standard histories of some of the most interesting and eventful periods of human action and enterprise. Their merit ob- tained for the author unsolicited election into many of the chief literary societies in Europe and America. Amongst other learned bodies, the Institute of France enrolled him, in 1845, amongst its corresponding members. The sale of his writings became a source of income, of which the author's share has been variously estimated at ^4,000 * or ^5,ooo 2 a year. Peru accomplished, Mr. Prescott turned to collect materials, or rather to complete the great stock of materials already collected, for the work which he intended to be the greatest achievement of his later life. The History of Philip II. was the great theme 1 New York Herald, Monday, January 24, 1859. 2 Illustrated London News, March 5, 1859, p. 222. VOL. VI. E V. Both well received. Literary recognition of Prescott. His in- come. Philip II. begun, 66 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v but not finished. Second visit to England, 1850. which he had chosen. By the accident of sitting on the greatest throne in the world from 1555 to 1599, Philip is certainly one of the chief chrono- logical figures or landmarks in modern history. By dint of passing the greater part of those years in pottering over papers, in sulky suspicious seclusion, he has succeeded not only in making his Castilian subjects regard him as a great prince, but also in palming himself off upon a considerable portion of mankind as a man who stamped his disagreeable image and superscription upon the age in which he lived, and the various peoples who were cruelly mis- governed in his name. To exhibit, with adequate clearness, the great events and questions which dis- tinguished and agitated the age, and the utter insig- nificance of the man who pretended to command and solve them, was a task worthy of the genius of Mr. Prescott ; but a task, alas ! which he was not fated to accomplish. While preparing for these new labours, he indulged himself with a short visit to England in the summer of 1850. Many years before, he had sojourned in this country, as a young and comparatively unknown traveller ; he now returned to it the American whom of all others, perhaps, intelligent Englishmen were most desirous to see and converse with. For once, great expectations had been excited without being disappointed. During his residence in London, WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 67 Mr. Prescott was one of the most observed and most popular personages in a society ever " to famous wits native or hospitable." In truth, he did not need his fame to aid his social success. His fine presence and countenance, his pleasing conver- sation and his perfect manners, would have ensured him welcome even as a nameless stranger. He had the happy gift of at once adapting himself to his company, and intuitively catching its best tone ; and his varied stores of knowledge, his wide ac- quaintance with men, quick observation of char- acter, and his even flow of spirits, enabled him, without a pause or an effort, to find some common ground of thought and sympathy with any man, woman, or child with whom he was brought into casual contact. He was no professional talker, coruscating with colloquial fireworks ; but he had sufficient liveliness of imagination, and ready neat- ness of expression, to keep up the conversational ball even amongst eminent masters of the sport, and to leave an impression behind him far more favour- able than is often left by the smartest of epigram- matists. He said little that did not please ; nothing that could wound ; and if people did not retail his good things, they looked forward with eagerness to the next occasion of enjoying his good company. It is no wonder therefore that the social charm of Mr. Prescott, indescribable in words, but certain in v. His popu- larity. 68 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Dinner at Greenwich. its effect, was a subject of general remark in all circles, amongst bishops sipping their tea at the Athenaeum, and amongst young beauties rejoicing in their first Queen's ball. Amongst the many occasions when it was the good fortune of the author of this sketch to meet Mr. Prescott, there is one which has especially stamped itself on his memory. It was on a de- lightful summer day, 1 at a dinner given at the " Trafalgar," at Greenwich, by Mr. Murray of Albe- marle Street. Of that small and well-chosen circle, the brightest lights are, alas ! already quenched. The festive humour of Ford will no more enliven the scene he loved so well ; nor will the wit of Lockhart and the wisdom of Hallam ever more brighten or adorn banquets like that at which they met their fellow-labourer from the New World. Everything was in perfection, the weather, the pre- liminary stroll beneath the great chestnut trees in Greenwich Park, the cool upper room with its balcony overhanging the river, the dinner, from the prefatory water-souchy to the ultimate devilled whitebait, the assortment, spirits, and conversation of the guests. On our return to town in the cool of the summer night, it was the good fortune of the present writer to sit beside Mr. Prescott on the box [4th July 1850. See Ticknor's Life of Prescott, p. 297.] WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 69 of the omnibus which Mr. Murray had chartered for his party. It was there that the historian related to him the fortunes of his first historical work, as told above. He likewise described with great zest a more recent incident of his life. Some days before that, 1 he had dined with the late Sir Robert Peel. With the punctuality which was very noticeable amidst all the bustle of Mr. Prescott's endless London engagements, he was in Whitehall Gardens at the precise moment indicated on the card of in- vitation. It followed, as a natural result, that he was, for some minutes, the sole occupant of the drawing-room. In due time Sir Robert walked in, very bland and a little formal, somewhat more portly than he appeared on the canvas of Lawrence, some- what less rotund than he was wont to be figured in the columns of Punch. Although not personally known to his host, Mr. Prescott took for granted that his name had been announced. It was to his great surprise, therefore, that he found himself addressed in French. He replied in the same language, inly musing whether he had been mis- taken for somebody else, or whether to speak French to all persons from beyond the sea was the etiquette of British statesmanship, or the private predilection of Peel. After some introductory topics 1 [Just a fortnight before Peel's death, which occurred on the 2nd July 1850. Ticknor's Life of Prescott, p. 297. ED.] V. Dines with Sir R. Peel. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. V. Mistaken forM. Scribe. Tour in Belgium. D.C.L., Oxford. had been got over, he was still further mystified by finding the dialogue turned towards the drama, and being complimented on his great success in that un- familiar walk of letters. The astonished historian was making the reply which his native modesty dictated, when a second guest, a friend of his own, entered, and addressed both of them in English. Mr. Prescott had been mistaken for M. Scribe, a blunder ludicrous enough to those who know the contrast that existed between the handsome person of the historian and the undistinguished appearance of the most prolific of modern playwrights. By a curious chance M. Scribe did not arrive until a large party of political and literary celebrities were seated at dinner, and Mr. Prescott concluded his story by remarking on the graceful kindness with which Sir Robert hastened to meet him at the door, and smoothed the foreigner's way to a place amongst strangers. From London Mr. Prescott made a short excur- sion to Belgium, to examine some of the scenes of his projected history, and to enrich his stock of materials. He visited Oxford at Commemoration time, when the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law was con- ferred upon him amidst loud cheering for Dr. Pres- cott amongst his undergraduate readers. He also paid visits to Lord Carlisle at Naworth, Baron Parke (now Lord Wensleydale) at Ampthill, and some WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. other of his English friends at their country houses, and made a very brief tour in Scotland, during which he passed some days with the Duke of Argyll at Inveraray, the most northern point of his journey. While in England, Mr. Prescott sat twice for his portrait, on both occasions with a satisfactory result. One portrait was a bust in oils, painted by Mr. H. W. Phillips, for the author of this notice, and now at Keir ; the other was a head executed in crayons by Mr. Richmond, for Lord Carlisle. Both have been engraved, the first on steel for the octavo edition of the Critical and Historical Essays, the other on stone. 1 Before the autumn was over he returned to America, and Philip II. In 1856, he supplied Mr. Routledge with a sequel to an edition of Robertson's Charles F., in which he narrated, in his usual agree- able style, the true history of the Emperor's retire- ment and death. About the same time he also wrote a graceful biographical sketch, published in quarto, of his lamented friend the late Mr. Abbott Law- rence, so well known and so highly esteemed in this country as Minister from the United States at the Court of St. James's. When part of the History of Philip II. was ready 1 [Of the latter, an engraving has been executed, by permission of the Earl of Carlisle, for the present volume. An engraving of it was also given in the English edition of Ticknor's Life of Prescott. ED.] V. Scotland. Portraits by Phillips and Rich- mond. Eeturns home. Sequel to Robertson's Charles V. Notice of Abbott Lawrence. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Loss by decision of House of Lords on copyright. for publication, Mr. Bentley purchased, for ^1,000 per volume, the English copyright of the work, the bargain being subject to the decision of the House of Lords on a case, then pending, which involved the question of international protection to literary enterprise. The decision, confirming a previous de- cision of the Barons of Exchequer, declared that no American not domiciled in England at the time of the publication of his book, could claim the benefit of our copyright law, and put an end to the trans- action. One of Mr. Prescott's numerous English visitors, who passed an evening with him at his marine villa at Nahant, has thus recorded the philo- sophy with which the historian received the intelli- gence : " Our conversation," writes Mr. C. R. Weld, 1 "soon took a literary turn, principally in relation to the vexed question of literary copyright, and it so happened, while we were deep in argument, Mr. Prescott received letters from England, informing him that the decision of the House of Lords being adverse to a foreigner possessing copyright in Eng- land, his bargain with a London publisher for a new historical work, for which he was to have been paid ;6,ooo, had become void. Some men would have exhibited disappointment at this reverse of fortune ; whatever Mr. Prescott may have felt, it is due to him 1 A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada, small 8vo, London, 1855. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 73 to state his kind manner underwent no change on the receipt of the intelligence." If Mr. Prescott had thought proper to come to England, and reside with his friends here at the time of the publication of the book, and for a certain time after, he might have reaped the full benefit of its great success on both sides of the Atlantic. But he would not take this course. At a great pecuniary sacrifice he preferred to present to the world one signal example more of the great hardship and in- justice to which both English and American authors are exposed for want of a reasonable system of inter- national copyright, a want for which it is due to this country to say that the American Legislature appears to be wholly responsible. Two volumes of Philip II. were published in 1855, and the third appeared only a few months ago. To the grace and vivacity of the narratives of the re- bellion of the Moriscos, and of the battle of Lepanto, and to the undiminished fire and power displayed in this last instalment of the work, our current maga- zines and reviews have borne, and are still bearing, testimony. It will be long indeed ere a historian is found worthy to take up the thread where it has been so suddenly and so unhappily broken. The successful literary labours of Mr. Prescott were carried on during six months of the year at his fine house at Boston, overlooking the common, v. Part of Philip II. published. 74 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Prescott attacked bv opo- ptaxj, 1858. Rev. Mr. Milburn's recollec- tions of his visit to Prescott. and in the summer and autumn at his cottage by the seaside, on the rocky shore of Nahant, or at his patrimonial seat at Pepperell. These labours were interrupted, on the 6th February 1858, by a slight apoplectic shock. From that time he lived wholly on a vegetable diet, and used wine even more sparingly than before. He took less pleasure also in general society, and spent his leisure hours more constantly at home, and with his grandchildren, of whose innocent com- pany he was never weary. But his friends were under no alarm as to the state of his health, which they believed was in a fair way to complete resto- ration. In January 1859, he was at home at Boston. On Wednesday the 26th, the Rev. William H. Milburn, an eloquent Wesleyan preacher of New York, hap- pened to be passing through Boston, and called upon him. Mr. Prescott had gone out for his usual mid- day walk. In the evening Mr. Milburn called again, and found him at home. He noticed that Mr. Pres- cott entered the library to receive him with a slower and heavier step than had been his wont in former years, and that in speaking, his utterance was occa- sionally somewhat thick and imperfect. His manner, however, had lost nothing of its accustomed warmth, and he spoke of absent mutual friends, dead and living, with his usual feeling and cordiality. Of his WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 75 v. last year's stroke of apoplexy he also talked with perfect calmness. He said it had weakened him, and had affected his sight a good deal, and had con- fined him to a spare diet, but that he was now able to take exercise, and to work two or three hours a day, and sometimes even more. Mr. Agassiz and the interruption of his scientific labours by injured eyesight were mentioned. This led Mr. Prescott to express his sympathy, and to talk of the infirmity which was common both to himself and his guest, Mr. Milburn being also partially blind. "These men with eyes," said he, " have us at a serious dis- advantage, haven't they? While they run we can only limp. But I have nothing to complain of, nor have you. Providence has singularly taken care of both, and by compensation keeps the balance even." Mr. Milburn had lately returned from England, and the conversation turned upon friends there to whom Mr. Prescott had given him letters, and upon the country in general. Of the Dean of St. Paul's Mr. Prescott spoke with great interest and regard. " Ac- complished as an historian, divine, poet, and man of letters, he is at the same time among the most agreeable and finished men of society I saw in England." He also inquired after our other learned and popular metropolitan dean, Dr. Trench, regretted that he had not seen him, " having heard such pleasant things concerning him," and said his little works on Their con- versation on Eng- 7 6 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. Lost illness. Words should be the next books he should read. "England is a glorious country, isn't it?" was his remark on passing from the subject. "What a hearty and noble people they are, and how an American's heart warms towards them after he has been there once and found them out in their hos- pitable homes." Mr. Milburn asked him when he was coming to see his friends at New York. He replied, "I suppose the days of my long journeys are over. I must content myself, like Horace, with my three houses. You know I go at the commence- ment of summer to my cottage by the seaside at Lynn Beach, and at autumn to my patrimonial acres at Pepperell, which have been in our family for two hundred years, to sit under the old trees I sat under when a boy, and then, with winter, come to town to hibernate in this house. This is the only travelling I suppose I shall do until I go to my long home." l These words were spoken almost on the threshold of that final abode. On the morning of Friday the 28th January 1859, he was so well that, although the morning was wet, he proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, between seven and eight, in order to inquire after a sick relation. W T ith some difficulty Mrs. Prescott prevailed upon him not to venture out. After breakfast she read to him, as usual, the morning 1 Letter from the Rev. W. H. Milburn in Harper's Weekly Magazine, February 12, 1859. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 77 papers. He remarked that he had been idling long enough, and was now going to work in earnest. At half-past ten he went to his study, where Mr. Kirk, who for many years had acted as his secretary and reader, read to him for a couple of hours. He then went alone into an adjoining room ; Mr. Kirk soon afterwards heard a groan, and, following him, found him dead to all consciousness, smitten with a second stroke of apoplexy. 1 His medical attend- ants were summoned, but their skill was vain, and he never spoke again. At half-past two o'clock the black crape upon the house-door announced that he had been taken from his friends and his country. 2 According to his wish, his body was laid for a while in his library, amongst his well-beloved books, and the portraits of those to whose career his pen had given new life. From thence, on Monday, the ist February, it was borne to his family vault in St. Paul's Church, belonging to the Presbyterian communion of which he had been a member. It was followed to the tomb by a company such as the death of no man of letters had ever before assembled in America, paying to his great name and noble nature a tribute of tears and mourning " which 1 For these particulars I am indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Abbott Lawrence. 2 Boston Traveller, January 29, 1859. V. Sudden death, aSth January 1859. Funeral. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. V. Family. His merits as a writer. would have been dearer to his heart than all the intellectual triumphs of his life." ] He has left behind him a widow, two sons, and a daughter, the latter being the wife of one of the sons of the late Mr. Abbott Lawrence, so well known and so highly esteemed as representative of the United States at the court of England. Time, space, and the occasion here forbid any attempt at a full critical examination of the writings of Mr. Prescott. His fidelity and industry quali- ties which form the foundation of historical merit are universally acknowledged. It has been doubted, and it is doubtful, whether his powers of philosophi- cal analysis were equal to his skill in synthetical arrangement; whether he could penetrate to vital principles as happily as he could marshal facts and picture events. It is certain that the latter portions of the duty of an historian were those to which he specially applied himself. His practice may be justified on the ground of the subdivision of lite- rary labour which at present obtains, greatly to the advantage of the accuracy of our knowledge. To describe clearly what was done in a particular age, and how it was done, is in itself an important and difficult task : to show why it was done, by discover- ing the hidden causes which shaped and coloured 1 Speech of Professor Ticknor at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston Courier, February 2, 1859. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 79 events, belongs perhaps more properly to writers who take a more comprehensive view of the chart of the world's history. In the art of narrative Mr. Prescott has few rivals very few equals in our language. His description of the siege and surren- der of Malaga, and the crowning conquest of Granada, are surpassed in strength and grace by nothing in Gibbon, Robertson, or Irving. His account of la triste noche the rueful night, in which, after the death of Montezuma, Cortes and his thousand Spaniards evacuated the city of Mexico is one of the finest pieces of modern historical painting. We hear the stealthy march of the devoted band along the great street of Tlacopan ; we see the inky gleam of the lake sleeping beneath the midnight sky to right and left of the causeway. Presently the dismal drum of the war-god sounds from the lofty top of the distant temple ; the Spaniards hastily place their portable bridge over the chasm in the road ; and as they hurry across we hear the gathering storm of the Mexican onslaught. In front and flank and rear the Christians are assailed with a tempest of stones and arrows ; the lake is alive with canoes, with flashing oars, and prows steadily closing upon the sides of the dyke. The cavalry dashing through the cloud of barbarian warriors ; the hand-to-hand battles fought at every step by the infantry ; the momentary halt at the broken bridges ; the van v. His narra- tive. 8o WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. On man- ners and literature. Always quotes his authorities. driven headlong into the canals by the pressure from behind are all painted with the hand of a master. In the grey dawn we see in front Cortes up to his saddle-girths in the water, and hear his voice directing his men to the ford which he alone has discovered. In the rear we see Alvarado, wounded and at bay ; before him the famous chestnut mare, bred in the pastures of Cordoba, lies slain; behind him is the broad and bridgeless canal, choked with baggage and corpses. He plants his lance firmly in mid-channel, springs boldly, and as he joins his retreating comrades, leaves behind him a spot famous in the history of the New World. Mr. Prescott's chapters on manners and literature are not less lively and picturesque than his record of contemporary events which these chapters illustrate. Of modern historians he was one of the first to acknowledge and to exhibit the importance of this kind of illustration, which his immediate predecessors had been too much in the habit of neglecting. In another respect also his works set an example well worthy of general adoption. Not content with em- bodying the result of his own researches, he con- structed a road to the fountains from whence he had drawn and the mines in which he had toiled, in order, to use his own words, "to put the reader in a position for judging for himself, and thus for revising, and if need be of reversing, the judgments WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 81 of the historian." l Of all his chief authorities he v. has left us elaborate biographical notices, showing their means of obtaining a true knowledge of facts, the circumstances and influences to which they were exposed, the complexion of their minds, and the value of their evidence. Were this method of writ- ing history general, we should lose some ingenious books, but we should also escape the noxious influ- ence of many dishonest ones. On those who read critically, Mr. Prescott's plan must have already had a wholesome effect. From him many such readers must have learned to distrust even the most brilliant of the writing craft who withhold the grounds of their faith and facts, who cite sparingly and loosely, and impudently tell the world that they have drawn materials, perhaps for caricatures of the past and slanders on the dead, from sources so numerous as to defy specification. If Mr. Prescott does not hold, as an essayist, the His essays. same high rank which he enjoys as a historian, it is because he was so fully occupied by his larger w^orks that he had little time left for minor productions. His collected contributions to periodical literature form, however, an interesting volume, possessing much of the finish and charm of his other writings. Amongst the more important subjects of his occa- VOL. VI. 1 Conquest of Peru. Preface. 82 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. V. Testi- monies to his per- sonal worth. sional lucubrations were Cervantes, Moliere, Scott, and Italian narrative poetry, all well and wisely handled. Of kindness and generosity Mr. Prescott had far too much to wield the tomahawk of the slashing school of criticism ; and he was wholly un- provided with the Croker-organs for the secretion of vitriolic venom. When he turned aside from his own literary path it was for the purpose of throwing some fresh light upon the beauties of the old masterpieces, or of doing full justice to the merits of unrecognised genius. If a blockhead was to be exposed, or a knave to be lashed, he left them to critics who loved to per- form such operations. It was very characteristic of his gentle and genial nature, prompt to shun the very appearance of evil, that he prefaced his volume of essays, which most readers will be disposed to regard as models of calmness and candour, with the wish " that some of his critical judgments had been expressed in a more qualified and temperate manner." l The eminence of Mr. Prescott as a writer was not more cordially recognised than the remarkable worth and beauty of his character as a man. The calm good sense which distinguishes his writings directed every action of his life. Prudent and considerate in 1 Critical and Historical Essays. I2mo. London, 1850. Preface, p. viiL ' WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. his affairs, he was also liberal in all his dealings, and open-handed in his unostentatious benevolence. Adored by his family and familiar friends, he was hardly less dear to the whole society of his native city. Indeed, every American with whom we have conversed, seemed to take a personal interest and an honest pride in all his successes, literary and social. Very touching are many of the expressions of regard which his death has elicited from some of the most eminent of his countrymen. " All who knew him," says Mr. Bancroft, 1 " will say that he was greater and better than his writings. Standing as it were by his grave, we cannot recall anything in his manner, his character, his endowments, or his conduct, we could wish changed." Professor Ticknor 2 remarks that " he was loved of all who knew him for the trans- parent sincerity of his nature, his open and warm sympathies, and for the faithful affections to which years and the changes of life only added freshness and strength." " Of all men whom I have known," says his classmate, Dr. Walker, 3 President of Har- vard University, " I have never known one so little changed by the hard trial of success and prosperity. At college, and on the morning of the day he died, 1 At the New York Historical Society. "New York Times, Thursday, Feb. 3, 1859- 2 At the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston Courier, Feb. 2. 3 Ibid. V, Mr. Ban- croft. Ticknor. Dr. Walker. 8 4 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. v. he was the same in his dispositions, the same in his outward manners, the same in his habit of thought and feeling, the same, to a remarkable degree, in his attitudes and looks. He was one of that happy few whom all love to hear praised." These sentiments will be echoed by many a British bosom. In the memory of our dead friend many of us will acknow- ledge a reason, more solemn and tender than the thousand existing reasons, for loving and honouring the people and the land which gave birth to William Hickling Prescott. VI. TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. 1 EW lives have, on the whole, been more enviable than that which Mr. Ticknor has, in this beautiful volume, so affectionately and yet so faithfully portrayed. A modest affluence, enjoyed in a highly culti- vated society, warm affections surrounded by a genial domestic and social circle, a singularly attrac- tive person and address, considerable intellectual powers carefully improved and actively exercised with signal success this is a catalogue of blessings such as has seldom fallen to the lot of any of Mr. Prescott's fellow-labourers in the field of letters. The one serious drawback to these felicities was the early loss of an eye, with such a delicacy of the remaining organ as sometimes threatened total blindness. But this privation was again com- 1 Life of William Hickling Prescott. By George Ticknor. 4to. Boston, Ticknor & Fields. 1864: pp. x. 490. Portraits and numerous Illustrations. The Realm, Feb. 24 and March 2, 1864. Affluent circum- stances. Loss of his eye. 86 TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Birth. Boyhood. College days. Accidental loss of his eye. pensated by a calm and happy temper, and a strong will, which enabled him to turn a great physical obstacle into a new source of distinction. He was born at Salem, New England, on May 4, 1796, and was the son of a lawyer in good practice, who afterwards rose to great eminence at the bar and on the bench. "A bright, merry boy, with an inquisitive mind, quick perceptions, and a ready, retentive memory," he comported himself at school as such boys usually do learning a good deal, but playing a good deal more. At fifteen, he was sent to Harvard College ; and a letter to his father, describing his entrance-examination, is preserved by Mr. Ticknor. The examiners at first " Looked like so many judges of the Inquisition. " We were ordered down into the parlour, almost frightened out of our wits, to be examined by each separately ; but we soon found them quite a pleasant sort of chaps. The President sent us down a very good dish of pears, and treated us very much like gentlemen." It was in the hall at Harvard that he soon after- wards lost his left eye, in an after-dinner frolic of the students, by receiving an accidental blow on the open eyeball from a large hard piece of bread. The pain was intense, and he was laid up for some weeks. It is worthy of note that although the lad who flung the missile never expressed any sympathy with the suf- fering he had inflicted, he received in after life an important kindness from his injured companion. TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. An incapacity for the study of mathematics, and a desperate resolution to commit geometrical problems to memory without comprehending them, which led to his being excused further work in that way, are amongst the most noticeable recollections of young Prescott's college career. He, however, obtained some of the customary honours of successful scholar- ship, and closed his college career in August 1814, by publicly reciting a pleasant little Latin poem, on "Hope," to a distinguished audience in the old meeting-house at Cambridge. His plan of life on quitting college was to pre- pare himself for the bar, and for this purpose he entered his father's office. But his legal studies were soon interrupted by a severe attack of rheu- matism, which fixed itself in his remaining eye, pro- ducing for the time total blindness, and leaving the organ greatly weakened. For sixteen weeks he was unable to walk, and was obliged to live in pitch darkness. During all this weary time he evinced a patience and equanimity which his mother afterwards loved to recall. " I never groped my way across the apartment to take my place by his side that he did not salute me with some expression of good cheer, as if we were the patients, and his place were to comfort us." On his recovery he went abroad for relaxation and change of climate. The winter of 1815-16 VI. Scholastic honours. Study for the bar, inter- rupted by illness. His patience. Recovery. 88 TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Voyage to St. Michael's. Leaves for England. Paris, was spent at St. Michael's, in the country house of his maternal grandfather, Mr. Hickling, consul of the United States. The tedious voyage in a small vessel was rendered doubly irksome by sharp attacks of the old disorder, accompanied by inflammation of the eye, for which he had no remedy but the twi- light of his miserable cabin and a diet of rye- pudding. Some pleasant letters, written from the Azores, describe the friendly social circle in which he found himself, and life and scenery in the lovely island, which seems to have owed its reputation for oranges very much to the arboricultural zeal of Mr. Hickling. But of the six months which he passed there three were spent in a dark room. In April 1 8 1 6, he embarked for England, and, after a passage of twenty-four days, for two-and-twenty of which he was confined to his cabin, tortured in his eye and his joints, landed in London. Here he placed him- self under surgical advice, and was told that the eye originally injured was hopelessly paralysed, and that for the other little could be done, beyond using means to strengthen the whole physical system. Evening society, theatres, exhibitions, and the use of books were forbidden him. He made but one excursion from London, to Windsor and its neigh- bourhood, with his friend Mr. Quincy Adams, then American Minister at St. James's. In the autumn he passed two months in Paris, and thence pro- TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. ceeded to Turin, Genoa, Milan, and Venice. The winter having been spent between Rome and Naples, he returned, in the spring, to Paris, where he was again seriously ill, and had to undergo another fortnight of darkness. A two months' visit to England, which enabled him to see Oxford, Cam- bridge, and the Wye, closed his European tour, and he was at home again in Boston in July 1817. His mother had busied herself in making his room bright and cheerful to welcome his return. But his poor eye was unable to bear the gay colours which she had provided ; the white woodwork had to be reduced to grey, and the walls and carpets sobered to green. Here he led for nearly a year a very retired life, using his eyes very little, and listening to books read to him, sometimes for eight hours a day, by an affectionate sister. The follow- ing year his health was somewhat stronger, and he mingled more freely with society ; but it was evi- dent that for him a professional career was impos- sible. He therefore deliberately resolved to make for himself in letters the daily occupation which he had discovered was essential to happiness. In May 1820, he married Susan, the daughter of Mr. T. C. Amory, a successful merchant of Boston, remarking to his friends " Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori." VI. Oxford, Cam- bridge, &c. Returns home. Marriage. 9 o TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Events of his life. Studies. English. French. Italian. German. Spanish. Choice of a subject. From this time until his death, a period of thirty- nine years, the events of his life were the birth of four children, and the death of one, the death of his father and mother, the selection of subjects for his pen, the composition and publication of his works, and his annual migrations from Boston to the sea- side at Nahant or Lynn, and his farm at Pepperell, varied only by trips to Albany and Washington, and a second visit to England. To prepare himself for the career which he had chosen, he entered upon a critical study of the English language and literature. Beginning with Roger Ascham, he carefully read the best prose writers, down to Jeffrey and Gifford, occasionally making notes on their style and characteristics. He then turned to the literature of France, and pursued a similar course, commencing with Frois- sart, and closing with Chateaubriand. The Italian next engaged his attention, and there he was chiefly attracted by the poets, most of whom he read with great care. With German he next proposed to grapple, but his infirmity of vision rendered the difficulties in the way of its acquisition insuper- able, and he reluctantly abandoned the attempt, turning instead to Spanish. Towards the end of 1825, he began to approach the choice of a subject, and the application of his accumulated stores of thought and reading. His- TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. tories of Spain from the Arab invasion to the con- solidation of the monarchy under Charles V., of the revolution which converted the Roman republic into a despotism, of Italian literature, were thought of and dismissed. An entry in a notebook, dated January 19, 1826, records his decision in favour of a history of Ferdinand and Isabella, and is accom- panied by a pencilled annotation, " a fortunate choice, May 1847." On January 22, 1826, he an- nounced his intention to Mr. Alex. Everett, United States Minister in Spain, in a long and elaborate letter, in which he remarks : "Johnson says that no man can complete a history who is blind. But, though I should lose the sight of my eyes altogether (an evil not in the least degree probable), by the blessing of God, if my ears are spared me, I will disprove the assertion ; and my chronicle, whatever other demerits it may have, shall not be wanting in accuracy and research." But the fatigue of writing this letter, inflicting a severe strain upon the nerve of the eye, imposed upon him four months of idleness in the dark. Even when he emerged into daylight again, he could use his eye so little that he was obliged to engage a professional reader, and, for some time, had to listen to Spanish books read by a person who did not understand a word of Spanish. Better aids were, however, soon found, and, after some practice, he taught his ear to perform the work of the eye, and his memoiy to serve the purpose of a notebook. VI. Decides on Ferdinand and Isa- bella. Troubled by his eye. TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Arrange- ment of his study. Progress of his work. His reader used to attend him for six hours daily, from ten till two, and from six to eight. They worked in an upper room of his father's house in Boston, with two windows ; one to the west, which was carefully shaded with several blinds of blue gauze, any one of which could be drawn up sepa- rately, so as to temper the light with a nice grada- tion, and another window to the north, set higher in the wall, and left uncovered. Mr. Prescott sat with his back towards the western window, with a green screen in front of him to darken the opposite wall. The fire in the grate was of coke, to avoid flame and glare. As the reading proceeded, the reader was re- quested to mark any passage which seemed impor- tant, and the listener, when his eye permitted, would himself sometimes make a note of the reference. These notes the reader afterwards copied out in a bold hand. Sometimes, when his eye was stronger, Mr. Prescott would himself read for awhile, sitting near the window at a reading-desk, and frequently raising or lowering the blue blinds. It was not until October 1829, three years and a half after he had set himself to the subject, that he com- menced the actual composition of his work, and wrote the first chapter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Three chapters were then accomplished in three months, but they were wholly rewritten before they TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. 93 were sent to the press. The manuscript was, in a great measure, written by his own hand, by the aid of a machine called a noctograph, in which the paper was laid under a series of stout wires, six- teen to the page, which guided the hand in forming the lines. Ink was superseded by the use of a blackened paper, the back of which being pressed with a stylus left an impression on the white sheet placed beneath it. The apparatus, as its name im- ports, was available by night, but the manuscript produced by it was very faint, and required copying before Mr. Prescott could use it for reference. The mechanical difficulty of writing induced him to prac- tise the art of mental composition, of which he ac- quired so great a command that he could arrange and carry in his head as much matter as would fill fifty or sixty printed pages. His hours of exercise on foot or horseback were frequently the hours when large portions of his works assumed their definite shape. At length, on June 25, 1836, Ferdinand and Isabella was sent to press. In 1833, during the progress of the work, he had caused four copies of it to be printed as it was written, in a bold type, and on only one side of the leaf. One of these copies was now carefully revised, and the care be- stowed upon this revision may be judged of from the fact that the first chapter was written thrice, and VI. His nocto- graph. Power of mental composi- tion. Exercise. Publication of Ferdi- nand and Isabella. 94 TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. First edi- tion, 1837. Quickly exhausted. Published in England. Favourable criticisms. privately printed twice, before it was considered by the author as fit for publication. Perhaps this exceeding care may have been in some degree attributable to a plan of publication which Mr. Pres- cott appears to have followed in all his works. The sheets were at once stereotyped, at his own expense, and from these stereotype plates, which remained his private property, the various American editions were printed, upon terms agreed upon in each case with the publisher. The first edition of Ferdinand and Isabella ap- peared at Boston at Christmas 1837. The Ameri- can Stationers' Company, which undertook it, was allowed four years to sell 1,250 copies, and the number of those at first struck off was only 500, so modest were the expectations of all concerned. Four weeks exhausted the stock which had been calculated to supply the demand of four years, and the work became famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In the summer of 1837, one of the four large type copies had been sent to England to be offered to London publishers. Eefused by the elder Murray and by the Longmans, it was accepted by Bentley, to the great and permanent advantage of that bibliopole's pocket and reputation. The book at once obtained the suffrages of the most intelli- gent critics in England, Germany, France and Spain, and the author was at once as his bio- TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. 95 grapher had had the happiness to foretell " placed quite by the side of Irving " in the estimation of Europe. The Conquest of Mexico, Mr. Prescott's next work, occupied him for about five years, the actual com- position being in progress somewhat less than four. The book appeared on December 6, 1843, published by Messrs. Harper of New York, who paid 7,500 dollars (about ; 1,687) f r the right of striking off 5,000 copies from the stereotype plates, with a fur- ther right of printing on the same terms as many more as might be required during a year. The 5,000 were sold off within four months. Bentley paid ^650 for the copyright of the English editions. The reviews and letters from private friends teemed with laudation. Mr. Rogers contrasted it with the other popular works of the day, books "by fast writers for fast readers." Mr. Hallam thought the style "almost perfect;" "better than that in the former history." Alexander von Humboldt wrote, "It is a piece of good fortune for me, a citizen of Mexico, to have lived long enough to read you," adding an opinion, which recent events appear likely to overthrow, that Spanish America, though torn by ignoble intestine war, is "happily too great a country to permit the possibility of the importation of a foreign yoke." In 1844-45, Mr. Prescott made a selection of VI. Con quest of Mexico published. English editions. English opinions. Rogers. Hallam. Humboldt. 9 6 TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Estay$, 1845- Conquest of Peru. Published in England. Testi- monies of Ticknor, and Maria Edgeworth. Second visit to Europe, 1850. fourteen of his miscellaneous contributions to perio- dicals, and published them in the summer of 1845, in a volume entitled Critical and Historical Essays. It met with a success which the modest author was far from expecting. The Conquest of Peru, in two volumes, appeared in the spring of 1847. Messrs. Harper paid 7,500 dollars for the same number of copies from the stereotype plates, to be sold within two years, agree- ing also to continue to publish at the same rate, or to surrender the contract, at the author's option. Mr. Bentley gave ,800 for the English copyright, although it had already become doubtful whether the copyright of a foreigner was protected by English law. The work was as successful as its predecessors. Amongst other testimonies to its merit from dis- tinguished writers, Mr. Ticknor has preserved a long and animated letter from Maria Edgeworth, who sent Mr. Prescott some book-markers ; one of which, inscribed in green silk, "Maria E. for Prescott' s Works ! " was, she writes, " my own handiwork every stitch, in my 8ist year." Mr. Prescott paid a second visit to Europe in 1850. He was absent from home less than five months, which were chiefly spent in England, only a few days at the end of July being given to a trip to Paris and Belgium. He saw a London season at its height, figured as one of its most popular lions, TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. 97 and visited several of our greater country-houses. His letters to his mother, wife and daughter, and to Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor, contain pleasant notices of London society, his presentation at court, and what he saw and did at Cuddesdon Palace, Alnwick Castle, Inveraray, and Castle Howard. He heard the Bishop of Oxford preach in his own parish church, and reprove a boy for sleeping during the sermon. " I did not acquiesce," he wrote, "in the views of the preacher, though the tones of his voice would have melted the most obdurate heart." He visited Mr. Rogers, and records that " his conversation, even in his dilapidated condition, on his back, is full of salt, not to say cayenne. I was praising somebody's good nature. ' Yes,' he said, ' so much good nature that there is no room for good sense.' " Macaulay showed him some of his MSS., " a first draught, absolutely illegible from erasures and corrections." He thought the Whig historian's talk " like the laboured but still unintermitting jerks of a pump, keeping the mind on too great a tension for table talk." Of Lockhart he speaks as "a fascinating sort of person, whom I should fear to have to meddle with me, whether in the way of praise or blame." Two volumes of the History of Philip II. appeared in November 1855, at Boston. Of the bargain with the publisher Mr. Ticknor does not inform us, but he prints a note written by the author, VOL. VI. VI. Presenta- tion at court. Visits Mr. Rogers. Macaulay. Lockhart. Twovols. of Philip II. published, 1855- 9 8 TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. VI. Its success. Account of the abdica- tion of Charles V. Third vol. of Philip II. Macaulay's criticism. Illness, 1858. from which we learn that 8,000 copies were sold within six months, that the publication had so im- proved the sale of his other writings that 30,000 volumes of these had been disposed of within the same time, and that he had received in all, in six months, 17,000 dollars (about .3,825) as his share. An edition of Robertson's Charles V., with an account of the Emperor's life after his abdication written by the editor, and a Memoir of Abbott Lawrence, occupied a portion of 1855 and 1856. The third volume of Philip II. his last work was published in the autumn of 1858. It brings the history down only to about the middle of his hero's reign. Lord Macaulay wrote to the author "It is excellent, and I think superior to anything you have written, parts of the Conqiie&t of Mexico excepted." In February 1858, Mr. Prescott had an apoplectic seizure. His mind wandered for a few moments, and his powers of speech and motion were partially suspended. When consciousness returned, his first words were, " My poor wife, I am so sorry for you that this has come upon you so soon ; " words which must have recalled his early habit of treating his blindness as the affliction rather of his family than of himself. In a few weeks he was convalescent, and in a few months all but the most intimate of his TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. 99 friends thought him quite recovered. The third vi. volume of Philip II. was corrected and printed after the attack ; and a few paragraphs of the last chapter, composed before the seizure, and retained in his memory, were committed to paper on his recovery. The autumn was tranquilly spent, as usual, by the seaside and at the farm. The last entry in his note- book contained these words " On. my return to Boston I shall resume my labours on Philip, and if my health continues as good as it has been this summer, shall hope to make some progress. But I shall not press matters. Our villagia- tura has been frightened by the presence of all the children and grand- children ; God bless them. And now we scatter again, but not far apart." On the morning of 28th January, 1859, he was apparently in good health and spirits, talking about beginning work in earnest. Shortly before noon, he went from his study into an adjoining room. His secretary, hearing him groan, followed, and found him struck with apoplexy ; and at half-past two he died, never having spoken or evinced any sign of Death, consciousness. The universal burst of sorrow with which the intelligence was received on both sides of the Atlantic was like that which a year later followed the sudden death of Macaulay, or that which two months ago bore testimony to the great and good gifts of Thackeray. Happy in his domestic life, and in the application Last ill- ness, 1859. IOO TICKNOR'S LIFE OF PRESCOTT. vi. of his intellectual powers, Prescott has been no less happy in the faithful friend and worthy peer in his country's literature, who has so well fulfilled the duties of his biographer. VII. RICHARD FORD. HERE are few persons connected with letters and arts, or the social life of London, who will hear with- out concern of the death of Eichard Ford. He died on the 3ist of last month, in the sixty-second year of his age, at his house at Hevitre, near Exeter. His various tastes and accomplishments, his large and keen sympathies, genial nature, and social posi- tion, had brought him into contact and acquaint- anceship with men of all pursuits ; and when he made an acquaintance, he seldom failed also to make a friend. His father, Sir Richard Ford, descended from an ancient Sussex family, was, in 1789, M.P. for East Grinstead, and afterwards for many years chief police magistrate of London. Richard, the eldest son, was born in Sloane Street in 1 796. Educated The Times, Sept. 4, 1858. VII. (i.) Death of Ford. Ancestry. 102 RICHARD FORD. VII. (i.) Education. Study for the bar. Continen- tal travels. Tastes. Visits Spain, 1830. Returns to England. at Winchester, he graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn. Although he was for awhile the pupil of Mr. Pem- berton Leigh, whose high legal ability has lately raised him to the peerage, Mr. Ford did not pursue the profession of the law. The opening of the Continent at the downfall of Napoleon I., and prospects of hereditary affluence, enabled him to indulge in foreign travel, which ex- tended over several years and the greater part of Europe. He began very early to develop his taste for the fine arts, and to lay the foundation of his choice library and his rich collection of drawings and engravings. In 1830, he visited Spain, where he passed several years, wintering in the south, and spending the summer in rambles over the provinces of the Peninsula lands, at that time, rarely trodden by the tourist. A long residence in the Alhambra of Granada, and his winters at Seville, enabled him to digest the information acquired during his wan- derings by vega and sierra, and fixed the direction of those studies which were to employ his future leisure and adorn the literature of this country. On his return to England, after an absence of about three years, he settled in Devonshire, at Hevitre, near Exeter, where he built himself a charming residence, and surrounded it with gardens and terraces, which he adorned with graceful Moorish RICHARD FORD. 103 buildings, and planted with pines and cypresses from historic groves by the Xenil and Guadalquivir. He also became a regular contributor to the Quarterly Review, then under the editorship of his friend Mr. Lockhart ; and his articles, generally upon subjects connected with the life, literature, and art of Spain, were soon eagerly looked for by the readers of that periodical, and became important aids to its value and popularity. We believe his first contribution was the learned yet lively paper in No. cxvi., in 1836, on the unpromising subject of Devonshire cob walls, which he connected with the ancient tapia of Arabic architecture, a paper which immediately commanded public attention, and was the forerunner of a long list of brilliant essays, which was terminated by the review of Tom Browns- Schooldays, in No. cciv., in 1857. In 1837, he published his first independent work, An Historical Inquiry into the Unchangeable Character of a War in Spain, 8vo, London (Murray), pp. iv., 76, a pamphlet full of varied lore and powerful argument, not unmingled with caustic sarcasm, in reply to one called The Policy of England towards Spain, pub- lished in defence of the policy of Lord Palmerston, and under the noble Lord's patronage. A year or two afterwards, Mr. Ford went to Italy, and passed the winter of 1839-40 in Home, where he added largely to his already rich artistic collection, especi- VII. (i.) Writes for Quarterly. First sepa- rate work, 1837- Visits Italy. 1 1 RICHARD FORD. vrr. (i.) Collects Majolica. Handbook for Spain. ally to his cabinet of Majolica. The greater part of this cabinet he afterwards disposed of at Christie and Hanson's, and some of the gems of the celebrated Bernal sale were then picked up, at the moderate prices of that day, by that unwearied and successful collector. Soon after his return to England, Mr. Ford entered upon the work upon which his literary reputation mainly rests, the Handbook for Spain. His friend Mr. Murray had some years before in- augurated a new era in guidebook literature by the publication of that admirable handbook for North Germany which remains a model for books of its class. He now invited Mr. Ford to take Spain in hand, and Mr. Ford accepted the invitation. Like many other great works, this book perhaps might never have been written had its author accurately estimated the magnitude of the task and distinctly foreseen the amount of deep research and patient labour which lay between the promise and the per- formance. Those of Mr. Ford's friends who were admitted to the "den" at Hevitre, the garden- house embowered in myrtle and ivy, where the work was accomplished, will well remember the long deal shelves laden with parchment-clad folios and quartos, the inky deal table, the crammed pigeon-holes, and the piles of manuscript which encumbered the chairs and the floor, and the kindly, lively author in his black jacket of Spanish sheepskin, doing the honours RICHARD FORD. of his book-rarities, pouring forth his humorous complaints of the slavery to which he had unwit- tingly condemned himself complaints diversified with Spanish proverb and English jest; and they will remember these things with a sigh that they are to see that bright eye and hear that pleasant voice no more. In the summer of 1845, however, the two goodly volumes, of upwards of 800 pages, were laid on the counter in Albemarle Street, heralded by a slight but very graceful notice in the Quarterly from the pen of Mr. Lockhart. Two thousand copies of a book humble in title, unattractive in outward form, and considerable in price (305.) were sold within the year; and the work, which the public bought with eagerness, the reviewers praised with enthusiasm. So great a literary achievement had never before been performed under so unpretending an appellation ; and the Handbook for Spain took its place among the best books of travel, humour and history, social, literary, political and artistic, in the English language. A second edition reduced to one volume, and, in the opinion of most of Mr. Ford's readers, far too sternly abridged appeared in 1847, and also met with a large sale. The book went for a third time to the study at Hevitre, and was almost rewritten by the laborious and fastidious author. The third edition, which happily resumed the original dimensions, was published in 1855, and VII. Publica- tion, 1845. Success. Its merit. Second edition, 1847, abridged. Third edition, 1855, restored. io6 RICHARD FORD. VII. Gatherings fromSpain. Campaigns of Welling- ton. His politi- cal views. A Tory. for many years to come will serve, as for thirteen years it has served, as the faithful and way-beguiling guide of the British traveller and the rich quarry of the more ambitious British writer on Spain. Mr. Ford's Gatherings from Spain, two small volumes of charming sketches and essays, were published in 1848. The notices of the pictorial illustrations of the Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, painted by Mr. Telbin, and exhibited in Regent Street in 1853, were also among the lighter and not the least graceful productions of Mr. Ford's pen, and proofs of his ready kindness and unflagging enthusiasm for the cosas de Espana, the things of the land which he called "well-beloved Spain." In politics Mr. Ford held the opinions which may be supposed to have been held by a contributor to the Quarterly during the Croker ascendency in that journal, and during the Conservative reaction after the Reform triumphs. By education, associa- tions, and instincts he was a Tory, and he main- tained his opinions with equal firmness and kindli- ness. They did not, however, prevent him either from living on the most friendly terms with men of opposite sentiments, or from lending the aid of his pen, on subjects apart from politics, to the leading periodicals of other political parties. The Quarterly Reviewer was occasionally an Edinburgh RICHARD FORD. 107 Reviewer, or a Westminster Reviewer, and he wrote upon literature and art occasionally in more than one newspaper. A notice of his writings would be incomplete which passed in silence over his brief and admirable life of Velazquez in the Penny Cyclo- pcedia, one of the happiest efforts of his pen. On the style of so popular a writer it would be out of place here to dwell. It was, like his con- versation, animated, epigrammatic, and discursive, charged with thought and sparkling with pleasantry. With great powers of sarcasm, he was one of the most gentle and amiable of companions, and one of the kindliest of critics. One or two reviews, of books well worthy of castigation, remain to show how effectively he could apply the lash. But, in his hands, the lash rarely descended on individuals. He was much more given to praise, perhaps to overpraise, than to blame. In the field which he had made peculiarly his own he was ever ready to bid a new labourer welcome, and to call public attention to the merits of a possible rival. Of English critics he was among the first to do justice to the historical genius of Prescott and the graphic power of Borrow. In the fine arts his knowledge, his skill, and his judgment were remarkable. Had he not been an eminent writer, he might have achieved eminence as a painter. His portfolios were stored with ad- VII. Life of Velazquez. His style. His know- ledge of art. io8 RICHARD FORD. VII. (i.) His sketches. Connois- seurship. His collec- tions. mirable sketches of Spain and Italy, and these portfolios were ever at the service of his literary and artistic friends. From his sketches were made some of the beautiful drawings by Mr. Koberts, so popular in the Landscape Annuals of other days. His sketch-books have contributed to the embellish- ment of many various works, from Lockhart's Spanish Ballads to the Illustrated News. He was not only familiar with the masters of literature and art, with Homer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, with Eaffaelle and Velazquez, but he was at home in all the minor mysteries of connoisseurship. No man could more accurately discriminate an Andrea from a Luca della Kobbia; a true Eembrandt etching from a copy; the porcelain of Capo di Monte from that of the sister factory of Buen-Eetiro. Few collectors have been more diligent, versatile, and successful in that enticing pursuit or pastime. His collection of etch- ings and drawings by Parmegiano, one of the finest ever formed, is now in the British Museum. Among the Spanish pictures which he brought from Spain, and which want of house-room compelled him to part with, were several of the gems of the late Exhibition at Manchester. Of his Majolica ware we have already spoken. Some of the finest exist- ing specimens of that interesting branch of the ceramic art hang on his walls in Park Street. Near them, among choice Italian and Spanish pictures, RICHARD FORD. 109 Wilson's pictures. Ford's His social character- istics. are some remarkable landscapes by Wilson, about vn. sixty of whose pictures Mr. Ford inherited, through his mother, the daughter of Mr. Booth, one of Wilson's chief patrons. The books collected by Mr. Ford were worthy of the works of art among which they were placed. Many of the rarities of the great Heber library repose on his shelves in Park Street and Hevitre, and have been rendered more precious by his notes. In curious Spanish literature there are, probably, few private English libraries so rich. Those and they are many who had the happi- ness of mingling in the circle which met around Mr. Ford's hospitable board and in his pleasant drawing- rooms, will long remember with affectionate regret those social gatherings, and the kindly spirit which presided over them and pervaded them. In the give and take of conversation Mr. Ford had few equals and no superiors. In most societies where we have had the good fortune to meet him he probably knew more on most subjects that could be started than any other of the guests. Yet, in his hands, con- versation never degenerated into monologue ; and, although ever ready and able to talk, he was never indisposed to listen. From the jealousy of the pro- fessed wit he was altogether free ; and, feeling no jealousy himself, he inspired none in others. Per- haps few men of equal mark had so few enemies, no RICHARD FORD. VII. Decline of his health. Marriages and family. and certainly no man of private station is likely, for many a long year, to leave so great a void in English society. For the last two years his friends and family observed with concern that his health was giving way. On the appointment of a Royal Commission to report on the best site for the National Gallery, in the winter of 1856-7, he was named, with his own consent, one of the Commissioners, but before the Commission met he resigned his place on it, on the ground of impaired health. Since that time he suffered from several attacks of illness, but, until the end of last July, he continued to mingle in society. Early in August he was again prostrated by the malady which proved fatal. Mr. Ford was three times married first, to a daughter of the late Lord Essex ; secondly, to a daughter of the late Lord Cranstoun ; and thirdly, to a sister of the late Sir W. Molesworth, who sur- vives him. By his first marriage he leaves three children, of whom his only son 1 is attache to the Legation at Lisbon. By his second marriage he leaves a daughter. His brother, the Rev. James Ford, prebendary of Exeter, and author of several profound theological works, survives him. [Francis Clare Ford.] VII. RICHARD FORD. (2.) N the 3 ist of August last English literature and English society sus- tained a severe loss by the lamented death of Mr. Ford. He was born in 1 796, in Sloane Street, London. His father, a scion of an old Sussex stock, was, in 1789, M.P. for East Grin- stead, and afterwards long chief magistrate of the London police. His mother was the daughter and heiress of Benjamin Booth, well known as a patron of art and artists, especially of Richard Wilson, of whose fine landscapes he left upwards of sixty specimens. Richard Ford thus inherited that love of art which was one of the chief enjoyments and dis- tinctions of his life. Educated at Winchester and Oxford, he was called to the bar, but soon forsook Lincoln's Inn for the Louvre and the Vatican, re- cently opened to Englishmen by the close of the The Press, Sept. n, 1858. . VII. (2.) Birth. Ancestry. Education. I 12 RICHARD FORD. VII. (a.) Travels in Europe. Return. Visits Spain, 1830. His epitaph. Wife's death. Second marriage. revolutionary war. He spent several years in travel, during which he visited the greater part of Europe, and began to form those collections of books, prints, and pictures which afterwards became so rich and remarkable. Having returned to England and mar- ried a daughter of the late Lord Essex, he undertook a journey to Spain in 1830. He was so fascinated with that interesting country and its people, that he remained there for three years. Much of this time was spent at Granada, where he resided for many months in the Alhambra at Seville, and in various long expeditions on horseback, in the course of which he examined, with sketch-book and note-book in hand, the greater part of the Peninsula, and acquired those habits and tastes which gave colour and direction to a great portion of his life, and made him to use the brief words of his epitaph, composed by himself Rerum Hispanics indagator acerrimus. Returning home in 1833, he settled in Devonshire, near Exeter, at Hevitre House, where he made large and tasteful improvements, and laid out a beautiful garden in the Moorish style, where his cypresses and myrtles from Granada flourished with the luxuriance of their native Andalusia. Mrs. Ford dying in 1837, he married for the second time, in 1839, a daughter of the late Lord Cranstoun, and soon afterwards passed some months in Italy, when he recrossed the Alps for the last time. The next four or five years RICHARD FORD . RICHARD FORD. 113 he spent principally at Hevitre, and in the composi- tion of the Handbook for Spain, into which he collected the results of many years' study and travel. No work bearing so humble a title ever enjoyed or deserved so immediate, so wide, and so enduring a popularity. Designed, as the title declared, for "readers at home" no less than for "travellers abroad," its design was exactly and completely ful- filled. There is no subject connected with Spain on which the book fails to give either full and satis- factory information or clear indication of the best sources where knowledge may be obtained. On its solid worth and charming style the public has long ago pronounced a decided opinion. Of its scru- pulous accuracy and its marvellous minuteness of observation, those only can judge who have used it for its primary purpose, as a guide across the wild sierra, or through the streets of the remote Spanish town. There the traveller will find the deep defile or the hill-top prospect, the airy belfry or the black- browed portal, painted, in a few words, with the masterly touch of a Turner or a Roberts ; and rarely, indeed, will he discover any grand natural or artistic feature which has escaped the keen glance of the in- dagator acerrimus, whose industry has made his day easy, and whose wit and learning helps to render his evenings brief. The Handbook is, in truth, not only a picture but indeed a history of Spain. In VOL. VI. Handbook for Spain. Its value. RICHARD FORD. VII. (2.) Its severity. Part of first edition cancelled. Publica- tion. Its popula- rity. Gatherings fromSpain. tracing this history, especially the history of the Peninsular war, Mr. Ford exposed the blunders and falsehoods of Spanish and French writers, with a hand so skilful and severe that his publisher and some over-cautious friends became alarmed as to the reception it might meet with in the countries most concerned, and apprehended, as a possible result of the author's frankness, that English travellers might be deprived of their handbooks on the frontier of indignant Spain. By the advice, or rather at the entreaties, of these timid counsellors, Mr. Ford there- fore agreed to cancel a great part of the first im- pression, and dilute the phials of his historical wrath, and moderate the tone of his criticism. A few copies, however, of the original sheets were preserved, and the suppressed Handbook is now one of the greatest curiosities of recent literature. The work appeared in 1845, an ^ was received with the applause it deserved. Two large editions were soon exhausted, and the third, almost rewritten, appeared in 1855. The second edition having been greatly abridged, Mr. Ford published the excised matter in the shape of essays, entitled Gatherings from Spain, a volume more manageable in form and type than the Handbook, which still retains its popularity. From these two works various tours in Spain have been constructed, and will, no doubt, continue to be manufactured for years to come. It is fortunate that RICHARD FORD. 115 His de- scriptions of bygone Spain. Mr. Ford preceded most of his followers, and that vn. (2.) so keen and able an observer saw Spain before the setting in of the transition which is now effecting that de-Pyreneesing process which Louis XIV. pre- tended he had accomplished. When Mr. Ford lived in the Alhambra, Andalusia was yet the land of the monk and the mantilla. The monk, who, with all his picturesqueness, could well be spared, was extir- pated soon after Mr. Ford's departure. The mantilla is, alas ! fast following the cowl ; and both seem to be taking refuge, as exotics, in imperial Gaul. The pre-railway Spain will, however, live in the pictures and pages of Mr. Ford and his friend Mr. Roberts. Besides his independent publications, Mr. Ford was the author of many admirable contributions to _ _ Quarterly. the Quarterly Review and other periodicals. From 1836 to 1857, he was one of the most popular and active of the Albemarle Street staff; and the late Mr. Lockhart could always count upon his friend at Hevitre for a brilliant and effective essay. Of these papers, most of them upon subjects connected with the literature or art of Spain, a valuable and agree- able volume might easily be formed. In politics, Mr. Ford was, through life, a hearty and consistent Con- servative. His love of our old English institutions, and his dislike to rash innovation, are discernible throughout his writings, and were well known to all Contri- butes to the n6 RICHARD FORD. VII. (a.) Essay on the War in Spain. His politi- cal views. who enjoyed his acquaintance. One of his earliest papers written for the Quarterly was an essay on the late War of the Spanish Succession, in reply to a pamphlet written under the inspiration of Lord Palmerston, and published in 1837, in defence of the meddling policy of that Minister with regard to Spain. The subject being one of immediate and temporary interest, Mr. Murray considered it expedient to publish this essay in the shape of a pamphlet, with the title of An Historical Inquiry into the Unchangeable Character of a War in Spain. In this anonymous work, Mr. Ford de- nounced the policy of the then Whig Minister, in the spirit in which Conservatism has always de- nounced it, and with a force of style and argument which attracted great notice. Many of his predic- tions have been fully realised. If he neither pre- dicted nor foresaw the sudden rise nor the ignominious fall of the lively Foreign Secretary, he was one of the first to expose Lord Palmerston's besetting sin, the vice of bullying the weak and cringing to the strong, which, in February last, became the Nemesis of his career. Although a decided politician, Mr. Ford was of too genial a nature to allow difference of opinion, even on vital questions, to disturb the serenity and kindliness of his social relations. The Whig and Radical friends who have partaken of the famous RICHARD FORD. 117 ollas and guisados of his agreeable table will testify that his Toryism, frankly avowed and boldly and skilfully maintained, was not one of his least pleasant characteristics ; and that, in spite of their heterodox doctrines, they liked him quite as well as if he had been one of themselves, or even than if they had effected his political conversion. His charming house in Park Street, filled with all that is choice and beautiful in literature and art, was also the resort of all that English society affords of intellect and refinement, and those who have enjoyed his hospitality will long remember it and him with affectionate regret. Mr. Ford died at Hevitre in the sixty-second year of his age. He was thrice married ; the third time to the only sister of the late Sir W. Molesworth. By his first marriage he leaves a son and two daughters ; by his second, one daughter. His son, Francis Clare Ford, is in the diplomatic service, and is attached to H.M. Legation at Lisbon. VII. (2.) His house. Death. VIII. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 1 HE name of Strong, Strang, Stronge, or Strange, for it has been written in all these forms, is one of con- siderable antiquity in the east neuk of Fife, and in the Orkneys. In Fife the chief branch of the family possessed the estate of Balcaskie from the fourteenth century until 1615, when it passed, by sale, to the Anstruthers. A Strange of Balcaskie was slain at the battle of Pinkie in 1547; another, after the sale of the estate, was lieutenant-colonel of a Scottish regiment in the service of Gustavus Adolphus. The Orcadian branch gave several dig- nitaries to the cathedral of Kirkwall ; and its seal, bearing on a shield, argent, a chevron, between 1 Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, Engraver, and of his Brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden. By James Dennistoun, of Dennistoun. Two vols. small 8vo. Lonyman & Co., London, 1855. Prater's M'Kjazine, June, 1855. VIII. Name. Family of Strange. 120 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIIT. Ancestry and birth of Strange. His brothers. He enters the legal profession. three lozenges, sable, frequently formalises legal do- cuments of the Orkneys. But it must be confessed that these facts had been well-nigh obliterated from the world's memory, when the graver of Eobert Strange furnished him with leisure and funds to begin, and his family and biographer with motives to complete, the process of their disinterment from the dust of the provincial and national records of Scotland. Of the facts thus brought to light we shall mention but one : that the grandmother of the first great British engraver was of the family of Irvine, an ancient but decayed race in the Orkneys, from which sprung the father of Washington Irving, the first great English writer of British America. Robert Strange was born in 1721, and received such education as the schools of Kirkwall afforded. His father, a merchant burgess of the town, dying in I 733> bequeathed to his eldest son, James, a small landed property and some houses in Kirkwall, a flock of sheep onWynford Hill, a-" knock," or house clock, "with the case thereof," a wainscot cabinet, and " twelve double silver spoons." To these goods and chattels, Robert, the eldest son of a second mar- riage, succeeded within five years, by the demise of his elder brothers. One of these brothers was settled in business as an attorney, or writer, in Edinburgh. After a few months passed in copying deeds in the office of a local practitioner, Robert was consigned SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 121 by his mother to the care of that brother. He re- garded the legal profession for which his friends destined him with the degree of favour which is commonly accorded to it by those apprentices of the law whom nature has destined for the service of the Muses. To go to sea had been the early passion of the young islander a passion confirmed by a delightful voyage, through the smooth waters of June, from Kirkwall to Leith. His mother and brother, like sensible people, unwilling to thwart him, sent him, in charge of a friendly captain, to make an experimental trip in the Aldborougli man- of-war. A cruise off the English coast, a few weeks in harbour at Gravesend, a tedious passage to Got- tenburg, with the wind ahead and a Swedish ambas- sador on board, and a tempestuous return to Leith, sufficed to make the young aspirant suspect that he had mistaken his vocation. An old lieutenant, weary of waiting for promotion which never came, used to say to him as they paced the deck of the Aid- borough, " Bob, if you have any other alternative, quit the sea, and you will afterwards bless me for the advice ; " and Bob, after being sea-sick for weeks together, confessed to his brother, in a letter, that the Northern Ocean in winter had cured him of his salt-water propensities. From biscuit and junk he was glad to return to kail-brose and penmanship in the writer's office. There, his " good hand of write," VIII. Passion for the sea. Experi- mental trip. Adverse advice. Relin- quishes the sea, and returns to law. 122 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. His drawings. Appren- ticeship to Cooper. to use his own quaint Scotticism, made him tolerably useful, until a love of drawing acquired somehow in the Orkneys, and rekindled by access to materials for its indulgence again allured him from the dusty paths of Themis. After sundry expostulations about wasted time and deficient copy, to which the culprit answered only by sheepish silence, his brother, rum- maging the lad's desk in his absence for a missing paper, came upon the hoard of drawings penned when he ought to have been engrossing. Some of them were his own designs ; others were copied from the title-pages and ornaments of books. The kindly and judicious writer put them in his pocket, and carried them to Mr. Richard Cooper, an English engraver settled in Edinburgh, who saw in them germs of promise, and agreed to take the author on trial, with a view to apprenticeship. Congenial employment now awakened the dormant energies and industry of one of the most industrious of men. In ten days Robert Strange had proved himself eminently handy and useful; and entered on his apprenticeship, which lasted from 1735 to 1741. Lord Palmerston, returning thanks, at the last Academy dinner, for the toast of Her Majesty's Ministers, informed the astonished R.A.'s that Bri- tish art did not require, "and he hoped it might never require or receive, any patronage beyond its own genius." What the Premier meant by these SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 123 Jameson. J. B. words it is not for us to determine. But it is vin. certain that the condition of art which he believes Conditi to be normal and healthy was the condition of it in Scotland when Strange's indentures with Mr. Cooper were signed. In other words, there was no art there at all. With George Jameson whom a strange destiny had transported from Aberdeen to the studio of Rubens at Antwerp, and who had painted the Grahams and Napiers of the seventeenth century with much of the spirit of Vandyck paint- ing in Scotland had been born, and with him it had died. In the year of the revolution, John Baptist Medina. Medina, a Spaniard from Bruxelles, crossed the Tweed with a large number of "bodies and pos- tures" ready painted, to which he fitted heads as sitters offered themselves. Although capable of better things, as a few of his works prove, his per- formances seldom rose above the mechanical level which he had prescribed for himself. His knight- hood, conferred by the Duke of Queensberry in J 7O5, was the last honour of the ancient kingdom of Scotland bestowed by the crown. Nevertheless, when a series of imaginary Scottish kings were wanted to decorate the gallery at Holyrood House, it was thought necessary to import a Dutch artist, De Witt, to achieve the task. Medina's son and grandson carried on the portrait manufactory esta- blished by Sir John ; and the son was, at this very Knighted. De Witt. The younger Medinas. 124 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VI II. Aikman. Snubert. Ramsay. Runciman. Strange's master, Richard Cooper. time, driving a lucrative trade in original portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, for which he found a ready sale in the houses where the "king ower the water" was the daily toast. If Edinburgh had any other painters their names have not survived. Aikman, who imitated Kneller with some success, had lately died in London, where he had settled. Snubert had gone to Boston, to found the American school of painting. Ramsay was at Rome, or, as his father called it, " the seat of the beast," not exactly " paint- ing like a Raffaelle," as the honest poet enthusiasti- cally wrote of him, but cultivating, in the school of Solimena, respectable talents for the market of the British metropolis. Runciman who brought, in after years, to the illustration of Ossian, a style fan- tastic and turgid as Macpherson's, but not without a certain vigour and charm was still beneath the tawse of his dominie, making his first sketches on the flyleaves of his Shorter Catechism or Ruddiman's Rudiments. In this low state of the aits the elder Strange had little choice but to place his brother in the workshop of an engraver. Richard Cooper had been a pupil of John Pine, who engraved the Virgil and Horace, and by whose burin the Armada tapestries of the old House of Lords have survived the fire of 1834. Italian travel had improved Cooper's taste and skill, and he had brought with him to Edinburgh a col- SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 125 lection of pictures, drawings, and prints, humble, no doubt, but probably far superior to anything else of the kind which the good town possessed. In the winter he superintended a subscription drawing academy, of which young Strange was a constant and industrious attendant. In the business of the shop, besides the master, there were engaged two artists whom he had brought from London, and several apprentices. " Of one kind and another," says Strange, in a brief autobiographical sketch of his early life, " there was a multiplicity of work, though not the first choice." Coats-of-arms, cards, bill-headings, and now and then a vignette or por- trait for some book about to be put forth by Creech or Miller, were the staple of the manufacture. For the Edinburgh Medical Essays, 1733-1744, Cooper was usually employed to furnish the rude illustra- tions ; and some of these falling to the lot of young Strange, he became, in consequence of his neatness and care, a favourite of the celebrated anatomist, Monro. "I had likewise," he says, "copied some French prints, which gave me a facility with the graver, intermixing that harmony which the exercise of drawing will ever produce in the execution of any subject, but particularly that of history, to which I had ever an eye." While thus engaged, he had the misfortune to lose his brother ; " not only a brother, but a second VIII. Class of work. Death of Strange's brother. 126 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Home- sickness. Visits Kirkwall, and re- turns to Edinburgh. Leaves Cooper. Rebellion. His en- gagement to Isabella Lumisden. A strong Jacobite. father a friend and benefactor." Grief for this loss brought on an attack of home-sickness, for which, after a three years' residence in Edinburgh, he with some difficulty obtained leave from Mr. Cooper to try the remedy of a visit to the Orkneys. The cure was complete : poor little Kirkwall, the city of his childhood, seemed a mere village to the metropoli- tanised apprentice ; and although his mother re- ceived him with the warmest affection, and his old friends flattered him by commissions for seals and coats-of-arms, he sailed from the Orkneys in about three months, never to return. His engagement with Mr. Cooper came to an end in 1741. His occupations during the next four years have eluded the researches of his diligent biographer. But in 1745, when the standard of the rebellion was raised at Glenfinnan, he was still in Edinburgh, pursuing his business as an engraver in Stewart's Close. He had by this time contracted other ties than those of business in the capital, having become the suitor of Isabella Lumisden, daughter of a writer to the signet. Old Lumisden and his son Andrew were both of Jacobite politics, tempered with professional prudence ; while Isabella herself was the most enthusiastic of the fair votaries of the Stuart cause who wore white ribbons in their hair when Prince Charles rode into Edinburgh, or waved their kerchief from the dizzy windows of the SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 127 High Street when James VIII. was proclaimed by the Scottish heralds at the Cross. The burin of Strange was immediately enlisted on the side of the rebellion. During the residence of Prince Charles at Holyrood, the engraver of Stewart's Close was commissioned to execute his portrait, and produced a plate which was regarded as a wonder of art by the uncritical Jacobites, and is the earliest work on his own account of which any trace remains. This plate, ten and a quarter inches by seven and a half, represents the young Chevalier looking out of an oval window or frame, below which are the words, " Ever so missus succurrere seclo," to please the pur- chasers ; and the address, " A Paris, chez Chareau, Rue St. Jaques," to mislead the possible informer or prosecutor. As a likeness of bonnie Prince Charlie it is not favourable ; as a print, it is of the rarest occurrence, although the plate is still in the posses- sion of the family. The scarcity of this portrait is probably attributable to the subsequent proceedings of the artist, who had little opportunity of pushing the sale of impressions until the triumph of the House of Hanover had rendered such an occupation far more dangerous than lucrative. Love, the gay harlequin of the world's pantomime, having turned an Antwerp blacksmith into one of the first of Flemish painters, now determined to leave to art- biography a new proof of his power, by making a VIII. He works for the Jacobites. Portrait of Prince Charles. Now very rare. 128 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Joins a Jacobite regiment. Engraves Jacobite paper money. rebel trooper of a quiet plodding engraver. Isabella Lumisden's brother Andrew had been named one of the secretaries of the Prince, and she insisted that her lover should become one of his soldiers. What politics Strange had were Whiggish, and his habits were eminently civic and peaceful ; but he knew that his mistress was of an imperious disposition, and he loved her so much, that he was fain to pretend that he loved her Prince's honour more. He therefore laid aside his burin and slippers, and assuming the sabre and jack-boots, rode into Eng- land in Lord Elcho's regiment of Life Guards. Lead- ing the van of the Jacobite invasion, the trumpets of that gallant corps sounded at the gates of Derby on the 4th December. It also covered the rear of the retreat, figured at the review on the Green of Glas- gow, fought at Falkirk, and finally found itself quar- tered at Culloden House, on the shore of the Moray Firth. In the spring of 1 746, he was sent for to Inverness, where the main body of the rebels lay, to engrave the plates for a paper currency, which the wants of the army necessitated. He had several interviews with the Prince, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and Murray of Broughton, and assisted at their discussions as to the form and style of the notes. " I gave it as my opinion," he says, "that they could not do better than issue notes in imitation of the Bank of England SIR ROBERT STRANGE SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 129 or Royal Bank of Scotland, in the execution of which there was very little labour ; that it would be necessary, if possible, to see such notes, in order to concert a form how they were to be drawn up, by whom paid, or at what period ; if at a given time, that of the Restoration, I imagined, would be the properest. This produced a general smile ; " as well it might, considering the hopeless condition of the cause. Murray, however, produced two Bank of England notes, one for ^100 and another for 2. With these for models, Strange went to work on a copper-plate procured in the town ; and having instructed a carpenter in making a wooden rolling press, was ready in a fortnight to print off his notes. But by that time the Duke of Cumberland had crossed the Spey, and advanced as far as Nairn. The engraver was once more called to boot and saddle, and rejoined his regiment at Culloden. " My companions," he informs us, " were in general glad to see me, and joking, asked me when they were to have any money. I replied that if they gave a good account of the duke, I hoped his treasury-chest would supply us." On the 1 5th of April the Prince and his council of war formed their plan of a night attack upon the royal camp ; " a plan," in Strange's opinion, " worthy of the greatest heroes of antiquity," but which un- happily depended for execution on some of the most VOL. VI. VIII. Culloden. Jacobite plans frustrated. I 3 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. His account of the battle. indifferent captains of modern times. Utterly failing in its attempt, through the miscalculation of its leaders, the rebel army was obliged to retire at day- break upon the position which it had quitted at nightfall ; and fatigued, dispirited, and unfed, was attacked in the morning by a host outnumbering it threefold, fresh and well-appointed ; and was defeated with the cruel slaughter which history still reprobates and song has not ceased to bewail. Elcho's horse was posted in the centre of the rebel line, close to the person of the Prince. At one o'clock, the duke's cannonade having begun to tell upon its ranks, the regiment was ordered by Charles himself to retire to the shelter of an adjacent hollow. It was afterwards recalled to his assistance by an aide-de-camp, but rendered no efficient help. "We met the Prince," says Strange, "endeavouring to rally the soldiers, who, annoyed with the enemy's fire, were beginning to quit the field." They do not seem even to have charged, or to have made any movement towards the repulse of the advancing English, but merely to have protected the person of the Prince. " The scene of confusion," he continues, " was now great ; nor can the imagination figure it. It now became necessary to provide for the Prince's safety ; his person had been abundantly exposed. He was got off the field, and very narrowly escaped falling in with a body of horse, which had been detached from the duke's left, were advancing with an incredible rapidity picking up stragglers, and, as they gave no quarter, SIR ROBERT STRANGE. levelling them with the ground. The greater numbers of the army were already out of danger, the flight having been so precipitate. We got upon a rising ground, where we turned round and made a general halt. The scene was indeed tremendous. Never was so total a rout, a more thorough discomfiture of an army. The adjacent country was, in a manner, covered with its ruins. The whole was over in about twenty-five minutes. The Prince at this moment had his cheeks bedewed with tears ; what must not his feeling heart have suffered ! " Here the autobiographical fragment abruptly ends. Strange's bank-notes, payable at the Restoration, went to Cumberland's treasury-chest; nor could he ever obtain impressions of these curious early productions. It is probable that the artist was amongst the cavalry who escorted Prince Charles to the ford of Falie, on the Nairn. Of his subsequent adventures, no record remains, unless it be the anecdote, that riding along the sea-shore, a ball from one of the King's cruisers bent the sword in his hand. After skulking for some time in the Highlands, he made his way to Edinburgh, where he supported himself in conceal- ment by making small drawings, which his friends contrived to dispose of for him at a guinea each. Amongst these was a fan, which he had painted for his dear Isabella, and parted with, with a sad heart, to the Earl of Wemyss, who, in after days, paid him the questionable compliment of refusing an offer for its redemption. In these days of danger, it is said that he was saved from capture by the ready wit of his betrothed, who dropped over him the ample folds of her hooped gown. The life-guardsman was hardly VIII. Returns to Edinburgh. His escape from cap- ture. 132 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Marriage. Goes to London. Returns to Edinburgh. safe in his sanctuary before the soldiers, in pursuit of him, burst into the room ; but the fair Jacobite sate singing over her needlework with such calm and unfaltering self-possession, that their suspicions were disarmed, and their researches effectually mis- directed. 1 Strange soon afterwards resigned to Miss Lumisden the liberty which her petticoat had protected. They were privately married, according to the ritual of the English Church, to which, as Jacobites, they be- longed, early in 1747. This course was forced on them by the obstinate and not very unreasonable objections entertained to the match by the bride's father, who saw little chance of decent livelihood being secured to his daughter by a mere Jacobite pencil. She continued to live with her parents until October, when she removed to a humbler home of her own, and contributed, by her needle and spin- ning-wheel, to the modest expenses of their house- hold. Strange soon afterwards went to London, no doubt in pursuit of employment ; the Act of Grace, passed in June 1747, having relieved him from the fear of further molestation at the hands of the law. Returning to Edinburgh in March 1748, he found 1 Nollelcens and his Times, by J. T. Smith, 2 vols., London, 1829, ii. p. 245. The story was told to Mr. Smith by Richard Cooper, son of Strauge's master, who fell into the error of saying, that it was the first time Miss Lumisden had seen her refugee. Mr. Denuistoun assures us, that she was protecting him from dangers incurred at her express bidding. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 133 himself a father, his wife having borne him a daugh- ter in his absence. His works since the rebellion had consisted chiefly of portraits and prints for books, none of them pos- sessing much merit, except the portrait of the witty Dr. Pitcairn, after Medina, which was engraved in a careful and persevering manner in the style of Houbraken. Nor did he refuse commissions even for book plates. One of the most elaborate of these was done for Dr. Thomas Drummond, of Logiealmond, and represented the interior of a library, of which the goddess of day draws aside the curtain, with the motto, Aurora est apta musis, indicating the doctor's practice, or admiration of the practice, of early rising. He also found a resource in painting miniature portraits of the exiled royal family and the Jacobite leaders for their adherents and friends. Kesolving to adopt this branch of art as his profession, and not finding in Edinburgh either the employment or the means of improvement which he desired, he again took leave of his wife at the end of summer, and went to Rouen in their pur- suit. She soon afterwards removed into " a pretty genteel house at the Cross ; a third storey ; and an easy-scaled stair; and," continues the lively and hopeful tenant, "I design to make more than the rent of my five large windows at the Restoration, though it is fourteen pounds and a crown." VIII. His works. Portraits, &c. Book plates. Miniature portraits of the Stuarts. Goes to Rouen. '34 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII Compa- triots at Rouen. Hamilton of I -I; ui- gour's Litany. Studies under Descamps. Strange chose Rouen as the scene of his labours, partly because it was the place chosen for their exile by a number of his companions in the rebellion. His brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden, was there, and Sir Stuart Threipland, and Hamilton of Bangour, the poet of the "Dowie dens of Yarrow." They were very sociable with each other, very loyal to their Prince, and very poor. From dreams of poli- tical reaction in England, which never happened, and of foreign assistance in their plots, which was never given, they gradually turned to seeking posi- tions in the French army, which were sparingly accorded, or schemes of trade in their land of exile, which want of capital usually nipped in the bud. Books and news, and especially remittances, from home were eagerly looked for, and not unfrequently looked for in vain. The despondency which gradu- ally crept over the poor outcasts, sick of deferred hope, was humorously described by Hamilton of Bangour, who composed what he called a litany, which began thus : " I will arise and go unto George, and will say unto him, George, I have rebelled against thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy subject; make me as one of thy hired Englishmen." Strange, who eventually acted more in the spirit of this prayer than any of his com- panions, meanwhile went to a Government school of design, presided over by Descamps, and took SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 135 lessons in drawing. Descamps was an artist whose name is chiefly remembered for his Lives of the Flemish Painters and his artistic tour in Flanders. Diderot, hearing that he was about to publish this book, said, sarcastically, " God grant you may do better in literature than in painting." Except Michael Angelo himself, we can recollect no pro- fessional artist who has used both pen and pencil with success. From Vasari downwards, painters, who could or did write, have never, as painters, risen above mediocrity. The sister-arts refuse to marry themselves upon Mormonite conditions. Des- camps was no exception to this rule ; but, perhaps, the neat portraits and illustrations are the best parts of his books. They bear a strong resemblance in style and handling to the early works of Strange who carried off the first prize for drawing in Des- camps' school ; and whilst studying under his in- struction, determined to make the burin the weapon wherewith to carve his way to fame and fortune. Desirous of further improvement, he removed, in the summer of 1 749, to Paris, and the school of Jacques Philippe Le Bas. That engraver was then at the height of his reputation, both as an artist, and as a popular and successful instructor in his craft. It was under his eye that Strange was initiated into the mysteries of the dry-point or needle, an instru- ment which he afterwards greatly improved, and VIII. Descamps. Removes to Paris. Le Bas. Learns dry-point. '36 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Tho "Death of the Stag." used with a brilliancy and effect rarely achieved. Trained in the classical school of Audran, Le Bas had been led by his own good taste to the careful study of Rembrandt, and worked much with the needle, by which the Dutchman's miracles had been wrought. A few small works display the grace and facility with which he also used the pencil ; and the five hundred plates which bear his name show him to have been amongst the most diligent and prolific of the engravers of France. Every kind of com- position, by all the popular artists, has been repro- duced by his burin ; but Teniers was the painter whom he chiefly loved ; and he rendered the flowing facile touch and delicate silvery tones of that master with a truth and felicity which leave nothing to be desired. With Le Bas, Strange remained for upwards of a year, and greatly improved, in that busy atelier, his skill in using the tools which he had adopted, and in the galleries of Paris his taste and knowledge of art. To this period of his life belong a neat oblong vignette, called the "Death of the Stag," two etchings of an artist's studio, and a very pretty landscape, with naked boys swinging on a fallen tree. Le Bas was so much pleased with his performances, that he offered him employment on a series of prints after Boucher. But Strange, who had already felt within him aspirations towards the great old masters, de- SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 137 clined to become the multiplier of the meretricious compositions of the Lely of the Pare aux cerfs. By way of practice, and not altogether to neglect the taste of Paris and the chance of sale, he engraved a Cupid, by Vanloo, and the " Return from Market," by Wouvermans the first considerable works exe- cuted on his own account. The pictures, then in the cabinet of M. Le Noir, have since been thought worthy, perhaps on account of the popularity which these engravings obtained for them, of places in the Royal Gallery at Dresden. Each print was pub- lished at the modest price of half-a-crown. They attracted considerable attention, and Strange has recorded that the public could hardly be induced to believe that works so different in character and treat- ment had been executed by the same burin. He returned to London in 1750, and settled in Parliament Street, where he was joined by Mrs. Strange and her little girl. To his profession as an engraver he added the business of a dealer in prints, which soon became, for the time, lucrative and ex- tensive. By his brother-in-law, Lumisden, a man of fine taste, who was now at Rome in attendance on the Chevalier St. George, he was supplied with the best productions of the old Italian schools, and with the works, as they appeared, of Frey and Piranesi. For some years he was at intervals employed in the execution and superintendence of the plates for a VIII. Engraves pictures by Vanloo and Wou- vermans. Returns to London. Occupa- tion. 138 SIR ROSERT STRANGE. VIII. Hisengrav- ings popu- lar. Praised by Mengs, &c. Removes to Covent Garden. magnificent work on the Gravid Uterus, of his friend and countryman William Hunter. A Magdalene and Cleopatra, after Guido, afforded him more con- genial occupation, and an opportunity of bringing himself under the notice of the court. One of the original pictures belonged to the Princess of Wales, and the print and its companion (Strange always issued his works in pairs) were therefore not im- properly dedicated by the ex-guardsman of Prince Charles to the daughter-in-law of King George. The dedications bore no fruit ; but the engravings produced an abundant harvest. The English public bought them eagerly at four shillings apiece ; and Mengs and the Roman virtuosi praised them in words of the highest eulogy, all ending in issimo. Lumisden, cool and cautious Scot as he was, assured his brother-in-law that " no engraver in Italy came near him." " Liberality and Modesty," after Guido, and "Apollo rewarding Merit and punishing Arro- gance," after Andrea Sacchi, were his next works, and were issued at the increased price of seven-and- sixpence each. In 1754, he removed his rapidly increasing business to Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, where several of his children were born and died. In 1756-7, Mrs. Strange was in Edinburgh for nearly a year, winding up the affairs of her lately deceased parents. Prints from Pietro da Cortona and Salvator Eosa continued to uphold and extend SIR ROBERT STRANGE. the engraver's fame ; and the three children of Charles L, by Vandyck, then at Kensington Palace, and now at Windsor, was also highly popular, ap- pealing to Jacobite predilections for the exiled Stuarts, and to the English fondness for a painter who is considered almost as an Englishman. Towards 1758, Strange had begun to plan the gratification of a long-cherished desire to visit Italy. He announced this wish and intention to the public in a somewhat magniloquent prospectus contributed by Lumisden, of some prints by the profits of which he hoped to defray the cost of his journey. An obstacle unexpectedly intervened, which somewhat clouded his professional prospects, and interfered with the future current and comfort of his life. In 1758, Allan Ramsay was painting full-length por- traits of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III., and his favourite, Lord Bute ; and he hinted to Strange that it would be agreeable to those great personages if he would undertake to engrave one or both of the pictures. Looking upon the suggestion as made solely by Ramsay, Strange, after some deliberation, declined to adopt it, saying that he was unwilling to give up his plan of Italian study. His refusal evidently disappointed the painter, who, how- ever, allowed the matter to drop. About a fortnight later, Chambers the architect brought to Strange a message from the Prince, desiring him to lay aside VIII. Increase of his fame. Plans a visit to Italy. Obstacles. Quarrel with Allan Kamsay. i 4 o SIR ROBERT STRANGE. vin. other work, and engrave the portraits at the price of one hundred guineas, with the advantage of His Royal Highness's patronage of the prints when pub- lished. That this remuneration was not only in- adequate, but extremely shabby, is sufficiently proved by the price afterwards paid to Ryland for the same work, .800, besides ^"105 for his drawings and the copyright. Strange therefore again declined the proposal, assigning as a reason the plan of travel which he had framed ; and he was afterwards told by Chambers that the Prince was perfectly satisfied with his excuse. Nevertheless, Ramsay went about saying, on the authority of Lord Bute, that His Royal Highness was so much offended by Strange's refusal, that he could not bear to hear his name mentioned. This language was, of course, reported to Strange, with the supplementary sting, that his Jacobite principles were the real cause why he would not engrave the Georgian heir-apparent ; and it was moreover whispered that Lord Bute had said, "This is a thing we are determined never to forgive." He at once wrote to Lord Bute, indignantly denying the rumoured charge, and professing his gratitude to the royal family for favours already received, favours which do not appear to be extended beyond permission to engrave certain pictures, and his sense of his lordship's protection, a protection which seems to have consisted in accepting, without a word SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 141 of acknowledgment, impressions of some of his works. vui. He also entered into an angry and lengthy corre- spondence with Ramsay. The peer made no answer, being of opinion, either that the matter was beneath his notice, or that an affront had really been put upon his royal master's blooming countenance, and upon his own celebrated legs. The painter, on the other hand, was prolix, evasive, and somewhat con- temptuous in his reply. He denied having cast any imputation on Strange's loyalty ; but he maintained that he had committed an error in declining the Prince's commission : and his letters were on the whole so unsatisfactory, or rather so exasperating, that the engraver at last told him, that after " weigh- ing his answers with some positive information re- ceived from another quarter, he was sorry he had ever thought him his friend, and must, for his own safety, have no connection with him for the future." This angry feeling was so little mollified by time, that writing an account of the affair to a friend, about a year after, Strange twice spoke of Ramsay as " that scoundrel." The exact rights of the affair it is neither easy nor worth while to determine. But the disputants entered on the matter predisposed to enmity. Ramsay had lately returned from Rome, where, fearing to mar his professional prospects at St. James's by appearing to have any relations with the poor exiles from St. Germain's, he had repelled, 142 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. vin. with unnecessary coldness, the advances of his old friend, Lumisden. During two years' residence there, these companions in youth had hardly met or conversed. Lumisden naturally commented on this conduct in his letters to Strange ; and Strange, knowing that Ramsay had behaved like a cold and selfish man of the world to his brother-in-law, too hastily, perhaps, concluded that he had acted like a scoundrel to himself. This unpleasant incident probably hastened Strange's departure from England. An increasing family forbade his wife to accompany him. He set out in June 1760, and after spending two months in Paris, reached Florence in the autumn. Sir Horace Mann, to whom he was recommended by Horace Walpole, received him with great cordiality ; his name was already known to the artists and amateurs ; " he was plagued," he writes, " with visits with which he could have dispensed;" and "he even found himself remarkable enough to be pointed out in the streets." With his usual industry, he hastened to the Pitti palace, and sat down before the Madonna della Sedia, of which he executed a drawing, and of which the Roman artists expressed Rome. the highest admiration. At Rome he spent the rest of the winter with Lumisden, working hard at draw- ings from Domenichino, Guido, Titian, and Rafael. Prince Rezzonico, the nephew of Clement XIII., Leaves England. Paris and Florence. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. obtained leave for him to erect scaffoldings where he pleased in the Vatican, a great and unusual favour. Lumisden's letters to his sister, "Bella," are filled with good tidings, of honours heaped on " her dear Robie," and of the progress of drawings " which are to astonish Britain as they do Rome." Eight months were devoted to similar labours and triumphs at Naples ; and Florence, Bologna, and Parma were likewise visited, and revisited with equal profit and distinction. The academies of the three last cities enrolled Strange among their members : and he was also received into that of St. Luke at Rome, and became on that occasion the theme of an eulogistic discourse by Piranesi. During his residence in Italy, he was much in society, both English and foreign ; and received from the house of Stuart the kindness which it seldom failed, in the lowest state of its fallen fortunes, to bestow upon those who had at home adhered to its cause. The titular king's health was now declining, and he lived in strict seclusion in the Muti palace, served, after the royal forms which had been carried from St. James's to St. Germain's, by a few faithful servants, of whom Lumisden was one of the most sagacious and efficient. With the good Cardinal of York, Strange had frequent interviews, and found his in- fluence ever at his disposal, to facilitate access to those galleries and churches which were more VIII. The Vatican. Naples. Foreign recogni- tion. Popular in Italian society. Interviews with Car- dinal of York. 144 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Returns to England. Winters in Paris. Elected a member of the French Royal Academy. Returns to London. Jealousy of English artists and critics. jealously guarded than was the wont of Italy. After an absence of four years, during which the burin had been wholly laid aside for the pencil, the diligent artist returned to England, with portfolios stored with a greater number of elaborate drawings of the finest pictures in Europe, than a life of continuous industiy would have enabled him to transfer to copper. The winter of 1764-5 was passed by Strange in Paris, where he was occupied in engraving the figures of Justice and Meekness, from his drawings of Rafael's frescoes in the Hall of Constantine. While thus employed, the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture elected him a member, and he was the first British subject upon whom this honour was conferred. Returning to London to publish his prints, he had the mortification to find that his foreign distinctions, instead of procuring him a welcome at home, had only made him a more conspicuous mark for the arrows of envy. Artists and critics were in those days, perhaps still are, a race too ready to rush, according to Madame de S tad's mot, " aux secours des vainqueurs" They now seemed to hasten with one accord to revenge upon a laborious and successful brother the ancient grudge of the prince and his favourite, Bute, whose helpless positions, as King, and prime favourite, who had very lately been Prime Minister, naturally SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 145 VIII. Justice and Meek- ness. Guide's Magda- lene re- fused by Society of Head by Guercino accepted. appealed to the aid of the generous. Justice and Meekness no sooner appeared than they became the object of newspaper malignity and abuse. The Society of Artists had lately obtained a royal charter of incorporation, and Strange resolved to send some of his drawings to its exhibition. Selecting a copy of Guide's Magdalene for this purpose, he was told that, as a coloured drawing, it could not be received with due regard to a recent rule, which, it was Artists. strongly rumoured, had been adopted with the special aim of excluding his productions. A Head, after Guercino, in chalks, was accepted, but was hung so high as to be almost out of sight. Subsequent exhibitions received, in spite of the rule alleged against Strange, coloured drawings by his rival, Bartolozzi. That he keenly felt these slights is proved by his letter to Lord Bute not printed, however, for several years afterwards in which he contrasted the treatment he had met with at home with the honours which had been paid him at Paris. There, he said, his drawings had been praised by the first draughtsmen in Europe, and had been left for a week in the academy, at the special request of its chiefs, for the benefit, as they pleaded, of the students and the public. But the very justice of his complaints probably stimulated the malice of the enemies of whom he complained. When the Society of Artists split into two factions, and the more adroit VOL. VI. Letter to Lord Bute. 146 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Royal Academy excludes engravers. Strange's retaliation. His collec- tion of old masters. and worldly-wise of these factions became, in 1768, the Royal Academy, he adhered to the remnant of the old body. The new institution took the im- politic revenge of passing a law in spite of the protest of Benjamin West, which excluded engravers from participation in its honours and advantages. It nevertheless elected Bartolozzi, thinly disguising the partiality by making him conform to the rule of presenting a picture, in order that he might take his place amongst the painter-academicians. Strange retaliated in a pamphlet, entitled, An Inquiry into the Establishment of the Royal Academy, in which he exposed, with considerable force and skill, the jobbing and intrigues out of which it arose, and charged its leading members with "illiberal treat- ment, meanness, imposition, and falsehood," of which the speedy modification of their own rules, and the admission of engravers to the degree of associate, almost convicted them. But although he had the best of the argument, the contest embittered his life in London, and rendered him glad to pursue his vocation in Paris for several months during several consecutive years. While in Italy and France, he had formed a con- siderable collection of pictures by the old masters. At first he had bought, he says, " only such works as he thought he would like to engrave ; " but he soon found, like other collectors, that " the posses- SIR ROBERT STRANGE. sion of one picture only raised a stronger desire of possessing another." Having disposed to good advantage of a considerable number of his drawings to Sir Lawrence Dundas whose descendant, Lord Zetland, still preserves them on the walls of his house in Arlington Street he determined to bring his ancient pictures also to market. Hiring a room, he exhibited them to the public, which was admitted by the purchase of a catalogue carefully drawn up, with critical notices by the owner, and bearing on its title-page his name, with an imposing array of academical distinctions. The exhibition remained open during the seasons of 1769, 1770, and I77 1 * and was terminated in the latter year by an auction, so profitable in its results that Strange, in subsequent years, several times repeated the speculation. From 1775 to 1780, Mr. and Mrs. Strange re- sided wholly in Paris, whither her brother Lumisden had now removed from Some. They returned to London in 1780, and established themselves at 52 Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they continued to reside, with the interruptions of occasional visits to Paris, and where their eldest daughter, Mary, died in 1784. She alone of the family inherited something of her father's gifts ; she drew with neatness, and left behind her a mass of manuscript in prose and verse. Her father, whose only companion in Paris she had frequently been, VIII. Sells some drawings. Exhibition and sale of old mas- ters, 1769- Paris, 1775-80. London, 1780. Daughter Mary dies, 1784. 148 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Death of Princes Octavius and Alfred. Apotheosis, by B. West, engraved by Strange. Knighted by George 111. loved her with the tenderest affection ; and it may have been sympathy with a mood akin to his own that led him into friendly relations with the court, which at length ripened into favour. Shortly before the death of Mary Strange, George III. and Queen Charlotte had to mourn the loss of two infant princes Octavius and Alfred. West, after his own fashion, gave expression to the sym- pathy of the nation with the grief of the popular sovereigns in his picture of the Apotheosis of the Royal Babes, who are depicted floating amongst clouds and angels over a view of Windsor Castle. This composition Strange offered to engrave a com- pliment which he had not yet paid to any living artist, and which was duly appreciated by West. The King himself was pleased, and gave permission to Strange to take the picture with him to Paris during one of his visits, saying that he was sure in his hands it was safe from harm. The work was finished in January 1787, and carried by Strange, for the King's inspection, to the Queen's house. His Majesty re- ceived him most graciously, praised the print very highly, and said he had "another favour to ask that he would come to be knighted at the next leve'e." He then left the room, but hastily return- ing, with his usual " What, what ! " said, " I am going to St. James's immediately, and if you will follow me I will do it now : the sooner the better." SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 149 Thus did the King, somewhat tardily, repair the in- justice of which as Prince he had been the innocent cause : the slanders of Ramsay were forgotten ; and even the Jacobite Lumisdens learned to feel that merit was not altogether unrewarded by the house of Hanover. The newspaper critics, to be sure, had their jokes on the occasion, and one of them pro- posed that " Sir Robert should etch the battle of Culloden, with the corps he served in flying from the English troops." Neither he nor my lady, how- ever, appear to have been much disturbed by such witticisms he being occupied with his usual labours, and she, busy with the construction of a family tree, and the choice of supporters for the equestrian shield, for which were eventually selected (though not until after the knight's bones were dust and his graver rust) a naked Caledonian and a Dane in armour. Strange' s unwearied industry had now been re- warded with a fair share of worldly prosperity. He had realised a decent competence ; and two of his sons were provided with good situations, one, James, holding a lucrative post in India under the Com- pany, which seems to have been relinquished for a still more profitable commercial pursuit in America ; and the other, Thomas, being chief-justice at Halifax. The habit of labour, however, had become a second nature ; and night and morning still found him bending over the copper as assiduously as in the VITI. Press criticisms. Prosperity. Sons. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. His wife's advice. Paris, 1789-91- Volume of prints. Death, 5th July 1792. old Edinburgh times, when the day's bread was to be provided by the burin. In vain did his wife say and write, " Come, my dear, play the gentleman ; take your staff in your hand, go about visiting your friends, and they will remember you and your works. You may labour in a corner for ever, and nobody will inquire after you. Nobody cares for obscure folks, and a little frugal dash is even a duty." Pur- suing his business in Paris, in 1789, 1790, and 1791, he saw the opening horrors of the Revolution. In the latter year his prints, upon which he intended his fame to rest, numbered forty-nine. Of all he had reserved a certain number of fine impressions, and the last year of his life was spent in arranging these for binding, and in executing at the eleventh hour a slight portrait of himself, from a small medallion drawing by Greuze. 1 The work was also provided with a descriptive catalogue, extending to fourteen folio pages, and a dedication to the King, which was written by Dr. Hugh Blair. The work was complete, but was not ready for publication until after the decease of the artist, which took place on the 5th July 1792, at his house in London. The immediate cause of his death was water in the chest, the result of a decay of the vital powers, which had been observable for two years to his [An engraving of this is here given.] SIR ROBERT STRANGE. family. He was buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Besides plates, prints and pictures, and personal effects, he left the sum of .10,800 in legacies to his children. This sum does not appear to have been the bulk of his fortune, though what its amount was his biographer does not inform us. For twenty-five years after his death impressions continued to be taken from his plates as they were wanted, and the annual proceeds must have been considerable, for after that lapse of time many of the plates were considered to be becoming too much worn for further use. A council being held of the persons interested in the property of them, it was found that some hundred impressions, valued at ,18,000, remained in stock; and it was resolved, for the sake of Sir Robert's reputation, that no more should be taken. All the plates were, therefore, cut to pieces, except that of Charles I. in his robes, which remains, cruelly mutilated, in the possession of the descendants of the engraver. "I may, without either vanity or presumption," wrote Strange towards the close of his life, "be allowed to say that I have been a constant and zealous promoter of the fine arts ; and have with indefatigable application endeavoured to do credit to my own profession." He might have added that he had done all this, not only constantly and zeal- ously, but with very eminent success. Of all British VIII. Personal effects. Stock of prints. Plates destroyed. His zeal for his art. 15* SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. His work. Subjects. Effect on national taste. artists he was the first who made it the aim of his life to familiarise the mind of his country with the finest creations of foreign art. He did this for upwards of forty-one years, through evil report and good report, struggling manfully with the cares of a family and poverty and neglect, and resisting not a few temptations of present profit which might have lured him from the construction of the monu- ment of his fame. His selection of subjects was perhaps not altogether the best that his opportunities of Italian travel enabled him to make ; he had an undue leaning to the eclectic masters of Bologna, and gave to Guido and Carlo Dolce time and toil which had better have been offered at the nobler shrines of Parma and Rome. But compared with what was to be commonly seen and bought in London in his day, his works were beings from a better world. To the taste engendered and fostered by these, and by the pictures, drawings, and prints which he im- ported and dispersed, we may fairly ascribe much of the artistic wealth of these islands. As his own pro- ductions, pair after pair, clothed walls which had been previously unadorned, or hung with grim and graceless portraits as his picture sales attracted rich and curious idlers from the racecourse or the cock- pit the sacred fire was kindled which, growing with what it fed upon, entered into the national spirit, and inspired the commercial enterprise which found SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 153 opportunities in the revolutionary wars to fill the palaces of the English nobles with the spoils of Or- leans and Alba, Zampieri and Colonna, and, at the return of peace, rendered London the natural mart for the war plunder of the French marshals, and the pickings and stealings of ephemeral Buonaparte kings. Strange still holds his place in the very front rank of a profession in which Marc Antonio and Rem- brandt went before him, and in which Volpato and Morghen, Desnoyers and Muller have followed. The rivals with whom he contended here he has now dis- tanced in the long race of fame. The fine powers of Bartolozzi, seldom exerted with the same honesty of application, were still more rarely employed upon works worthy of them and the favour of posterity. They are, therefore, scarcely more remembered or esteemed than the meretricious graces of Angelica or Cypriani, to which they gave currency and promised immortality. Strange's works, on the contrary from the enduring interest of their subjects bear an increasing value in the market. Being his own pub- lisher and printer, he was able to watch over his future reputation by scrupulous attention to the quality of his impressions, never taking off more than had been actually bespoken, always destroying those which seemed faulty, and generally treating his customers and the public with a good faith which later printsellers have usually considered superfluous VIII. Repu- tation. 154 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Apprecia- tion by critics. English. Italian. Lady Strange. in their calling. His plates were manipulated with a loving care which shrank from no labour, and which extended to every portion of the surface. A perfect master of all the tools of his craft, he knew the powers of each, and combined the resources of all with a delicacy and evenness of effect which many consider- able artists have sacrificed to their pride in a peculiar management of one. In rendering the tones and texture of flesh he is generally admitted to have been unexcelled ; and he was also eminently successful in expressing, with mere black and white, the grada- tions of colour. In his reproductions of the works of Titian he contrived to give something of the touch of that master ; which, however, he often introduced where it was out of place, and only gave a mono- tonous character to his prints. English critics, from Walpole downwards, have generally agreed to give him a very high place in the class of art to which he belongs. Italian writers, whose praise is perhaps a greater tribute to his merits, have done the same. Ferrerio ranked him among the first and most pleasing artists of the age ; and Longhi, admitting his great technical excellence, and his power of seizing the character of the master whom he engraved, remarked that had his design attained to somewhat greater perfection, he would have been the first of historical engravers. Lady Strange survived her husband about fourteen SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 155 VIII. Her character. Her business capacity. years, dying at her house at East Acton on the 28th February 1806. Her energy and decision of char- acter, so remarkably exemplified when she hid her hunted lover beneath her robe, distinguished her through life, and formed a better dowry to her hus- band and children than if she had brought them " all and haill " of the broad lands of " Lummisdayne." During Strange's prolonged seasons of absence, she not only governed her family with admirable pru- dence, but superintended the sale of his prints and works of art with sagacity and success. In all his speculations he appears to have consulted her, and when Lumisden was at a loss for an answer to ques- tions submitted to him by Strange, he generally re- commended him to take counsel with " Bella." Her letters are admirable for their excellent sense, affec- tionate tone, and natural force of style. Mr. Dennis- toun has wisely given them to us exactly as they were written, authenticated with all their racy Scotti- cisms and the loose grammar and orthography of the period. We may offer as a specimen a passage in the letter (29th Sept. 1748) which recommends her husband, setting out for Rouen, to the good offices of her brother : " You're both so like other, and so good every way, that I have no reason to doubt of your mutual loves : therefore needs say but little on this subject, only tell you, my dear Andrew, that I expect you'll be like a father to my dearest life (although he has been one before you). There's a thousand things that you are capable to instruct him in, and Letter to her 156 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. Via. I flatter myself that you'll take a particular pleasure in doing it ; and I'll venture to say that none of your favours will be lost on either of us. And, to tell a truth which may either be overlooked or quite for- gotten by some, I think my dearest is entitled to the esteem of every true Briton ; for he has done more to serve his country than any ser- vant his master has that I know of. Two years ago he was stript naked every way in his country's cause, since which he has got a wife and two children for the good of the public. He has also, by his own industry, provided for his growing young family to their full satisfaction. Lastly, he has shown the world the personal perfections of his dear master ; and so charmed thousands, which is more than any British man ever did before him. I could fill volumes with his good qualities ; but as you know many of them, and will soon see more of them, I shall be as short on this subject as possible, tho' I don't know where to find such another." Fifteen years afterwards she thus writes to him about her children : " Oh, Andrew ! it would be well worth your while to come and see my infantry. A mother's description is not minded : if it was, I could tell you that Bruce is everything that I could wish her, and what her father wishes. She has been a heart-break many a time to me, but I natter myself with the best now. Jamie delights both man and woman : lovely and modest, he cannot move a finger but he shows beauty. The old and the wise, the sharp-sighted and the soft-hearted, admires and loves Andrew. Bell's her papa's pictur, softened with smiles ; she's all dimples : a gentle zepher you would call her, with a most comick dis- position as would charm you. Bob is my favourate, only because I am now going to describe him : he loves me more than they do all. He is in every respect like Jamie, who some people say is my favourate, but I think Bob is my dauty. Jamie I wished for, and hitherto he is all I could wish for, was I to wish again. There's a youthful giddiness in him that is not in Andrew, yet one cannot help admiring it. Although I love him as I do my own soul, yet I pass no fault without correction : I correct him oftener than Andrew. He has a sedateness that never was in any boy but himself. Within these three weeks I have put him, meaning Andrew, to learn to dance to brisk him up. He is jealous of his brother, as he is of him ! neither of them can bear the other to advance faster than he. When Jamie was aplauded for dancing, SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 157 Andrew wished he could do so too. Now he is more awake, and pleased to think he will be able to dance when his brother dances to his papa. Bruce dances very gentily. Bob and Bell imitates the rest, and dances too. What will your prudence and philosophy think of this letter ? it needs' no apology if you consider from whom it comes and to whom it goes." She kept this "infantry" under excellent disci- pline ; and was even a martinet in the nursery, where she boasted " her word was law." As her children grew up she by no means relaxed the strictness of her rule. When her eldest son James went to Paris in 1 770, she thus instructs his uncle as to the manage- ment of him : "My lord says a sword is a common part of dress in Paris for all ranks ; in this I intreat as in ruffels ; for some time I will not allow any. If he appears aquard, say he does so by the positive command of his worthy old mother, who never did or said anything but what she had a good reason for ; therefore you comply without asking a single ques- tion. I shall write you when to launch out in gaiety of any kind." ', Occasionally some of her remarks have the weight and value of aphorisms. In lamenting, to her brother, the intemperance of poor Prince Charles Edward, she says, " If ever anything in prejudice to my darling's character is suggested, I deny it or find an excuse for it;" and adds a few lines later, " 'Tis always a sorry reflection on ourselves to publish the faults or frailties of our friends; we can reap no honour in VIII. Her do- mestic life. Her shrewd- ness. 158 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Her Jaco- bitism. their dishonour." Her mercantile experience fur- nishes her with the following observations : " I can sell nothing but what is really good ; bad and mid- dling things in the way of virto, I am for burning." "I believe I have had friends in all points of the compass. This is only to be had by oblidging- ness, which is one of my studys, and by which I have had ever some of the world's gain." Neither Poor Kichard himself, nor Mr. Edwin T. Freedly, who lately published a volume to show America and England How to get Money, have laid down sounder practical rules than these. The Jacobitism of Lady Strange was a kind of religion, and coloured her whole life. It proves how deep a hold the feeling had taken of many even of the middle ranks of Scottish society. Her eldest son was named James Charles Stuart ; and of her eldest daughter she writes in 1 748, " The poor infant had almost suffered martyrdom the loth of this month, for having two white roses in her cap. I hope one day to hear her bless God she was gotten, born, and nursed a good Jacobite, tho' I own at present 'tis not a profitable religion." Two years later we learn that the same child has advanced so far in her political education that, "whenever she hears the word Whig mentioned, she girns and makes faces that would frighten a beau ; but when I name the Prince, she kisses me, and looks at her SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 159 picture, and greets you well for sending the pretty vm - gum-flower, which I intend she shall wear at the Coronation." In 1766, she again writes to her brother. " If my twenty-years'-old acquaintance (the Prince) is now at your house, on your knees present my most respectful duty. Oh, had I been of a more useful sex ! But I have not been altogether idle ; for I have made three fine boys, who, I hope, will do me credit ; they'll be recruits when I am gone ; I hope they'll all have Roman spirits in them. I'll instruct them that their lives are not their own when Rome demands them." Happily for them and for Great Britain, Rome never did demand them ; and the recruits of King James became, like their father, loyal, useful, and successful servants of King George. But their mother held fast to her old faith long after her feelings towards the reigning sovereign had been mollified by his favour, and even whilst Henry IX. was living on the bounty of the usurper of his throne. Within the present century, her friend, Dr. Munro, saw the old Jacobite fire rekindled within her. Some person in her company having heedlessly spoken of Charles Edward by the name usually given him in history, was rebuked by the old lady inter- rupting him with the vigorous exclamation, "Pre- tender, indeed, and be damned to ye ! " A revered relation of our own used to relate how he, as a boy, was admonished by an old Jacobite soldier of the i6o SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Strange and Luznisden. Forty-five, for a similar indiscretion, by a box on the ear which laid him sprawling. Nor was the form of words in which Lady Strange expressed her indigna- tion, altogether discountenanced by the example of ladies of her own day. We have ourselves seen an ancient dame, the last representative of one of the oldest branches of the house of Stuart, of whom the following anecdote is still current in the Lower Ward of Lanarkshire. Returning home, one summer even- ing, from dining at a neighbour's house, she was rudely awakened from an after-dinner nap by the sudden stoppage of her carriage. The coachman, on being questioned as to the cause, stated that he had seen a " fa'in' star," a phenomenon hitherto un- known to him, and that, in his astonishment, he had pulled up his horses. " An' what ha'e ye to do wi' the stars, I wad like to ken," said his mistress ; " drive on this moment, sir, and be d d to you," adding, in a lower tone, as was her wont, "as Sir John wad ha' said, if he had been alive, honest man!" From the ample materials afforded us by Mr. Dennistoun, we have thus offered our readers a sketch of the career of Strange, and of his odd, bustling, clever wife. The volumes contain also a life of Andrew Lumisden, the lady's brother, not in a separate form, but mingled with the life of Strange, at a considerable sacrifice, as we think, of the unity SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 161 and distinctness of the two stories. There is no connection, nor even much contact, between the two biographies. The lots and pursuits in life of the two men had little in common ; and there really is no more reason for making one book of their memoirs, than there would be for so doing by Dr. Johnson and his friend Sir Joshua. Strange belonged exclusively to his art, and, as an artist, de- serves a biography. Lumisden, although a man of elegant tastes and accomplishments, is worthy of special record, chiefly because that record forms a curious passage in the later history the decline and extinction of the house of Stuart. About each of them one small book might have been written with propriety and advantage ; while in the volumes now before us, each is, in turn, somewhat in the way. Those who read for the sake of Strange, are wearied by the frequent interposition of Lumisden and his small political gossip ; those who read for the sake of Lumisden, are apt to wish Strange and his prints in the place to which Ramsay and Bartolozzi would gladly have consigned them. After some abortive attempts to open for himself a mercantile career in France, Andrew Lumisden went to Rome, where he obtained employment as under-secretary to the Chevalier St. George, with a salary of 1 20 crowns, which was afterwards increased to 200 crowns, or about .40 a year. On this pit- VOL. VI. VIII. Andrew Lumisden, under- secretary to the Chevalier St. George. IUJ SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Hebe- comes full secretary. His duties. Mission to France. tance and an irregularly paid French pension of 600 livres, with an occasional remittance of slender amount from Scotland, he managed to maintain the appearance of a gentleman. In September 1762, on the death of Mr. Edgar, he became full secretary, and held that post at the time of his master's death on the loth December 1765. His melancholy duties chiefly consisted in answering appeals from the ruined adherents of the Stuart cause, who were starving and scheming in the various Continental cities. Some wanted peerages, others Garters and Thistles, many more asked for bread ; and his business was prudently to dole out the alms which the narrow fortunes of his master enabled him to dispense, or courteously to refuse what could not be granted. His labours at the desk were varied in the winter of 1758-9, by a secret mission to France connected with the hopes raised among the Jacobites by the war between Eng- land and France hopes speedily dissipated when Hawke defeated the fleet of Conflans. When Charles Edward succeeded to the phantom-throne and an income of about ^3,000 a year, Lumisden was continued in his office, and was employed for many months in endeavouring to obtain a recognition of the kingly title by the papal court. The attend- ants of the poor wandering sovereign were now woe- fully diminished in number; and the secretary had to do duty in several capacities at once. " Almost SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 163 from break of day to midnight I am employed about the King. Besides serving him as his secretary, I am obliged to attend him as a gentleman of the bed- chamber when he goes abroad both morning and evening ; and after dinner and supper I return with him to his closet. Add to this the time we sit at table, and you will see I have not a moment to myself. I am never in my apartment, but either to sleep or write. I have lived for many years in a sort of bondage, but I may name these past months a mere slavery." Debarred from society by his un- acknowledged royal pretensions, poor Charles Edward lived at the palazzo Muti, or in his villa at Albano, shut up with his few attendants as if he had been a state prisoner. He used to say " he was like one on shipboard, conversing only with his own little crew." Glad would he have been to have gone back twenty years of his life of vicissitudes, to the deck of the Doutelle of Nantes, ploughing the Hebridean waters ! Though naturally and honourably averse to quit the forlorn bark, "Lumisden pined for freedom, and to live the remainder of his life in his own way." After five years of this wretched servitude, he was relieved, in a very unlooked-for manner, from the galling, scarcely gilded chain. His master had long been used to drink six bottles of strong wine a day, and became every year more violent and morose in tem- per, more careless of the rules of decorum. One VIII. Various duties. His life with Charles Edward. 164 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VITI. Is dis- missed. Goes to Paris. Income. Return home, and free pardon. His works. day when more drunk than usual, he insisted upon attending an oratorio, in spite of the remonstrances of his household. His coach being at the door, he got into it, and was only prevented from executing his design, by the unanimous refusal of his three principal attendants to accompany him. He there- upon staggered back to his apartments and dis- missed them all three, Hay, Urquhart, and Lumisden. They were afterwards, indeed, invited to return, but declined to do so, with the sanction and by the advice of the Cardinal. Lumisden set out some months afterwards, in the spring of 1769, for Paris, where he settled himself in a snug apartment near the Luxembourg. The estate of his father, which was long locked up in an intricate and unprofitable trust, yielded him in all about 200 a year, and enabled him to lead a com- fortable literary life, which was cheered by the society of the Stranges. In 1773, his friends in Scotland obtained leave for him to return home, and, in 1778, a free pardon, which he did not at first altogether appreciate, as it cost him ^50 in fees. The result of his long residence in Italy, and of his subsequent leisure, was a portly quarto, entitled Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome and its En- virons, which was published in London in 1797, and reprinted in 1812, a work highly creditable to his industry, which may still be read with pleasure and SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 165 profit. His latter years were spent in Edinburgh, where he died suddenly in 1 80 1, in his eighty-second year. Persons still alive remember him as a lively, laughing old gentleman, with polished manners and stiff curls, an esteemed diner-out, a teller of pleasant anecdotes, and a maker of elaborate bows in the foreign fashion. On much curious matter relating to the exiled Stuarts contained in these volumes, especially Ap- pendix VI. on the story of Clementina Walkinshaw, lack of space forbids us to touch, except to recom- mend it to the notice of our readers. But we can hardly close our paper without consecrating a few lines to the able and excellent man whose last work has been the subject and the source of our lucubra- tions. These memoirs appeared within a day or two of that which saw their author consigned to the tomb. It is only four years since Mr. Dennistoun's name became widely and honourably known in the literary world by his History of the Dukes of Urbino, a learned, elaborate, and welcome contribution to our knowledge of an obscure yet very interesting period of the annals of Italy. Born in 1803, of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, of which he was the head in the male line, Mr. Dennistoun, after receiv- ing his education at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was called to the Scottish bar in 1824. Being the eldest son of a country gentleman of good VIII. Death in Edin- burgh, 1801. Exiled Stuarts. Mr. Den- uistoun. His Dukes of Urbino. Sketch of his life. i66 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Projected History of Dumbar- tonshire. Conti- nental tour. Sale of his land. Buys pro- perty in Renfrew- shire. estate, he assumed the advocate's robe, less with a view to making the law his profession than in accordance with a fashion of the day. He early, however, evinced a taste for legal and historical anti- quities, and made some progress in the collection of materials for a history of his native county of Dum- barton. From this subject he was diverted, partly perhaps by the new direction given to his thoughts during a Continental tour in 1825 and 1826, in which his companions were Mr. Mark Napier (the biographer of Montrose), Mr. Hamilton Gray, and the late Sir Charles Fergusson, and during which the art and literature of Italy first engaged his atten- tion ; but chiefly by the unexpected confusion of his father's affairs, which were found at his death to be so encumbered that his son was compelled to part with the beautiful estate on the shores of the Clyde, for six centuries the seat of his family, and the origin and cradle of his topographical labours. The sale of his land left him with a moderate independence, but without those occupations and pursuits which a landed estate provides or suggests. Part of his reversionary funds were soon afterwards invested in the purchase of the farm of Dennistoun in Renfrew- shire, the centre of the original possessions of his family in that county. But it was either unsuited for a residence, or not sufficiently attractive to a man who had had a house on the Northern Bosphorus ; SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 167 and Mr. Dennistoun did not again settle in the country. Some time after his marriage with Miss Murray, the daughter of Lord Cringletie, one of the judges of the Court of Session, he went abroad on a tour with no very definite plan ; and finding travel congenial to his taste, he so employed his time, with the exception of two winters passed in Edinburgh, from 1835 to 1847. During these twelve years he chiefly devoted himself to literary research and to the examination of the monuments of art. The winter generally found him at Rome, in the galleries and the libraries ; while the summers were given to journeys in Italy and Germany, and pilgrimages to the various shrines of art and antiquity on both sides of the Alps. At Rome he went much into society, both English and foreign ; and there were few so- journers in the Eternal City more esteemed for their social qualities, and few connoisseurs whose opinions were so generally quoted and approved. His long residence abroad and his fine judgment enabled him to form a small but choice collection of early Italian pictures, drawings, and mediaeval antiquities, chiefly illustrative of the places and times upon which his pen was employed. With these gatherings he adorned the house in George Street, Edinburgh, in which he took up his permanent abode in 1847. In obedience to the directions in his will, his widow has ordered them to be sold during the present month VIII. Marriage. Travels. Winters in Rome. Summers in Italy and Ger- many, &c. Collec- tions. Edin- burgh. Sale of his collection. i68 SIR ROBERT STRANGE. VIII. Works. under the hammer of Messrs. Christie & Manson. Those who have had the advantage of seeing them as arranged by his hand, will regret that the place which once knew them is to know them no more ; and that as a collector Mr. Dennistoun is to live only in the page of his friend, Dr. Waagen. The artists of Edinburgh will regret that no effort was made to secure to the National Gallery of that city a collection formed with such discriminating taste by one of the best writers on art whom Scotland has produced. Nor will there be wanting many to feel more keenly still the loss of the intellectual society which gath- ered in that home of arts and letters ; and not a few to remember with affection the fine intelligence, the quiet wisdom, and the warm heart of the friend who had filled that home with so much that was graceful, and elevating, and precious. Besides the works already mentioned, Mr. Dennis- toun wrote prefaces and notes, and performed, in his usual skilful and accurate style, other editorial functions for several volumes published by the Ban- natyne and Maitland Clubs. These were : Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from 1577 to 1603. Cartularium Comitatus de Levenox, ab initio seculi xin. usque ad ann. MDCCXCVIII. The Loch Lomond Expedition, 1715. The Coltness Collections, 1608-1840. SIR ROBERT STRANGE. 169 Ranking of the Nobility, 1606. He likewise contributed to the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, several articles, of which we especially call to mind those on the Stuarts in Italy in the former ; and on Mr. Burton's History of Scot- land, and on the National Gallery, in the latter. Of the attention which he had given to the artistic insti- tutions, interests, and prospects of the nation, his evidence before the Committee of the House of Com- mons, on the National Gallery, in 1853, is a proof. Indeed, that evidence may be fairly ^reckoned amongst his literary works. He was one of the few witnesses who appeared before the Committee who seemed to have taken the trouble to consider the subject before coming into the room, or to separate the broad public question at issue from their own private whims and predilections, or to compare their plans and projects with the materials out of which, and by means of which, they were to be con- structed and worked. We hope that the literary executor of Mr. Dennistoun will ere long collect and publish the scattered and miscellaneous writings of his friend. The value of a publication, in itself so desirable, would be greatly enhanced by a prefatory biography, for which Mr. Napier has at his command abundant materials, and a pen which those who knew and loved Mr. Dennistoun would be well pleased to see employed on that labour of love. VIII. Reviews. His evi- dence on the National Gallery. IX. THE DUKES OF URBINO* RBINO is second in importance to no city, of the same size, in Italy. As the birthplace of Raffaelle, it is the Mecca of painting. It like- wise gave to art Timoteo della Vite and Federigo Baroccio ; its theatre, where the Calandra was first acted, may be called the cradle of the Italian drama; and the Courtier of Castiglione, the most popular book of its time, rendered Urbino a household word in literature during the whole of the sixteenth century. For two hundred and twenty-one years, from 1404 to 1625, the most varied and interesting tract of Italian history, the Counts and Dukes of Urbino, almost without exception, were men of high faculties and rare skill in the arts of both war and peace ; bene- ficent and splendid at home, honoured beyond the 1 Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino. By James Dennistoun, of Dermis- toun. Three vols. Longman & Co. The Exa- miner, May 17 and 24, 1851. IX. Urbino. Its import- ance in Art. Its Counts. 172 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Fortunate in a his- torian. Early history. Alps, and wielding within the Peninsula an influence far exceeding that which belonged to the wealth of their treasury or the extent of their dominions. In an age so prolific of authors-errant, ever on the watch to assert the charms of virgin themes, or redress the wrongs of forgotten celebrities, it is strange that, until now, no literary champion has appeared in English lists to vindicate the fame of "the Athens of Italy," and its princely lines of Montefeltro and Delia Rovere. But it is well for Urbino and her dukes to have at last fallen into the hands of Mr. Dennistoun, so happily fitted, by his taste, ability, industry and opportunities, to do them complete and enduring justice. The early history of Urbino, with other proper names, might be the history of almost every State in Italy. There is the bold baron distinguished above his feudal peers for energy and address, who fights and flatters his way to the sovereignty of the town nearest to his mountain castle ; there are the little wars of half savage life which call forth great passions, great virtues, and atrocious crimes ; now and then the scene of ancient turbulence is brightened by some noble deed, or by some gleam of intellectual promise ; and ever and anon the picture takes [ a deeper shadow from some tran- scendent wickedness, perpetrated by one of that line of potentates, in whom, though robbers and jobbers THE DUKES OF URBINO. above all other princes, the superstition of the South still reveres the successors and types of Him whose kingdom was not of this world, who did no violence, and in whose mouth no deceit was found. Mr. Dennistoun begins his more detailed history of Urbino with the reign of Federigo, the second Duke. His memoir of this prince is perhaps the most interesting of all his memoirs. Federigo was so nobly endowed by nature, that to have produced one such man gives high historical precedence to the dynasty of Montefeltro. He combined Tudor energy with Aragonese shrewdness, the gallant bear- ing of the Valois with the scholarly refinements of the Medici. The illegitimate son of Guidantonio, first Duke of Urbino, he was born in 1422 ; in 1442, owing to the failure of other heirs, he succeeded his father as Count of Urbino ; in 1474, he was advanced by Pope Sixtus IV. to the rank of Duke ; and, in 1482, he died. His life of threescore years, there- fore, embraced that eventful period of Italian history when Popes Martin and Eugenius, and their suc- cessors, were reconstructing at Rome the temporal power of the Holy See, which the secession and the anti-Papacy of Avignon had so grievously dilapi- dated ; when the houses of Aragon and Anjou were waging their long wars for the crown of Naples; when Cosmo and Lorenzo were founding and em- bellishing the splendid structure of Medicean power IX. Federigo, second Duke. His period. '74 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Italian soldier- ship. Condo- tiere. at Florence ; when Venice touched the zenith of her glory in the acquisition of the royal isle of Cyprus ; and when the tide of Turkish conquest, casting upon the Italian shores the remains of Greek civili- sation, revived amongst the men of the North the arts and the learning of the ancient world. Federigo received his education and his taste for letters from Vittorius da Feltre, a famous grammarian of Mantua. His military instructor was Nicolo Piccinino, a noted condottiere who then divided with Francesco Sforza the fighting trade of Italy. For soldiership was then a branch of industry as distinctly recognised, and hardly more dangerous than firemanship or stokership now are in our days of steam. "There's to be nae hittin' in the belly, for it may kill ye ; and there's to be nae hittin' in the face, for it's awfu' sair," were stipulations once on a time entered into by two canny lads, country- men of Mr. Dennistoun's, before proceeding to fisti- cuffs. These conditions breathed the precise spirit of the condottiere articles of war. Hired by the month or year to fight for interests in which they had no concern, and sharing and respecting each other's love of pay and pillage, the foes of to-day had been comrades yesterday, and might be so again to-morrow. For once the Christian precept Love your enemies was strictly observed ; the rival com- panies being necessary to each other's existence, and THE DUKES OF URBINO. 175 directly interested in each other's well-being. Sforza no more wanted to put down Piccinino, or seriously to cripple his forces, than the Life Guards at a sham fight want to cut the Blues to pieces, or than the champions of the circus want to injure the painted chargers or gilt property of Mr. Batty. In such hands, therefore, war became most harmless, conventional, and chess-like ; great armies fought all day, as at Anghiari, leaving on the field only a single man, killed by a fall from his horse ; and in the evening of an obstinate battle, as at La Moli- nella, the contending generals sometimes met at the watch-fire to talk of the events of the day, and compliment each other on their strategic skill. This system of warfare, which so entirely met the views of Hotspur's parmaceti-prescribing lord, was not exploded until 1492 ; when the French crossed the Alps to teach the Italians the proper use of cold steel and villainous saltpetre. Of such laurels as could be reaped in Italian fields, Federigo made an abundant harvest. As a lad he won great fame by the capture of S. Leo a fortress of his duchy perched on a pillar-like rock a feat of real daring, which would have made the reputation even of a Swiss or Scottish partisan. As captain-general in the service, at different times, of the Dukes of Milan, of the Aragonese Kings of Naples, and of the Signories of Florence and Siena ; IX. Federigo's feats. THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. His char- acter. His gains. Govern- ment. Benefi- cence. and as Gonfaloniere of the Church, and in the course of many campaigns, he won not only the bloodless laurels of a consummate tactician, but such a repu- tation for spotless, honour and unshaken fidelity as dignified the base calling of a hireling soldier, and stamped him as the "faithful Abdiel" of an age of treason. He was one of the few princes who touched the pitch of Papal service without being defiled. Nor was a great and a good name the sole reward of his military career. His pay from foreign potentates formed the chief part of his annual revenue. Although he considerably extended the bounds of his duchy, we gather, from data supplied by Mr. Dennistoun, that he did not draw from it more than 25,000 or 30,000 ducats (,5,000 or ;6,ooo) yearly; while his allowances, in the latter and more profitable part of his life, sometimes amounted, in time of war, to 165,000 ducats, and in time of peace to 65,000. These martial gains were devoted, in his brief intervals of repose, to the noblest purposes of peace. His government being of that paternal kind, which is possible, and in good hands perhaps salutary, in small communi- ties, he was the model, the Mentor, and the Solomon of his people. He judged their causes without ap- peal ; he mediated in their quarrels ; he dowered their daughters ; he fed their poor, and his advice was ever ready for the noble who was about to build a palazzo, THE DUKES OF URBINO. 177 or the huckster who was about to open shop. All his principal subjects were known to him by sight, and he conversed with them, at all times and in all places, with a courtesy so punctilious that " busy as the bonnet of Federigo " became, like the Italian phrase, " busy as an English oven at Christmas," a proverbial synonyme for overtasked. To his " corte," Urbino, he gave its chief embellishment, in that singular and beautiful palace in which Lauranna left to after-ages one of the most brilliant specimens of rich cinque-cento architecture. The court, the great staircase, the audience-chamber, and the long- drawn corridors, were models of design and palatial proportion, and unrivalled for its decorations sculp- tured in the grey limestone of Dalmatia, or executed in inlaid woodwork, by the best artists of Italy. Two principal rooms, each 45 feet by 22, and 22 high, were devoted to the literary accumulations of the Duke. Whatever doubts there may be as to his proper place amongst soldiers, his right to high rank amongst book-collectors is incontestable. We would not give a volume of F.M. the Duke of Wellington for all the despatches which Duke Federigo ever penned; but we would cheerfully forego the cata- logue even of the Heber Library for a true inven- tory of the treasures amassed by a bibliomaniac, so early, so earnest, and so wealthy and so discerning. VOL. VI. IX. "Busy as the bonnet of Fe- derigo. " Palace. His book- collecting. i 7 8 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. His lib- rarios and their contents. Plan of his collection. One of his libraries contained manuscripts, the other was devoted to the printed books. The first was filled with all that could be procured which was most ancient and authentic, most exquisite and beautiful in penmanship and pictorial embellish- ment. Into the second, which must have been opened within a few years after the printing-press had given birth to its beautiful first-born, the Psalter of Mentz, there can be no doubt that there were gathered, as they appeared, the productions of Gut- tenberg and Schelhorn, of Sweynheym and Spira. The plan of the Duke, as stated by his librarian, Vespasiano, was indeed sufficiently comprehensive and magnificent. It was nothing less than " to obtain every book in all branches of learning, ancient and modern, original and translated." To carry out this design in an age when bibliography as yet was not, he procured the list of authors whose works it had been proposed to Cosmo de' Medici to purchase for the library of S. Marco at Florence. Not only did he soon outstrip this model collection, but after some years the librarian was able to declare, after an inspection of the catalogues of the most famous libraries, that Urbino was richer in books than the Vatican and Pavia, Venice and Oxford. Federigo's passion for his library is attested by the currency of the tale, apocryphal though it be, that at the sack of Volterra the only part of the plunder THE DUKES OF URBINO. 179 which he reserved for himself was a Hebrew Bible of venerable antiquity and remarkable beauty a precious tome which Mr. Dennistoun thinks was more probably presented to the Duke by the citizens of Florence, grateful for the subjugation of their rebel dependency. Of his magnificence an example still remains in the copy of Jerome's Vulgate, tran- scribed and illuminated at his expense, and reckoned one of the most splendid books of the fifteenth cen- tury. His shelves, indeed, would have delighted the eye of a sumptuous Grenville or a gorgeous Beck- ford, not only by the beauty of vellum leaves and the splendour of golden borders, but by the bind- ings within which these beauties lay clasped and secure ; for each volume, of whatever degree, from the laws of Moses to the jests of Poggio, was arrayed in crimson and adorned with silver. In such a library it was no wonder that Guidobaldo I. found it necessary to impress upon the minds of his librarians that while they were to be "cour- teous in showing the choice books to persons of learning and authority," they were also to be "ob- servant that such persons abstracted no leaves." When the duchy devolved to the Church, the two libraries were removed to Rome, the MSS. to furnish the new shelves of the Sapienza, the printed books to swell the uncatalogued treasures of the Vatican. For the intellectual stores of the Christian capital, IX. Magnifi- cence. Sumptuous books. Eemoval of his books to the Vatican. i8o THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Death. Guido- baldo I. Early dis- tinction. amongst its cardinals or pontiffs, for whose purple ease a library was a natural toy, and whose resource was that exhaustless "digging," the superstition of mankind, few have done so much as this captain of mercenaries. Honour be to Duke Federigo, as a soldier who loved and honoured learning ; and the still greater and rarer honour that, living in the demoralising service of the Church, history can per- mit it to be said of him without remonstrance, that he was "the ideal of a perfect man and a wise prince." This martial bibliomaniac slept with his fathers in 1482, and his son Guidobaldo I. reigned in his stead until 1 508. Though only eleven years old at his accession, the young Duke was continued, for his sire's sake, in the honorary command of the allied forces of Naples, Florence, and Milan. Dis- tinguishing himself in early youth upon several bloodless Italian fields, he was at the head of a division of the Italian forces when Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494. All that can be said of his conduct before the fierce chivalry of the North is, that he suffered no disgrace which was not shared by his elders in arms. The Frenchman possessed himself of the crown of Naples without striking a blow, and was at last forced to retrace his steps only by a threatened combination against him of the Emperor and the Spaniard. The Italian leaders, THE DUKES OF URBINO. 181 relying on greatly superior numbers and a strong position, ventured to meet the retreating marauder in the defiles of the Taro ; an act of daring which resulted in their speedy, signal, and bloody defeat. Duke Guidobaldo was not among the fugitives from that fatal field ; but neither he, nor any of the comrades who had been wont to play at soldiers with him, meddled more with the dangerous Gaul. To hunt down Montpensier, the French viceroy at Naples, took a year's campaigning ; but the business was left to the great captain and his Castilians, trained in the wars of Granada to the use of their trusty toledos, instead of the " leaden sword in golden sheath " approved by the soft Italian. Dur- ing the Borgian reign of terror, Guidobaldo was alternately smiled and frowned upon by the Pope, and finally driven from his dominions, which be- came those of Cesare's duchy of Romagna. For a year he was an exile at Venice, until the tragedy of the garden-Belvidere of the Vatican restored him to service, and reinstated him in power. Here for four years, from 1503 to 1508, in spite of poor health and torturing gout, he made his court the most elegant and intellectual in Italy. Here he continued to decorate the palace and enrich the library ; here he entertained Julius II. and gallant train with regal hospitality; here he surrounded himself with wit and beauty, and led the life which IX. Varying attitude of the Pope. Exiled to Venice. Return to power. His court. 182 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Casti- glione. The Fre- gosos and Bembo. Bel Ber- nardo Dovizzi. Duchess Elizabeth and her nieces. Giovanni Sanzi. Raffaelle. Giovanni della Rovere. his favourite Castiglione has recorded in the pages of the once famous Corteggiano a signal example of how the wit of one century may become a soporific of the next. Here the Fregosos talked Latin with Bembo, the Ciceronian cardinal, who cautioned a young priest against corrupting his style by the perusal of St. Paul ; here the Bel Bernardo Dovizzi cracked his jokes ; here Accolti spouted his endless verse ; and here the Duchess Elizabeth and her fair Gonzaga nieces, and Emilia Pia, peerless in beauty and in wit, and sighed to in vain by each euphuistic swain, rained influence from their bright eyes, and awarded the guerdon of their chaste smiles. Here, too, though without the courtly circle, the humble painter Giovanni Sanzi imagined his simple and graceful pictures, and built the lofty rhymes of his epic life of the Duke Federigo a poem which, unless the beauty of the extracts before us belong to Mr. Dennistoun's excellent translation, well de- serves to be released from its MS. prison-house in the Vatican. And here, last and greatest of all, his son, the young Raffaelle, became a neophyte in the great temple of art of which he was to be priest and king. Giovanni della Rovere, nephew of Sixtus IV., was the husband of Giovanna, sister of Duke Guido- baldo. The Duke being childless, the son of their marriage, Francesco Maria, was chosen as his sue- THE DUKES OF URBINO. 183 cessor. The honours of Montefeltro thus passed into the house of Delia Rovere a house plentifully aggrandised by the nepotism of two Popes. Fran- cesco Maria was by birthright lord of Sinigaglia, and his duchy of Urbino was further increased by the grant of Pesaro by Julius II. His eventful reign, which extended over thirty years, began in 1508, the eighteenth year of his age. He was a man of violent and impetuous temper, of which he gave ample proof by slaying with his own hand, when only sixteen, the paramour of his sister; by stabbing, amongst his guards, the Cardinal of Pavia, the treacherous legate of Julius II., of whose troops he was himself general ; and by habitually " punch- ing the heads " of the officers who differed with him in councils of war an affront for which Guicciardini took signal historical revenge. Of all the Italian princes he was most severely galled by that golden yoke, which, with "Suave" for its motto, was the favourite device of Leo X. ; for he was twice driven from his dominions by the arts and arms of that pontiff, who, having a nephew to provide for, piously sought to do so rather at the expense of the nephew of God's late vicar than out of the patrimony of St. Peter. In the long struggle between France and Spain, of which Italy was the arena, Francesco Maria, after some coquetting with the French king, became captain-general of Venice, and acted feebly, IX. Duke Fran- cesco Maria. Reign. His temper. Becomes captain- general of Venice. 1 84 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Power of Charles V. He meets Emperor at Bologna. Captain- pen eral of the League. Place and fame. and with little effect, in concert with the imperial forces. In this command his real antagonist and difficulty was not Bonnivet or Bayard, but the prove- ditore of Venice, the millstone commissioner, which it was the policy of the signory to hang round the neck of her generals. The sack of Rome causing a general dread throughout Europe of the power of Charles V., Venice joined a new league against him ; and Francesco Maria did her good service by defend- ing her mainland territories from the attacks of the Duke of Brunswick. When peace was patched up, he met the Emperor at Bologna, and had the address not only to obliterate any unpleasant feelings which his change of side might have awakened, but to obtain his favour and friendship. In 1538, his credit stood so high with Charles and the Pope, that he was made captain-general of their league against the Great Turk. In this capacity he was maturing a vast scheme of conquest which embraced the taking of Constantinople, when he died by the hand of his barber, who poured poison into his ears, why or at whose instigation still remains to be discovered. To the artistic beauties of Urbino his reign added little, except the noble country palaces of the Imperiale, which, with its gardens of pine and cypress, was the work of his Duchess Leonora. The prominent place maintained by Francesco Maria proves him to have been a man of no ordinary ability. His reputation THE DUKES OF URBINO. 185 rests upon his campaigns, in which, notwithstanding his hot blood, his tactics were Fabian ; upon some military discourses, printed from his notes long after his decease, and said to have been once reckoned a book of authority ; upon the fortifications executed under his eye at certain of the strongholds of Venice ; upon his Feltrian legion, a militia of 5,000 men, in which he made himself something like a standing army ; and lastly, and perhaps chiefly, upon the public rejoicings ordered by Sultan Solyman on re- ceiving the news of his death. Guidobaldo II. succeeded his father in 1538, at the age of twenty-four. His predecessors had been soldiers or scholars, and sometimes both ; he was neither one nor the other, and on the whole was the most commonplace of Mr. Dennistoun's dukes. Al- though he held the honorary post of captain-general of Venice, and although he received a retaining fee from Spain for the swords of his Feltrian legion, he had inherited none of the martial spirit of his sires. When the vast fleets of Solyman were beleaguering Malta, the outpost and bulwark of Christendom, the Duke of Urbino refused to allow his son to lead the contingent which he furnished to the Christian arma- ment, but sent him to Madrid to sue for dividends, of which it has ever been the custom of Spain to dis- appoint her bondholders. The young prince, how- ever, was permitted to serve as a volunteer under IX. Duke Guido- baldo II. i86 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Palace. Marriages, &c. Duke Francesco Maria II. Lepanto. Great abilities. Husband of Lucrezia d'Este. Don John of Austria at Lepanto ; while the crusading zeal of the Duke himself found vent in writing a discourse against the Turks in his closet at home. A palace of no great merit, which Guidobaldo built at Pesaro ; his marriages into the families of Varana and Farnese ; a tax-born revolt at Urbino, and its bloody chastisement ; and his love of horses, watch- making, and the porcelain manufacture; were the memorabilia of his uninteresting reign and life, which came to a close in 1574. In his successor, Francesco Maria II., the last Duke of Urbino, the sun of Montefeltro and Delia Rovere set in great splendour. This prince was an epitome of the genius, the graces, and the glory of his house. He had fought at Lepanto a greater battle than had fallen within the military experience of Duke Federigo ; he was as good a scholar as Guidobaldo I. ; and in his stud and his forests, his palaces, villas, theatres, his galleries, his libraries, and his patronage of arts and learning, he emulated the tastes, enriched the collections, and surpassed the magnificence of all his predecessors. His name would belong to literary history, were it only as the husband of Lucrezia d'Este, to whom Tasso sued and sang for four years before her marriage, when he transferred his love and his lays to her yet more cele- brated sister Leonora. The match, which was very unequal in point of age, was not a happy one ; none THE DUKES OF URBINO. 187 of the transports of which the poet dreamed seem to have fallen to the lot of his successful rival ; and within six years of the wedding, the Duchess of Urbino took up her ahode at her brother's court of Ferrara. Her death happened there, and was, in 1 598, thus drily recorded in her lord's private diary : "Feb. 15. Heard that Madame Lucrezia d'Este, Duchess of Urbino, my wife, died at Ferrara on the nth." Reading and book-collecting being the Duke's chief passion, he now entertained the design of re- signing his dominions to the Holy See, on which they would devolve if he remained childless. The remonstrances of his people, however, induced him to make one more effort for the preservation of the dynasty. Having married at twenty-two a woman of five-and-thirty, he now, at fifty, ventured upon a bride of fourteen, his cousin Livia della Eovere an incident which gave him matter for another brief entry in his journal. A son, Federigo, being born to him in 1605, he watched his growth with anxious impatience, not only from feelings of parental affec- tion, but from his desire to escape, at the earliest possible moment, from the duties of sovereignty. These, in the meanwhile, were left to his ministers, while he himself lived in luxurious and lettered ease at his beautiful rural palace of Castel-durante, enjoy- ing the chase or his garden, managing his breeding IX. His passion for reading and book- collecting. Marriage. Birth of a son. Desire to retire. iSS THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Resigns ducal chair to his sou. His son's death. Death. The Borgias. stud, enriching and arranging a library, or conversing with a society of learned friars whom he had estab- lished in a neighbouring convent. In 162 ^here- signed the ducal chair to his son ; but his plans were doomed to disappointment, for the sudden death of the scapegrace, in 1623, reimposed upon his father the burden which his irregularities had not permitted the father wholly to lay down. Two melancholy years were now spent by the childless old man in arrang- ing with the Holy See the terms of the devolution of his duchy ; a negotiation in which the Vicar of Christ, as usual, dispensed in his own practice with obedi- ence to the precepts of his Master. Ecclesiastical rapacity being, in part, successfully resisted, and, in part, appeased by submission, the last Duke of Urbino returned to his beloved valley of the Metauro, to pass amongst his books and flowers and learned friends a tranquil evening of life, in which the ancient philo- sophy of Salona was not ungracefully blended with the piety of Yuste. He died in 1631. We have passed in review the Dukes of Urbino, who are the principal personages of Mr. Dennis- toun's valuable history. It is not only upon them, however, that he has thrown new light, or con- centrated light from sources not unfamiliar. His account of the Borgias is excellent, especially his notice of the brief and strange career of Cesare, THE DUKES OF URBINO. 189 which is the best that we have yet seen. Of Popes Sixtus IV. and Julius II., too, his sketches are full of life and interest. The blemish of the volumes, if amongst so many beauties we must remark on a blemish, is that we are told too much about the weary, objectless, spiritless wars of the Italians. Of the whole military narrative only two incidents have fixed themselves in our memory the sur- prise of S. Leo by Duke Federigo, and the pleasant trick of Bishop Vitelli, who being governor of Urbino, and distrusting the city militia caused the bold burgesses to muster outside the walls, and then barred them out. Were Mr. Dennistoun to set his authorities in array against us, we dare say we should be forced to confess that he has used almost hydraulic power in compressing his mate- rials. Nevertheless we recommend him still further to abridge his abridgment of these most somnific of chronicles, were it even by the painful process of excision. For indeed the condottiere wars are no more worthy of remembrance than those later pageants which accompanied thick-lipped arch- duchesses to the altar, or consigned leaden-headed archdukes to the tomb. Sufficient unto each day are the folly and the folios thereof. Space fails us to follow Mr. Dennistoun in his history of the arts and artists of Urbino and Gubbio, one of the best portions of his work. But we can- IX. Popes Sixtus IV. and Julius II. Military incidents. 190 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Extracts. St. Francis of Assisi. not deny our readers the pleasure of a few random extracts, as specimens of his style : "During the early years of the thirteenth century, there appeared on the lofty Apennines of Central Italy one of those mysterious beings who, with few gifts of nature, are born to sway mankind ; whose brief and eccentric career has left behind a brilliant halo that no lapse of time is likely to dim. Giovanni Bernardoni, better known as St. Francis of Assisi, by his eloquence, his austerities, and all the appliances of religious enthusiasm, quickly gathered among the fervid spirits of his native mountains a numerous following of devoted dis- ciples. In a less judicious Church he might, as a field preacher, have become a most dangerous schismatic ; but, with that foresight and knowledge of human nature which have generally distinguished the Romish hierarchy, the sectarian leader was welcomed as a missionary, ' seraphic all in fervency,' and in due time canonised into a saint, whilst his poverty-professing sect was recognised as an order, and became one of the most influential pillars of the Papacy. "It was " ' On the hard rock ' Twixt Arno and the Tiber, he from Christ Took the last signet.' From the desolate fastnesses of Lavernia, which witnessed his ascetic life and ecstatic visions, to the fertile slopes of Assisi, where his bones found repose from self-inflicted hardships, the people rallied round him while alive, and revered him when dead. Nor did the religious revival which his preaching and example there effected pass away. Acknow- ledged by popes, favoured by princes, his order rapidly spread. In every considerable town convents of begging friars were established and endowed. Still, it was in his mountain-land that his doctrines took deepest root, among a race of simple men, reared amid the sublime combinations of Alpine and forest scenery, familiar from their days of dreamy youth with hills and glades, caverns and precipices, shady grottoes and solitary cells. The visionary tales of his marvellous life penetrating the devotional character of the inhabitants, became favour- ite themes of popular superstition. " ' A spirit hung, Beautiful region I o'er thy towns and farms ; And emanations were perceived, and acts THE DUKES OF URBINO. 191 Of immortality, in nature's course Exempli6ed by mysteries, that were felt As bonds on grave philosopher imposed, And armed warrior ; and in every grove A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed.' Assisi, in particular, was the focus of the new faith. To its shrine nocked pilgrims laden with riches, which the saint taught them to despise. This influx of treasure had the usual destination of monastic wealth, being chiefly dedicated to the decoration of its sanctuary. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the best artists in Italy com- peted for its embellishment, and even now it is there that the student of mediaeval art ought most to seek for enlightenment. " With the legends of St. Francis thus indelibly stamped on the inha- bitants, and with the finest specimens of religious painting preserved at Assisi, it need scarcely be matter of surprise that devotional art, which we have endeavoured to describe, should have found in Umbria a fos- tering soil, even after it had been elsewhere supplanted by naturalist and pagan novelties ; for the feelings which it breathed were those of mystery and sentiment its beauty was sanctified and impalpable. By a people so trained its traditional types were received with the fervour of faith ; while to the limited range of its themes the miraculous adven- tures of the saint were a welcome supplement. The romantic character of these incidents borrowed from the picturesque features of the country a new but fitting element of pictorial effect, and for the first time nature was introduced to embellish without demeaning religious painting. " The Umbrian art, of which we have attempted to trace the origin, has not hitherto met with the notice which it merits. Lanzi allowed it no separate place among the fourteen schools under which he has arranged Italian painting, and, by scattering its most prominent names, has lost sight of certain characteristics which, rather than any common education, link its masters together. Nor was this omission wonderful, for the Umbrian painters and their works were dispersed over many towns and villages, none of which could be considered the headquarters of a school, and to visit these distant localities would have been a task of difficulty and disappointment. The patronage of princes and com- munities seems to have been sparingly bestowed in that mountain-land. Assisi, adorned by many Florentine strangers, was mother rather than nurse of its native art, and other religious houses wanted the means or the spirit to follow her brilliant example. Hence the comparatively IX. Extracts. Umbrian art. THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Extracts. Orvieto. Church of St. Francis at Assisi. few opportunities afforded to the Christian painters of Umbria of executing great works in fresco, the peculiar vehicle of pictorial gran- deur ; and alas ! of these few, a considerable proportion has been lost to us under the barbarism of whitewash. The revival of feeling for religious art, of late commenced by the Germans, and their persevering zeal in illustrating its neglected monuments, have established the exist- ence of an Umbrian school in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; but its history remains to be written. That task would carry us too far from the leading subject of these volumes, yet we shall endeavour in a few pages to sketch its development, from the dreamy anchorites whose rude pencils embodied the visions of their favourite St. Francis, to Raffaelle, whose high mission it was to perfect devotional painting, apart from the alloy of human passions, and to withstand for a time that influx of pagan and naturalist corruptions, which after his prema- ture death overwhelmed it " Two fanes were commenced in the thirteenth century near the Tiber, which became conspicuous as shrines equally of Christian devotion and Christian art. The cathedral of Orvieto for two hundred years attracted from all parts of Italy many of the best artificers in sculpture and paint- ing, some of whom, arriving from Umbria, carried back new inspirations to their homes. The sanctuary of St. Francis, at Assisi, coeval with the dawn of Italian art, borrowed its earliest embellishments from Tuscany, where Giotto and his followers were engrafting on design two novel ingredients dramatic composition and allegorical allusion. The former of these elements distinguished the Florentine from cotemporary schools, and carried it beyond them in variety and effect, preparing the way for the pictorial power which Raffaelle and Michael Angelo per- fected. To the inspirations of Dante it owed the latter element, and to the enthusiastic though tardy admiration which his fellow-citizens indulged for his wildly poetical mysticism, may be ascribed the abiding impress of a tendency which not only authorised but encouraged new and varied combinations. The rigid outlines, monotonous conventional movements, and soulless countenances of Byzantium gradually were mellowed into life and beauty ; but it is curious to observe how much sooner genius caught the spirit than the form, how it succeeded in embodying expression long before it could master the more technical difficulties of design, action, and shadow. The credit claimed for Giotto of introducing physiognomical expression is, however, only partially true. Compared with the Greek works, or even with those of his immediate antecedents, Cimabue, Guido, and Margaritone, his heads, THE DUKES OF URBINO. J 93 indeed, beam with animated intelligence, and feel the movement which he first communicated to his groups. Yet not less was the still and unimpassioned, hut deep-seated emotion, which the Umbrian painters embodied in their miniatures and panels, an improvement upon the lifeless and angular mechanism of the Byzantine artificers, although these very opposite qualities are generally condemned to the same cate- gory of contemptible feebleness by our pretended connoisseurs, glibly discussing masters whose real works they never saw, or are unable from ignorance and prejudice to appreciate. Such a state of art could not, however, remain wedded to a few fixed types. It was inherently one of transition, and necessarily led to a gradual abandonment of the Giottist manner of representation, while it enlarged the principles of composition introduced by Giotto. Beato Angelico, the first Florentine who successfully departed from that style, reawakening the old religious spirit, and embodying it in forms of purity never before or since attained, forsook not wholly the Dantesque spirit. His passing influence yielded to a manner more in unison with the times, which was formed and nearly perfected by Masaccio ; but still Dante was not left behind. Luca Signorelli, issuing from his Umbrian mountains and his Umbrian master, imbibed at Florence the lofty images of ' the bard of hell,' and energetically reproduced them in the Duomo of Orvieto, in startling contrast with the works of Angelico, and other devotional masters, who had previously decorated that museum of art. " There, too, had been wrought some choice productions of the Pisan sculptors ; but their tendency to clothe nature in the forms of antique design met with little sympathy, and no imitation, from students whose minds were preoccupied by tales of St. Francis, and thus it is unneces- sary here to notice them further. The Sienese school is in an entirely different category. Without encumbering ourselves at present by the definitions and distinctions of German aesthetic criticism, we shall merely remark that the painters of Siena, from Guido until late in the fifteenth century, never lost sight of that sentimental devotion which we have already described as the soul of Christian art, and which so curiously pervades the statutes of their guild formerly quoted. The cathedral of Orvieto was founded in 1290 by a Sienese architect, who, as we may well suppose, brought some of his countrymen to assist in its embellish- ment, and to infuse these principles among the native students, who, from assistants, became master artificers of its decorations. Nor was this the only link which connected Sienese art with the confines of Umbria. The scattered townships in the Val di Chiana preserve in VOL. VI. N IX. Extracts. 194 THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Raffaelle. their remaining early altar-panels clear evidence that these were sup- plied from Siena; and Taddeo Bartolo, repairing thence in 1403 to Perugia, and perhaps to Assisi, left proofs that the bland sentimen- talism of his native school might be united with a tranquil majesty, to which the Giottists had scarcely attained." The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters pre- sent us with an account of Raffaelle, complete yet concise, and embodying all the new matter relating to him which rewarded the patient investigations of Passavant. They are illustrated by a new and most interesting portrait, engraved after a picture dis- covered by Mr. Dennistoun, and executed by Gio- vanni Sanzio when his son was six years old ; and they are upon the whole the best English biography of "the most gentle and most eminent of painters." We give the concluding passage : " A critical examination of the peculiar merits of Raffaelle's pencil, and of the benefits which he brought to art, would lead us further than this sketch will permit : yet there are certain points so apparent even to superficial observers, some qualities so unanimously dwelt upon by his eulogists, that it would be incomplete without a passing notice of them. To him the perception of beauty was a sixth sense, ever in exercise, and applied to the creations of his genius as well as to his studies from nature. To its test were submitted those traditional forms of devotional art which influenced his early training ; it imparted life and movement to Perugino's so-called monotonous poverty ; it modified the dramatic action of the Florentine manner ; it caught the full tones of Fra Bartolomeo, and gave dignity to the simper of Leonardo ; it showed that anatomical accuracy required no muscular contortions ; it realised the grand without verging upon the monstrous ; it separated grace from grimace. This was an innate and personal gift that could neither be taught nor imitated. The elevated character, harmonious composition, correct design, and just colouring which Raffaelle stamped upon his school were manifested in various degrees by his pupils, but the spirit THE DUKES OF URBINO. 195 of their master was a boon from nature which none of them could seize or inherit. There are impetuous and daring minds who delight more in the energy of Michael Angelo's terrible forms ; others luxuriate with greater fondness on the mellowed depth of Titian's magic tints ; whilst to some the artificial contrasts of Correggio's brilliant lights, and Leo- nardo's unfathomable chiaroscuri, have irresistible charm. These emi- nent qualities are, however, the separate endowments of four individual minds ; but Raffaelle, deficient in none of them, possessed, in no less perfection, other more important requisites which we have noticed. It was this happy union that rendered him the unquestioned prince of painters, while the ready obedience of his unerring hand enabled him to realise the pure conceptions of his refined mind with a delicacy and truth which seem to defy imitation. " Yet his sterling merit was undeviating propriety in the conception and execution of his works. Nothing ever emanated from his pencil offensive to religion, morals, or refinement ; all that bears his name would honour the most fastidious reputation. To him accordingly there was granted a purity of taste, in none other united to equal genius. It was this that maintained the elevation of his style amid the conflicting difficulties and temptations of that 'new manner,' which it was his mission to perfect. Thus, although it is in the pro- ductions of his second period that we find the beau-ideal most per- fectly realised, yet, even his later works, which descend to a closer imitation of nature, seldom fail to invest her with a dignity rare in the external world. In proportion, therefore, as he discovered or adopted the more elaborate resources and processes of his art, his ripening mind supplied him with themes and conceptions worthy of them, and of immortality. Without including the eleven crowded representations in the Duomo of Siena, his unaided authorship of which is, perhaps, not distinctly established, the various series of sub- jects which he invented for the Stanze, the Tapestries, and the Loggie, indicate a grasp of intelligence, a variety of acquirement, never before or since brought into the service of art, and establish beyond question that the intellect of Raffaelle fully equalled his taste." Mr. Denmstoun devotes an interesting chapter to the beautiful pottery of Urbino. This manufacture was animated with all the artistic spirit of the times, and was a fine example of common materials rendered IX. Pottery of Urbino. 196 THE DUKES OF URBINO. more precious than the rarest by the ennobling touch of genius. It began about 1450, and lasted to 1700 ; its golden age being between 1490 and 1570. The finest majolica ware was made at Gubbio and Pesaro ; and the great patron of the art was Guidobaldo II., who frequently presented services of his native porce- lain " to foreign princes and other great personages, who again often sent commissions to be executed in the duchy." A double service was thus sent to Charles V., and another to Philip II., and a very numerous set of drug-jars, made for the ducal labora- tory, were afterwards given by Francesco Maria II. to Our Lady's shrine at Loretto, where they still contain physic for the faithful. Amongst the articles manufactured of this pottery were "tiles for floors or panelling, vases of ornament, beakers, epergnes, wine-coolers, perfume-sprinklers, fountains, wine- cups clustered with grapes whence the wine was sucked through a hole anticipating sherry-cobbler, pots, sauce-boats, salt-cellars, inkstands, pilgrim- bottles, and figure-groups." Of these beautiful pro- ductions of a forgotten art, Mr. Ford possesses some charming specimens ; and the matchless collection of Mr. Bernal probably contains more fine pieces by Andreoli and Fontana than ever graced the buffet of a duke of Urbino. Mr. Dennistoun passes in review before us not only the arts, but also the literature of Urbino. By Duke Mr. Ford's collection. Literature of Urbino. THE DUKES OF URBINO. 197 IX. Vittoria Colonna. Francesco Maria I., Ariosto had been profitably and honourably entertained ; Vittoria Colonna was re- lated to the house of Montefeltro ; Bernardo Tasso was in the service of Guidobaldo II., and lived for some time in a villa at Pesaro ; and Torquato, who had passed a part of his boyhood there, afterwards paid a long visit to his ancient love, Duchess Lucrezia, at Castel-Durante, where he wrote passion- ate sonnets in praise of her autumnal charms, and found in the beautiful gardens of the palace the type of the enchanted pleasaunce of Armida. Were it not for the illumination shed upon its literature by these stars, the duchy could boast of few pens who deserve to take rank beside its pencils. Of the writers who may be said to belong to it, Bembo and Castiglione are perhaps the only names of which glione. a foreigner need be ashamed of being ignorant. And even they are now little more than names* Bembo, a pagan in cardinal's clothing, has left us four folios, in which the curious reader will find choice examples of the most commonplace things said in the purest Latin and sweetest Tuscan, and of the lightest sub- jects treated in the heaviest style. Castiglione's works are briefer and better ; his poetry is not with- out elegance and pathos; and his Courtier is still curious as a real picture of the manners of Italian high life at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Never was the work of a few days for such he Bembo. Casti- The Courtier. THE DUKES OF URBINO. IX. Italian euphuism. tells us this famous book was repaid by so rich a harvest of celebrity. Jaques Colin and Thomas Hoby, who translated it into French and English, regarded the author with a reverence unknown to modern translators ; and the Castilian version was elaborated, with much preliminary homage, by writers of no less rank than Boscan and Garcilasso. The modern reader, if such can be found, is not likely to share their opinions ; he will lay down the book with little love or respect for " the good old days " to which he has been transported, but perhaps not without some surprise at the dulness of their wit and the grossness of their refinement. Of the influ- ence of the exaggerated and euphuistic style which obtained in Italy, during the rule of the Spaniard, upon Italian speech and writing in the present day, Mr. Dennistoun gives the following specimen, of which we must not deprive our readers : "Letter of introduction from an accomplished and gentlemanlike artist at Rome, presenting the author of these pages to a friend in the provinces. "MOST VALUED FRIEND, MY MOST WORSHIPFUL MASTER, To the flower of chivalry, to the promoter of the fine arts aiid of native antiquities, I address the noble Signer di Dennistoun from Scotland, himself also a passionate encourager of all that renders our Italy so beautiful. As he wishes to know and admire the many monuments which adorn . . . and with that view is going thither with his illus- trious consort, I could not but direct him to your lordship. "Your incomparable courtesy and kindness will not let me add another word ; yet I ought by anticipation to offer you lively thanks for the favour you may extend to this gentleman, as I likewise thank .THE DUKES OF URBINO. 199 you for other obligations conferred upon me in the acquaintance of that so generally accomplished Prussian, the Chevalier Waagen. I pray you to make my profound duty acceptable to your lady, and ever to believe me, what it is iny sincere boast to call myself, your most illus- trious lordship's most affectionate and most devoted servant and friend, * * ***** "ROME, April 1843. To the Nobleman, The Lord Cavaliere, * &c., &c., &c. So, in another southern land, Portugal, " the most excellent and illustrious lord " is the style equivalent to our " esquire." In taking leave of Mr. Dennistoun, we would bear our testimony to the taste displayed in his illustrations; to their fitness, novelty, and beauty; and to the style with one or two exceptions in which they have been engraved. And as the last, though not the least, merits of these learned, agree- able, and comely volumes, we would cite the double tables of contents and the index as models for the imitation of writers of new books and editors of old ones. No author, at least none whose web is not self-spun like a spider's, can fail to have rejoiced in the help and deplored the want of these maps and finger-posts of literary travel ; and when we find an octavo of 580 pages, like Mr. Bradford's recent pub- lication of the Correspondence of Charles V., put forth without any table of matters whatever, we are IX. Conclusion. Contents and good index. 200 THE DUKES OF URBINO. ix. tempted to infer that the author has curtailed his book of facilities for consultation, because he knows that it is not worth consulting. In Mr. Bradford's case we admit the inference would not be just ; but we trust he will take the hint in his next edition, and, when he writes, do unto others as he himself, when he reads, would wish to be done by. We would also remind the worthy publisher of Mr. Bradford's book that he has now sent forth some eighteen octavo volumes of Horace Walpole with- out so much as an attempt at an index to one of them. No want in literature is so deplorably felt as this. X. DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 1 HE art of "Devise" is one of the great lost, or at least forgotten, arts of elder time. Perhaps not a few of our readers will be glad to be told that its province lay in translating thought into symbols, or in illustrating symbols by tersely expressed thoughts. Two hundred years ago it was some- times the serious occupation, often the favourite pastime, of many of the famous wits of the world. By the initiated it was had in reverence, which men would nowadays hesitate to profess for the business of their lives, or the dearer hobby of their leisure. "A devise," said Annibal Caro, "is not to be made on the sudden, or without deep meditation." " Phi- losophy and poetry," wrote Pere Le Moyne, " history and fable, ancient and modern learning, all that is 1 Die Devisen und Motto des Spateren Mittelalters. Von J. v. Ra- dowitz. Stuttgart und Tubingen. 1850. Morning Chronicle, Jan. 6, 1851. X. Art of "Devise." Its pro- vince. Reverence for the "Devise." DEVISES AND MOTTOES. Antiquity of its origin. Growth. taught in colleges, all that is learned in the world, are condensed and epitomised in this great pur- suit ; in short, if there be an art which requires an all-accomplished workman, that art is Devise- making." This august art had its origin in the most vener- able antiquity. There were brave men before Aga- memnon, and brave shields before his lion-garnished buckler. In peace and war symbolism flourished through the classical ages ; nor does it appear ever to have been lost even in the mediaeval night. But in the Renaissance it shot up to a height which it had never before attained ; and in the French inva- sions of Italy, under Charles VIII. and Louis XII., its growth was singularly rapid and luxuriant. From the banners of the Free Companies and the crests of preux chevaliers, a rage for devises and mottoes spread, as if by contagion, to all orders and con- ditions of men and manufactures. Alciati, a doctor of Padua, who first wrote upon the subject (1542), soon became as well known throughout Europe as Erasmus. A cloud of translators first, and then imitators, followed in his track. In France, in Italy, and in Germany, tome after tome came forth, in which the emblematical properties of the crescent, the pelican, and the salamander were discussed as earnestly as transubstantiation or the doctrine of purgatory, and often by pens which had shed much Alciati. DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 20' ink upon those graver mysteries. Well-contrived devises sometimes led to mitres, as well-edited Greek plays or telling party pamphlets do now. In Spain and in England the science of Impreses engaged the attention of Ambrosio Morales and William Cam- den; at Antwerp it employed the pencil of Otto Venius ; at Frankfort and at Bologna it retained the delicate burin of the De Brys and of Julio Bonasoni. Everything that was in heaven above, and the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, became the prey of the emblem-maker, and the symbol of some vice, or virtue, or quality of the mind. The architect, the painter, and the sculptor ; the potter, the carpenter, the upholsterer, and the tailor, every artificer, in short, garnished his works with curious devises, and neat and appropriate senti- ments. The bellows and the hearthbrush of Diana de Poictiers were covered with her crescents, as were the walls and ceilings of her beautiful bower at Fontainebleau. Ladies read invitations to love, or cautions against that passion, on the fringes of their mantles, on the borders of their tapestries, embossed on the cases of their watches, carved on the frames of their mirrors. Gentlemen drank out of beakers lettered with Bacchanalian distiches, and ran one another through the body, with cold steel that was edged with an epigram, or pointed with a moral. The Jesuit wrote, ^xfl? iarpeiov, " The Dispensary of Impreses. Ambrosio Morales. William Camden. Otto Venius. TheDe Brys. Bonasoni. General use and popularity. 204 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. X. Mottoes. Decadence of Devises. the Soul," over the door of his library : the cannon- founder, honouring the breach of his brass gun with the observance of the custom, inscribed near its touchhole, Ratio ultima regum. "Pretty answers" might well be learned from " goldsmiths' wives," and "conned out of rings," for that craft had its quiver full of them. Did a lover make himself a chain of his lady's hair, he was sure to inscribe it, Radii sine sole supersunt; did he enshrine her precious image in a jewelled case, he would not fail to remark thereon, Tegit ignibus ignes. Mottoes gave rise to many mots of historical celebrity. The vaunting motto of Ceesar Borgia, Aut Ccesar aut nihil, was wrought, after his in- glorious death, into this scoffing epitaph : " Borgia Csesar erat factis et nomine Caesar, Aut nihil, aut Caesar dixit utrumque fuit." When Charles V. was forced to raise the siege of Metz, the French wits, for his proud Plus ultra, read Plus citra; or those who preferred a pun to an antithesis, read it Non ultra metas. In the gradual disuse of tourneys and carousals, and of marriage and funeral pageants, the occupa- tion of the devise-maker began to be gone. For a century later his invention had a narrow field left in the signs of shops, which, indeed, are still found in Austrian and Eussian towns. The race of archi- DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 205 tects, of whom Bernini and Perrault were the chiefs, banished the emblem and the legend from the por- tal, the window, the cornice and the chimney-piece, and their other haunts within doors ; succeeding barbarians dismissed them even from the fountain and the sun-dial, of which they were the natural and most graceful ornament ; nor have they been permitted to find an undisturbed resting-place on the tomb. Indeed, the emblem may be said to have been long defunct ; and the motto, except where it occurs in heraldic blazonries, skulks in obscure places in the crackers and bon-bons which sur- round a twelfth cake on the envelopes which con- ceal the names of essayists competing for a prize on the knife of the Spanish contrabandista, and on the garters which he presents to the brown maiden of his choice. The defunct art has now, however, a chance of a resurrection. The palmy days of devise-making, such as it saw when Paul Jovius wore the mitre of Nocera, are not perhaps likely to return. But no subject will be considered wholly without interest which has been taken up by the late War Minister of Prussia. General von Eadowitz has pursued his researches into the " Devises of the later Middle Ages, and the poetry of mottoes," with his usual energy and success. They were, he tells us, the amusement of " leisure hours before and after diffi- x. Heraldry. Revival. Radowitz's collection. 206 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. x. Survey of subject. History. Ancient. cult times ; " and he dates his brief preface from the Brunnen of the Freienwalde. His survey of his pleasing subject is at once philosophical and popular, learned and lively ; and his illustrations are extremely apt and well-selected. But the aim and scope of his work, and the style of its execution, will be best displayed by a few extracts from his introduction. "The object of the present treatise is to acquire a clear ac- quaintance and appreciation by illustrating, as far as possible, this activity of the human mind, which has become nearly obsolete at the present day. " In ancient history we find instances of the use of devises. It is true that it cannot be proved that in the fight for the body of Moses the archangel Michael bore his own name as devise upon his shield 'Quis ut Deus;' whilst Satan, on the other hand, bore the proud motto 'Ascendam' (Borchius Symbolographia, p. 10). The earliest ages, however, give instances of the use of them. According to Pau- sanias, Agamemnon had a lion's head upon his shield, with the devise, ' This is the fear of man.' JSschylus tells us that the shields of the seven heroes of Thebes bore devises and mottoes. Kapaneus bore upon his shield a naked man carrying a flaming torch, with an in- scription in gold Ilpf](ra> 7rdAu (I will burn the city). Eteocles carried a warrior rushing to the battle, with the motto, ' ! irarpaxav 8a>p.aTa>v T'(iri(rrpo(pds (I will lead him back to a city, and to the house of his fathers). Similar is to be found in the symbolical forms of the first Christians. The well-known illustration of the fish in connection with the name of Christ, the Alpha and Omega placed by the side of the symbols of the cross, or the monogram of Christ, the hare, in its Greek appellation, in allusion to the Logos, may be re- garded as real devises in the above sense. The same may be said of the crocodile upon some of the gold coins of the Emperor Augustus, which, tied to a palm-tree, bears the following inscription ' Colligavit DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 207 nemo ' (No one bound me\ and which is a plain allusion to the conquest of Egypt." "French authors, more especially Le Moyne and Menestrier, maintain that devises originated in France. The assertion of Levasseur that Louis XL wore a sapphire in his marriage ring, with the motto, l Hors cet anel pourrions trouver amour,' is scarcely deserving of credit. It must, however, be allowed that some of the most ancient devises which we still possess are of French origin for instance, the star of the Order of the Knights of the Star, instituted 1351 by John II., with the words, ' Monstrant regibus astra viam ' (The stars lead on kings) ; and the flint and steel of the Dukes of Burgundy, with the words, ' Ante ferit quam flamma mi'cet' (First blow, then fire); William of Hennegau bore a harrow, with the words, ' Evertit et (equal ' (It tears up, then smooths over). But in 1350, Edward III. had already instituted the Order of the Garter with the well-known motto, ' Honny soit qui mal y pensej which, in connection with the insignia of the Order, must be regarded as a real devise." "Germany, though with little probability of success, has claimed the origin of them. The tournaments, in which the German nobles took so prominent a part, offered at least the opportunity for attempts in this art From the diary of Wolf Wolfrath, the lute-player, we find that at a tournament at Vienna, in 1560, crowns of laurel were awarded not only to the most valiant knight, but also to him who made the wittiest devise. " It is evident that from the middle of the fifteenth century the usage of mottoes and devises became general throughout Europe. To the no small value attached by knightly and courtly spirits of that age to a happy choice of devises, we are indebted for a few collections of them. The literature of emblems is no less extensive than that of pro- verbs ; learned men of reputation did not think it beneath them to collect the many devises in use, as well as to exert their philological elegance and wit in inventing them." "The meaning of a devise, generally, must relate to the present or the future, never to the past. Among other reasons is quoted that the Italian expression emprese signifies that a devise must always announce an enterprise some action in contemplation, some great idea, a noble passion, but never a practical fact. French. German. Meaning of a "devise." 208 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. Rules of Paul Jovius. " The body of the devise must never be indecent or burlesque ; the more rigorous excluded even animals of a vicious nature, although they appear constantly in coats-of-arms. " For this reason the devise of Pope Gregory XIII. has been criti- cised : a dragon with the quotation from the ^Eneid ' Delubra ad summa ' (To the roof of the temple). And, in sooth, the propriety of a comparison of the elevation to the Holy See with those serpents that crawled up the Trojan temple, after slaying the priest on duty, may be questioned. " Hateful objects were strictly avoided : a toad or a bat would not have been allowed in a devise. Articles of daily use, as imple- ments of labour or of cookery, were unwillingly admitted. Thus the selection of a sieve as the devise by the Academia della Crusca, as a play upon the word crusca (bran), with the motto, ' II piu bel, fior ne coglie ' (The finest remains), was objected to. The emblem, moreover, should represent a real object, not only an incorporated idea. The invention of Did. Saavedra, who wished to express the union of justice and mercy by a symbol half eagle, half ostrich, with the lemma, prcesidia majestatis (the supports of majesty), was rejected.- This, however, did not exclude fabulous forms, as sirens, phoenixes, griffins, and harpies, as tradition not only gives them a distinct form, but determines their attributes. In the same manner the mythical properties of certain productions of nature were adopted. The dolphin appears as the friend of man ; the salamander is supposed to be incombustible ; the swan sings its death-song ; the sunflower turns towards the sun ; the pomegranate bears a crown ; the stork is tender towards its young ; the crane, by a stone, keeps off sleep ; the porcupine shoots its quills ; the eagle gazes undazzled upon the sun ; the pelican feeds its young with its blood ; the crocodile weeps hypocritical tears ; the bird of Paradise lives only on the wing." To these excellent remarks we may add the rules or conditions upon which, according to Paul Jovius, a devise ought to be constructed. The first essential is that the emblem, which may be considered as the body of the devise, should be exactly fitted to the motto, which is its spirit ; the second, that it should DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 209 not be so obscure as to require a sibyl to explain it ; the third, that the ideas suggested should be in themselves agreeable ; the fourth, that the forms employed should not be human ; and the fifth, that the motto should be brief, and expressed in some foreign tongue, that its sweetness might not be wasted on the vulgar. It is rarely, however, that we find all these conditions fulfilled in a single specimen ; and indeed the third and the fourth were habitually disregarded. The devise which Jovius mentions with peculiar praise, as coming nearer to his lofty ideal than any other, is that worn in the Italian wars by Marc Antonio Colonna a palm- branch laid across a branch of cypress, with the motto, " Erit alter a merces." Devise-makers in general, however, did not agree with the bishop, but preferred emblems full of sturm und drang, noise and bustle, and which pointed rather to an action than to a thought. Here w r e may once more take General Radowitz for our guide : "The more movement there is in the emblem, the higher value is set upon the invention. The eagle that wings its way in storm and lightning, the lion that has slain a tiger, the sun bursting through the clouds, are esteemed superior and more eligible than these same bodies in a quiescent state. The picture must be always perfect, as well the object itself as the attributes to which the devise relates. The beauti- ful devise by which Mary Queen of Scots lamented the death of her husband, Francis II., Dulce meum terra tegit (The earth covers my sweet), was declared faulty because the necessary emblem, a licorice VOL. vi. o X. Preference for em- blems of action. 210 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. x. Devises on Love and War. Martial. plant, is difficult of being comprehended. The same censure is passed upon the otherwise clever devise of the Earl of Essex, a rough diamond with the motto, Dum formas minuis (Polishing diminishes). For the same reasons those emblems are excluded which can only be recognised by their colour." Love and War were the two great subjects to which all devises addressed themselves. The general tenor of all martial mottoes is the same as that which we have read upon the huge seal of jadestone, con- siderably older than the English monarchy, which was presented by the late Dwarkanauth Tagore to Mrs. Norton. "A hero," says this great seal of the Flowery Land, " during life should be madly im- petuous, and, at his death, an ancestral temple should be raised to him." "A crown or else a glorious death, a sceptre or an earthly sepulchre," was the battle-cry of Richard of York in Shake- speare ; " A peerage, or Westminster Abbey," said Nelson at the Nile ; and the same sentiment used to be expressed in lions, griffins, blazing bombs, burning mountains, wave-beat rocks, and other brave words of the emblematist. One of the most ex- travagant of these utterances that occurs to us, was that of Sir Philip Sidney, who painted on his shield the tideless Caspian Sea, and the legend, "Sine refluxu" That of General Brown, in the Civil Wars of England, would have been approved by Jovius. The figures were a death's head and a laurel crown, the words " One of these." There was DEVISES AND MOTTOES. much poetry and true pathos in the mourning scutcheon of Lord Essex a sable field, surrounded by the legend, " Par nuttajigura dolori" The amatory devises were as various in aspect and as monotonous in meaning as those which belonged to war. In Bishop Jovius's time, lovers seem to have found as much difficulty in expressing their affections in words as Lord Essex found in putting his sorrow into tangible shape. The motto- loving prelate, while he admits the ingenuity of the fair Florimonda of Milan in hinting, by means of her sky-blue robe spangled with butterflies, that her lovers were likely to singe their wings would have greatly preferred that the lady should have plainly given notice of the danger in so many words on her phylacteries ; for one of her adorers, who loved rather well than wisely, was reduced to the necessity of inquiring the meaning of the papilionaceous petti- coat. "It means," said Florimonda, "that I wish to treat you with that courtesy which you extend to your friends when you hang a little bell to the tail of your kicking-horse, that they may beware of his heels." At Melton, we believe, the emblematical bell appended to the steed has been replaced by the motto " He-kicks" affixed to the rider's back. When, however, the name of the thing which was used as an emblem expressed the idea, the legend might be omitted. The gentleman of Pavia who loved a lady x. Amatory. 212 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. x. Proverbs. named Bianca, wore an end of white wax candle in his cap to show that he was " Can-de-la Bianca" The pun is not apparent or translatable in English, but at Pavia the lady and her friends were supposed to see the point, without being expressly told that the wearer had made a candlestick of his head to show that he was the faithful " dog of Blanche" The lover's emblem was sometimes addressed solely to the eye of his mistress, and in this case, too, a motto was superfluous. Thus the Spanish knight who was told that the Anna of his heart was courted by a rich and otherwise formidable rival, dumbly entreated her to refuse him, by hoisting at his crest the symbol of a little duck, of which the Castilian name is Anadino, and may there- fore be read, "Anna! say no!" We trust that this morsel of silent eloquence did not plead in vain. Here are some remarks on proverbs, which well deserve perusal : "In the same manner as the proverb is, properly speaking, the result of the moral feeling and reason of the people, in like manner does its reactionary influence tell upon individuals much more power- fully than is generally acknowledged. We would be astonished, on examination, to find in how many great and small occurrences of our life our determination has been swayed consciously or unconsciously by the sudden remembrance of some proverb. It would be an addi- tional occupation to explore the rich mines of proverbial sayings to discover their poetical value, and to give them the place that is their due. National poetry ha?, at least, as great a share in their creation as reflection. Like national ditties, proverbs cannot be traced to an DEVISES AND MOTTOES. 213 original fountain, seldom to a definite epoch. They spring from an unknown source, increase in volume as they roll on, and are adopted by all as unconsciously as they have sprung into existence." Among the merits of General von Radowitz's raphy. pages, we shall mention last, but by no means value least, his very useful and ample list of books on the science of emblems and devises. A good account of devise-books is still a desideratum amongst our special bibliographies ; and the titles of those which have been brought together by the General, would form an excellent foundation for the undertaking. Amongst the more important works which he has Omissions. not noticed, are the Imprese of Camilli, 4to, Venice, 1586, remarkable for the beauty of the engravings by Girolamo Porro ; and the fine Spanish Emblemas of Horozco y Covarruvias, 4to, Segovia, 1589; Zaragoza, 1604; and Madrid, 1610. Although he has commemorated some of our English mottoes, he has passed over without remark all the eminent pens of England who laboured in the garden of dainty devises, some of whom are quite worthy to be had in honour with the Ruscelli and Bargagli of Italy, and the German Brucks and Boxhorns. Their works, rare even in England, are perhaps hardly known on the Continent. We therefore venture to recommend the distinguished stranger, when he visits the Grenville Library at the British Museum, to ask for Geffry Whitney's Emblems and Devises, 2i 4 DEVISES AND MOTTOES. x. 4to, London, 1586; those of George Wither, fol., London, 1635; of Quarles, 8vo, London, 1635; arid the curious little volume of Robert Farley, called Lychnocausia, i2mo, London, 1638, on the emblematical meanings of light. He may also look at Phil. Ayre's Emblemata Amatoria, i2mo, London, 1683, for the sake of the illustrations ; and at the end of the translation of Estienne's Art of Devise- Making, 4to, London, 1650, he will be glad to see the Catalogue of Coronet Devises in the Late Warre. We feel some diffidence in mentioning these old books as novelties on his own subject, to an author who has brought us acquainted for the first time with many of the best emblems and emblem-makers of the Continent. If he is already familiar with them, he will excuse us ; if he does not know them, he will thank us. For we do not, and from his style we judge that he does not, adopt the surly motto of George Wither " Nee habeo, nee careo, nee caro." XL ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 1 EALS are among the most venerable implements of civilised man. What the plough is in agriculture, the seal is in commerce and conveyancing. The Lacedaemonians are said to have been the first European people who used signets, which they shaped out of morsels of worm-eaten timber. In Greece, therefore, the wood- worm was held to be the parent of the beautiful art of Pyrgoteles and Dioscorides. There can be no doubt, however, that intaglios were common in the most remote antiquity in Egypt and China. Whether the gold seal-ring of Cheops, said to have been found some years ago near the great pyramid, be genuine or not, it is certain that rings, bearing the images of hawk-headed or dog-headed deities, or the names of 1 Descriptive Catalogue of Impressions from Ancient Scottish Seals, from 1094 to the Commonwealth. By Henry Laing. 4to, Edinburgh, 1850 (Plates). Published by the Author. The Exa- miner, Dec. 28, 1850. XI. Seals their an- tiquity. Lacedae- monians. Greek. Egypt. China. 2l6 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Biblical references to seals. Arabian Nights. Private seals. kings or cities, engraved on gold or gems, adorned the fingers of men and mummies near the times of Moses. The Bible abounds in allusions to seals, and in proofs of the reverence attached to them. Aaron's breastplate was a mosaic of engraved pietre dure. In the Book of Job we are told that the earth in God's hand "is turned as clay to the seal," probably pointing to the brickmaker's stamp, in which the germ of the printing-press is discovered in the dawn of civilisation. In the Canticles the royal lover, mingling menaces with entreaty, conjures his beloved to wear him " as a seal upon her breast, as a seal upon her arm." The seal of Solomon was the most potent of Oriental talismans. It is perhaps also a tribute to its sacred character, that in eastern romance it is a standing simile for a woman's mouth, in spite of its inappropriate shape. Every reader of the Arabian Nights may remember that while the eyes of the Fatimas and the Azubeydahs are compared to the eyes of gazelles, their forms to the willow- bough, and their cheeks to anemones, their mouths are said to resemble the signet of the son of David, or, in other words, a pair of interlaced triangles. Although public seals were unknown to the governments of antiquity, the private ones of kings and great men were frequently objects of historical notice. Pyrgoteles enjoyed the monopoly of engrav- ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 217 ing the face of Alexander the Great on gems, as Apelles and Lysippus did in painting and sculpture. After the defeat of Darius it was noted that the conqueror sealed his letters for the Asiatic post with that monarch's head ; for the mail to Europe, with his own. The capture of Jugurtha, engraved by Sylla's order on his signet, was one of the first causes which moved the jealousy of Marius. Pom- pey had a figure of Victory on his seal ; an emerald cut with the head of Ptolemy was the favourite gem of Lucullus ; a frog was the impress of the seal of Maecenas. Of Macrianus, one of the pretenders to the purple during Valerian's captivity, the most characteristic trait preserved is, that he and his chil- dren, male and female, used seals with the effigy of Alexander, thus assuming the Macedonian's head for their family crest. Seals and coins may be considered as bottles filled with memoranda and cast upon the ocean of time by the earlier mariners for the use of those who came after them. Their forts, their factories, their light- houses, have many of them disappeared; but the bottles are perpetually being found after many days. To engraved gems we owe much of our knowledge of antique life. They have preserved for us many portraits of the great and the beautiful, giving us precious glimpses of the characters of men and the toilettes of ladies. Stamped on the faithful and XI. Alexander. Darius. Sylla. Pompey. Lucullus. Maecenas. Macrianus. Historical value of seals and coins. 2l8 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Use of seals in the North. Anoma- lous adap- tations of gems and intaglios. time-defying onyx, we may read the hard nature, the fun and the fiddling of Nero, in his handsome face ; and on the rough but kindly features of Titus, the combined gentleness and strength of his mind. There, young beauties may borrow a hint from the coiffure of the Empress Lepida, whose rich tresses, falling gracefully on her neck, are looped up behind in a circlet of pearl ; and their mothers may learn something from the Empress Livia, in other respects no model for the British matron, who so artistically concealed the ravages of time beneath drapery and a diadem. Many an obscure allusion in ancient authors has been illuminated by the pure ray serene emitted by a graven gem. The scholar will often find sermons in these stones, excelling the lucubra- tions of the commentators no less in clearness than in terseness ; and he may sometimes be put right by a scarabseus, when a scholiast has failed him. The use of seals appears to have been brought over the Alps by the Romans. The practice did not obtain favour among the early Franks and Saxons. The antique intaglios which fell into their hands were seldom applied to their legitimate uses, but became ornaments of the knight's dagger or goblet, the mitre of the bishop, or the chalice of the altar. Fitness of subject was but little considered in apply- ing them ; and the bindings of the Gospels were sometimes encrusted with gems illustrating in a ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 219 lively manner the worship of the god of gardens. Of this some instances may be found among the regalia of Charlemagne, now at Vienna. So in our own days, Captain Harris, when introduced by espe- cial favour, and after many reverences, into the lady- chapel of the cathedral of Shoa, found the walls of that holiest of Abyssinian shrines hung round with coloured prints of the great Leicester- shire steeplechase. The earliest existing example of an English seal is, we believe, that of Edward the Confessor, ap- pended to a charter granted by him in 1066 to the Abbey of Westminster. After the Norman conquest seals became a necessary and important part of all deeds, and the possession of them a mark of power and dignity. For about ten centuries the use of a seal was a privilege enjoyed by none below the knightly rank. Royal seals, as is well known, bore the effigy of the king on his throne. On the seals O/ of the laity a man in armour and on horseback, with a sword in his hand, was the usual figure ; and it was not till the first half of the thirteenth century that the practice became general of introducing armorial bearings upon the shield. As heraldry became an art, these insignia grew in size and importance, and at last came to stand alone. Ere Scrope and Grosvenor had gone into a Court of Chivalry (1385-90), which they found slow and XI. Earliest English seal, 1066. Introduc- tion of their use, and signifi- cance. Degrees. Royalty. Laity. Import- ance in- creased with growth of heraldry. ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Ecclesias- tical seals. costly in its procedure as the Court of Chancery, to try their rights to the azure field and golden bend, horse and rider had been dismissed from the seal to leave greater space for the scutcheon. As, in the captain's eye, a man-at-arms was a lance to deal thrusts, so, in the herald's, he became a mere shield to receive blazonry. The seals of the Church were of that oval shape, pointed at both ends, known as the Vesica piscis. The bishop's or abbot's seal bore the effigy of the patron saint of his see or abbey, and sometimes of himself standing in full canonicals and bestowing his blessing ; or it was engraved with some sacred emblem handed down by tradition, or invented by himself. The design was always surrounded by a border inscribed with the owner's name and dignity. Priests of more piety than learning sometimes pressed antique signets into the service of a new creed. An abbot of Selby having become possessed of a gem with the head of an emperor, and inscribed D. HONORIUS, AUG., converted it into a seal for his own use by adding a rim of gold whereon his view of the matter was thus expressed, " APUD HOC CHBISTUS EST." An archbishop of York sealed his parchments with a Roman intaglio bearing the heads of Minerva, Socrates, and Plato, and enriched with a modern setting upon which his grace had introduced those personages to the world in Latin ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 22 I of the most canine kind as the Holy Trinity. A third churchman used for his seal a figure of Bacchus, attended by a faun with a wine -cup, having first Christianised the group with the motto, " JESUS EST AMOR MEUS." Those who are curious in the sigillative habits and history of our ancestors should lose no time in making the acquaintance of Mr. Laing, whose beau- tiful volume is now before us. Though put forth under the humble name of a catalogue, it has a just claim to be considered a history of Scottish seals. No work of the same extent and complete- ness exists, that we know of, for England, whose early seals must be looked for up and down the pages of Dugdale and a hundred other antiquaries and local historians. Mr. Laing is a pupil of the late Mr. Tassie, and by profession a seal-engraver in Edinburgh. But he has for many years been engaged rather in forming a collection and in study- ing the history of old seals, than in engraving new ones ; and he is well known in Scotland for the zeal and success with which he has rescued from destruc- tion, by means of glass-casts, many of the curious seals which have dangled so long, unnoticed and uncared-for, from the ancient writings of his coun- try. He has done, in fact, for his own land and the Middle Ages, what his master did for Greece and Kome and classical antiquity and, more than this, XL Laing's collection. Scottish seals. Mr. Laing and his work. 222 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Earliest Scottish example. Duncan II. Alexander III. Kobert I. he has produced a quarto which is as far superior to the quartos of Mr. Tassie as the Pallas on an Athenian signet is to the Blessed Virgin on the broad seal of Our Lady's Abbey at Kelso. His cata- logue consists of most careful descriptions of no less than 1,248 seals, illustrated by nearly 200 examples, neatly engraved on stone and wood, with an agree- able preface replete with curious information. The earliest seal which has fallen into his hands is the great seal of Duncan II. appended to a charter in the archives of the see of Durham of about the year 1096. It represents the King on horseback, " in a trellised hawberk and conical-shaped helmet," and is executed with enough skill and spirit to show that it was by no means a first attempt in the art of engraving. The earliest specimen which Mr. Laing has figured is the privy seal (sigillum secretum) of Alexander III. (1249-85). That monarch is pre- sented to us throned, crowned, and sceptred, with a naked sword lying across his knees an apt emblem of the condition of many kings now as then and the figure and the draperies display some knowledge of drawing. The privy seal and signet of Robert I. (1306-29) are interesting, not only as memorials of the Bruce of Bannockburn, but as fine specimens of early engraving. The designs are simple, consisting of nothing more than the shield, whereon " Scot- land's Lion ramps in gold," and a lettered border ; ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 223 Mary of Gueldres. the spaces between the sides of the shield and the xi. border being, in the privy seal, occupied by a small heraldic quadruped, which Mr. Laing calls a lizard. But, simple as they are, these seals are no less elegant in conception than neat in their execution. David II. (1329-71) had for his privy seal the David n. round shield upborne by a pair of arms issuing from clouds, a pleasing symbol of that heavenly protection which kings by right divine, being taught to con- sider their inheritance, so seldom take the trouble to deserve. In the next century we find the same idea on the seal of Mary of Gueldres, Queen of James II. (1449-62). Her crown and shield are supported by a graceful angel, who bends over them with flowing drapery and outspread wings, as over a font of holy water or a cherished tomb a beautiful design, finely executed, which probably came from the hand of some master of Antwerp or Cologne. The seals of kings and the great nobles are extremely interesting and valuable, as containing authentic specimens of the armour and costume of the time. Here the antiquary may trace the progress of defensive armour, from the rudest chain- shirt that turned the edge of Danish steel at Largs, to the rich mail of plate such as Negroli chiselled for the princes of Hapsburg or Burgundy. The still more elaborate seals of the Church are also, like its illuminated writings, faithful records of ecclesiastical Value in regard to costume, 224 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Glasgow seals. Edin- burgh. dress and architectural decoration. In them we find at work the same fine fancy and skilful hands that garlanded the pillars of Melrose and fretted the niches at Eoslin. Till the end of the fourteenth century a bishop or abbot usually sealed with his own image and superscription. The designs of their later seals are far more florid and flamboyant, embracing figures of the Virgin, or their patron saints, or the Trinity, or all of these together, beneath canopies of state, or shrines richly carved and adorned with emblems and scutcheons of arms ; the symbolical oval form being, however, seldom departed from. Some of the finest of these ex- amples belong to the see of Glasgow. In them we usually find the figure of the tutelar St. Kenti- gern, or more familiarly St. Mungo, with his miraculous fish bearing in its mouth the ring of Queen Languoreth, a ring which that lady had dropped into the Clyde as the maiden in the Spanish ballad dropped her earrings into the well, and, like her, with dire apprehensions of the con- sequent jealousy of her lord. One of the most beautiful is that of Bishop William Lauder (1417), who kneels at the base of a richly decorated shrine, within a niche bordered with that simple but highly effective ball ornament so much in use among the architects of Castile. The seal of the chapter of St. Giles, at Edinburgh (1496), likewise deserves ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 225 mention as a charming example of architectural embellishment in the pointed style. In Scotland, as in England, antique seals some- times impressed modern wax, and gave force to modern parchments. In 1220, John Avenel sealed a charter of the lands of Torthorald with a gem engraved with four grasshoppers within a laurel- wreath, a device in which Ilissus whispered to the Nith ; and Thomas Colvil made over certain border acres to the monks of Melrose under a signet bearing a beautiful female head, of which probably both the artist and his model dwelt by the .ZEgean under the rule of Pericles. Very few of Mr. Laing's seals are furnished with mottoes. That of Alexander III., already mentioned, is inscribed ESTO PKUDENS UT SERPENS ET SIMPLEX SICUT COLUMBA a rare instance of the use of a motto, especially on the seal of a layman. Mottoes belong to later, more peaceful, and more learned times, when the knight at the tourney took as much pride in the quaint conceit of his emprese as in the gallantry of his imprise. These impreses are referred by Paul Jovius, a mitred maker of them, at the time when Charles VIII. and Louis XII. led their armies into Italy. The French officers in their campaigns distinguished their companies by devices fastened to their banners ; the Italians adopted and improved the fancy; and so arose the art, so long VOL. VI. XI. Wax seals. Pew have mottoes. Mottoes came later. Impreses. French. Italian. 226 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Recent in- troduction of mottoes and crests into her- aldry. Crests indi- vidual. Sir John Hamilton. in vogue, of translating maxims into figures or emblems, and that voluminous literature in which Alciati, Menestrier, Covarrubias, Whitney, and the De Brys hunted down their symbol-game, and won the trophies of the chase. From the brains of these busy wits we believe that many of our modern crests and mottoes were born. Till a very recent date they do not appear to have enjoyed any heraldic honour. In the palmy days of blazon, when Dame Juliana Berners sat down to prove, by its rules, that Our Saviour was a gentleman by his mother's side, it was the quarterings on the shield that made the man, and not the accidental ornaments of the casque. " Men choose what crests they fancy," said Sir George Mackenzie in 1 680 ; and there are still some ancient families, like the Eashleighs of Menabilly, who have never made a choice, and consider their helms all the more distinguished by their bareness. It is probably because crests were assumed at the will of the individual, and were not considered hereditary in the house, that they so seldom appear on old seals. A rare instance of a crested seal, and an instance also of the muta- tions to which these cognisances were liable, occurs in that of Sir John Hamilton, chief of the name in 1388, who wore upon his helm a boar's head and neck, a crest which succeeding Hamiltons turned into a saw-crossed tree. ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 227 Supporters, too, which are still more modern than crests, and which we believe to have been the invention rather of the seal- cutter than of the herald, are not common in the seals of Mr. Laing, though by no means rare in Scottish coats. They are still in much request beyond the Tweed. As Dundas of that ilk carried on a lawsuit for about a quarter of the last century with a cadet of his house, who had presumed to give the lion on his shield a blue tongue and claws a distinction of the chiefship : so two scions of the clan Forbes have lately been battling in the Court of Session, about the right of using for supporters white bears instead of brown. These heraldic cattle are still to be had in Edinburgh, of the breeder, the Lord Lyon, who doubtless finds his account in keeping up the stock. We believe that a pair of supporters whether lions or wild-cats fetch as much as a pair of well-bred greys would bring at Tattersall's ; and that savages, " wreathed and clubbed," and otherwise decently appointed, are quite as costly as tame men plushed, caned, and calved proper. They are sometimes disposed of even to South Britons. We well remember the glee with which an antiquarian friend of ours, now no more, used to relate how he had been present in the Lyon- office when a southron of ancient name, whose ancestors may have fought at Bannockburn and XI. Supporters still more modern. 228 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XI. Koyal sup- porters of Scotland. Maxwells of Polloc. Flodden, came to purchase a pair of Scottish sup- porters for his old English scutcheon. The Deputy Lyon felt the dignity of his position ; but being a kind-hearted gentleman, " roared as gently as a sucking-dove." "Sir," said he, "I will state your wishes and do what I can, but as to augmentations of arms and supporters, as to bears, bulls, unicorns, dragons, griffins, wyverns, and the like, these are all in the breast of the Lord Lyon" His lordship has, we believe, endeavoured to make a clean breast of it, having distributed its contents with great liberality to his friends, thus at once embellishing their armorial insignia, and relieving his bosom of a monster menagerie. But even where there is evidence to remove from such armorial ornaments the stigma of having been granted by Lord Kinnoul or his immediate pre- decessors, it frequently likewise proves how subject they were to arbitrary change or accidental transfor- mation. Thus the royal supporters of Scotland, which first appear in the privy seal of James II., in 1429, were originally lions, but were changed in 1542 on the seal of Mary to the unicorns which have survived to the present day. The lions "sejant and gardant," which were borne on his seal in 1400 by Maxwell of Polloc, underwent a more humiliat- ing, though more intelligible metamorphosis. These noble beasts were changed into monkeys, a state ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 229 of vile enchantment from which we are glad to learn from Mr. Laing that the present baronet has effected their deliverance. The zoology of heraldry, at all times conventional, seems to have been in a very low state in Scotland. Lions might well be degraded to monkeys, when the war-horse of chivalry, as represented on the seal of royal knights and illustrious Wallaces, might be mistaken for the clothes-horse of modern life. In spite, however, of their wooden steeds and ape-like lions, the old engravers produced seals which it would be well if their successors of the present day would more generally take for models. There is a simple grace in these designs, and a decision in their execution, which is very pleasing and effective ; and some of the more elaborate eccle- siastical seals are miniature masterpieces, worthy of those great Church architects whose ruined shrines lend their chief interest to many of the towns of Scotland. The finest seals, according to Mr. Laing, belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century, the seal-engraver suc- cumbed to the same influences which were dimming the glory of the painter and the architect. Of the seventeenth century, Mr. Laing has preserved no seal worthy of much notice, except the pretty signet of John Napier of Merchiston, inventor of logarithms, which was gleaned by his kinsman and xr. Designs of old seals. John Napier's seal. 2 3 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. XL Old wax seals supe- rior to modern. Colour of wax varied and signi- ficant. Green. White. Yellow. biographer, the historian of Montrose, from a letter dated 1600. Our author informs us that the wax seals of the older Scottish charters seem to have been made with more care than was bestowed on those of later times. The more ancient the seal, cries the delighted antiquary, the more sharp and beautiful the impression. The colour of the wax, though it varied at different times, appears also to have been a matter of privilege, and indicative of the authority of the seal, and the dignity of its owner. Down to the end of the fourteenth century, green was a favourite colour, that being supposed, in England at least, to typify the perennial vigour of the deed to which the seal was appended, and perhaps the jealousy with which it was intended to guard it. The great seals of the kingdom, and the seals of monasteries and burghs, were afterwards made in white wax ; a practice which we presume can hardly have become universal in other countries, or the makers of emblems would probably have brought the black into fashion as a symbol of purity. We believe the wax now generally used in the public seals of Great Britain is yellow, the natural colour, as befits an age of which the best characteristic is that it loves cant a little less than its predecessors. The word cant, as well as the word seal, reminds us of Rome and the fisherman's ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 231 ring, which is always impressed on red wax, and the fisherman's seal, of which an impression (always taken in lead) has lately fallen with such a splash into the mantling pool of our English politics. The red wax on the Papal briefs no doubt has its origin in that Roman love of the imperial colour in which the Protestant interpreter of pro- phecy loves to read the mark of the beast and the meretricious taste of the scarlet lady. Why lead is used in the larger seal is not so clear ; but this question, and that other nice one, Why did the French Academy seal with blue wax? we leave to our friends of the Notes and Queries. In closing Mr. Laing's most acceptable book, we have only to regret that he should have thought it necessary to make his introduction so brief. The collector of so many archaeological treasures must have likewise amassed many curious notes, which the writer of the twenty-four prefatory pages could easily have worked up into a very pleasing and useful little volume. Avoiding the prolixity of Theodore Hopfingk, who printed at Nuremberg, in 1642, in the smallest type, 1,050 folio pages on seals, he has become over-curt. Among other points which he has left untouched we should like to have had some information about the artists who executed some of the finer seals, and worthily preceded our friend, Mr. Laurence Butters, as seal- XI. Bed. Lead. Blue. Conclusion. 232 ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. engravers to the Scottish crown. Massy, a writing- master about a century ago, formed materials for a respectable octavo of lives of the English cali- graphers ; and Mr. Laing might surely fill a duodecimo with notices of the brethren of his more intellectual craft. Brevity, however, is a fault which the critic has seldom occasion to complain of, and may well excuse. But we hope Mr. Laing will take our hint in the new edition of his work, which we trust will be rendered necessary as well by the rapid sale of the present impression, as by the influx of fresh materials. For although he has largely illustrated his sub- ject, he has by no means exhausted it. From the list of sources whence he has drawn his supplies we miss many names of the great his- torical families of Scotland. Hamilton, Gordon, Montrose, and Argyll, are among the ducal houses alone whose charter-rooms appear to have been unvisited. We cannot suppose but that their graces would afford Mr. Laing every facility of research, especially as we observe that he has had access to the archives of Atholl, to which we pre- sume the path does not lie through Glentilt. We would also suggest that the engravings should be brought into juxtaposition with the descriptive letter- press ; or, if this is not possible, that each plate should have a direct reference to its description; ANCIENT SCOTTISH SEALS. 233 the index which the reader must at present consult being about as pleasant an incident in his path as the omnibus in a railway hiatus. And so we take our leave of Mr. Laing, with hearty good wishes towards his success in the prosecution of his seal-fishery. XI. XII. SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 1 OKKSHIRE converging to the Don- caster St. Leger, London discharging itself upon Epsom Downs on the Derby Day, Paris " circulating " through the alleys of Versailles on days of the grandes eaux each furnishes a fine specimen of the national holiday crowd. The Derby and St. Leger, however, like Christmas, come but once a year; and the movable feasts in honour of which Neptune and the mille tuyaux open their throats, do not happen above four times in a summer. But from Easter to the middle of autumn, every fair Monday in Madrid brings forth a festal mob, which, for merry clamour, picturesque movement, local colour, and vivid nationality, is fairly worth all the aforesaid gatherings put together. Fraser^s Magazine, June 1852. XII. National holidays. 1 Tauromachia ; or, The Spanish Bull-Fights Illustrated in Twenty-six Sketches, by Lake Price : with Illustrations, by Richard Ford. Folio. London : Hogarth, 1852. 2 3 6 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. "Tauro- machia." French illustra- tions inaccurate. If you would study a southern people at its sport, go and stand for half-an-hour at the gate of Alcald, and watch the dense column of variegated life, trudging on foot, or whirled madly in calesas, which pours down the noble street ; and then take your place in a seat on the shaded side in the amphi- theatre of the bull-fight. But if, for you, the Pyrenees are a barrier not to be passed, then procure Mr. Lake Price's beautiful volume on Tauromachia. Arrayed in the national colours of Spain, gules and or, it is no less fitted for an ornament to the boudoir-table, than adapted, by the fulness and variety of its in- formation, for a book of reference in the library. A work of the kind was much wanted ; for the most picturesque of national sports had been strangely ne- glected by the pencil. It is strange that Velazquez, who loved and painted horses so well, should have left no studies of the bull-ring ; still more strange that Rubens, who delighted in subjects of violence and uproar, and imaginary combats between hunters and wild beasts, should not have had his attention arrested and his pencil provoked by the real en- counters of wild bulls and silken courtiers which he must have witnessed at Madrid. Although end- less illustrations of the bull-ring are to be found in the Paris print-shops, none are to be depended upon as accurate. In the best of them the fierce Spanish sport is apt to become French melodrama, and many SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 2 37 are obviously the work of artists who have never left the Boulevards for the bull-ring, and whose model bull is the Bceuf-gras at Shrovetide. The Spanish prints, on the other hand, with the exception of the rare and somewhat exaggerated Toros of Goya, are tame and spiritless ; the men being stiff as dolls, and the bulls dead as bulls of Nineveh. Mr. Lake Price is the first artist who has really taken Tauro- machia by the horns, grappled with all its ever-shift- ing incidents and minute details, and made himself master of the scenes and science of the arena. His drawings are touched with great spirit, boldness, and breadth ; truth has never been sacrificed to effect ; and yet the more brutal features of the savage pastime have been skilfully veiled or eluded. To say that the letterpress descriptions are from the pen of Mr. Ford, is to say that they are brilliantly graphic and scrupulously faithful ; and that for once we find the charms of the handbook pervading the mighty pages of a folio. A bull-fight has been described a thousand times, yet we present Mr. Ford's description to our readers, with a certainty that there is none which can so vividly create the scene for those of them to whom a Plaza de Toros is a terra incognita, or recall it to those to whom it is as familiar as Smithfield. " As the bull and the picadors are the principal performers of the first act, it will be more convenient to group together the five plates which XII. Spanish spiritless. "Tauro- machia" accurate. Mr. Ford's letterpress. His de- scription of a bull- fight. Act I. 2 3 8 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. gi ye the different scenes, than to describe them one by one. The opening the door from which the bull is to rush out, is a spirit-stirring moment, and all eyes are riveted on his first appearance, as no one can tell how he will behave. Let loose from his dark cell, and amazed at the novelty of his position, he gazes an instant around at the crowd, the glare, and waving handkerchiefs. He bears on his neck a ribbon which marks his breed. He is ignorant of his fate ; die he must, how- ever gallant his conduct ; death without reprieve is the catastrophe, which, although darkly shadowed out, does not diminish the sustained interest, since the intermediate changes and chances are uncertain, and the action may pass from the sublime to the ridiculous, from tragedy to farce. The bull no sooner recovers his senses, than his splendid Achillean rage fires every limb, and, with closed eyes and lowered horns, he charges the foremost of the three picadors, who are drawn up at intervals close to the wooden barriers. The horseman, with pre- sented spear, awaits him boldly on his trembling Rosinante, for none but the poorest hacks are sacrificed on these occasions. If the animal be only second-rate, he remembers the sharp goad of old, and will not fight against the pricks. Turned by the first picador, he passes on to the others, who receive him with similar cordiality. If the animal be still baffled, stunning are the paeans raised in honour of the men. Such bulls as will not fight at all, and show a white feather, become the objects of popular insult and injury ; they are hooted at as ' cows,' which is no compliment to a bull, and as they sneak by the barriers, are mercilessly punished with a forest of porros, or lumbering cudgels, with which the mob is provided for the nonce. Although unskilled in bucolics, Spaniards are excellent judges of the good or bad points of bull, and when any appear unfit for the sport, their indignation at being defrauded of their just rights becomes ungovernable, and the president, wisely yielding to the gentle pressure from without, orders the incompetent beast out, to be replaced by a better. The degrees of merit in a bull are nicely understood, and infinite are the technical epithets by which his good or bad qualities are expressed. Every feat and incident has also its appropriate scientific term. With these curiosi- ties of toresque dialects Spaniards are well conversant : to introduce them here would be mere pedantry, and tauromachian students are referred to the lucid glossaries appended to the masterpieces of Pepe Illo and Montes. When the bull is slow to charge, the picador rides out into the arena, and challenges him with his vara ; should the bull decline his polite invi- tation, and turn tail, he is baited by dogs, which is most degrading. A SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 239 bold beast, however, is not to be deterred by fear of steel : he charges at once, and increasing in appetite when baptized in blood, passes on from one picador to the other, overwhelming horses and riders, and clears the arena of foes ; then, during the interval, before new assail- ants can arrive, the conquering hero is hailed with unbounded applause, and cheered with shouts of ' Viva toro ! ' Long life is wished to him by thousands who know that he must be dead in less than a quarter of an hour. Such an awkward customer will sometimes kill half-a-dozen horses. The picadors are subject to terrific chances ; few in fact have a sound rib in their body. Occasionally the bull tosses man and steed in one ruin, and when they fall, exhausts his fury on the poor beast : for the picador either manages to make him a barrier, or is dragged off by the attendant chulos who always hover near, and with their cloaks entice the bull from the man, leaving the horse to his sad fate. When these deadly struggles take place, when life hangs on a thread, every feeling of eagerness and excitement is stamped on the countenances of the spectators. Their rapture is wrought to its pitch when the horse, maddened with wounds and terror, the crimson seams streaking his foam and sweat-whitened body, flies from the still pursuing bull ; then are displayed the nerve and horsemanship of the picador. It is a piteous sight to behold the mangled horses treading out their pro- truding and quivering entrails, and yet carrying off their riders un- hurt. This too frequent occurrence, and which horrifies every English- man, has, with some other painful incidents, been kindly kept out of sight by our artist, whose object is to please. Spaniards are no more affected by the reality than Italians are moved by the abstract tanti palpiti of Eossini. The miserable horse, when dead, is rapidly stripped of his accoutrements by his rider, who hobbles off ; and the carcase is then dragged out by the mules, often leaving a bloody furrow on the sand, as Spain's river-beds are marked with the scarlet fringe of flower- ing oleanders. The riders have a more than veterinary skill in pro- nouncing, off-hand, what wounds are mortal or not. Those thrusts which are not immediately fatal are plugged up by them with tow, and then they remount the crippled steed, and carry him, like a battered battle-ship, again into action. When the mangled and scared horse will not face the horns, his eyes are bandaged over, and his means of escape curtailed : under any circumstance, no sympathy is shown for him, all is reserved for the horseman, and for him only for a moment : the dead and wounded are forgotten ere removed, new combatants fill their gap, the battle rages, fresh incidents arise, and XII. 240 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. Madri- denian disregard for horses. XII. no P ause is left ft* 1 re g re t r reflection. When a picador is carried off apparently dead, but returns immediately, mounted on a fresh horse, the applauding of the people out-bellows a hundred bulls. The first act is occupied with the picador, and when the different scenes have been gone through, a signal is given, and the part of the horseman is over." It is remarkable how totally devoid the Madri- denians are of that sympathy with the horses which is always strongly felt by the foreigner, and especi- ally by the English hippophile. The bull-ring inci- dent which most powerfully touched us, and which has imprinted itself most deeply on our recollection, seemed the merest commonplace to an excellent Spanish friend of ours, who was our companion in incident. the shaded side of the arena. A dark-brown horse, of fine size, figure, and action, who had known better days and gentler usage, had borne a picador gallantly and almost without a scratch through two fights ; the cleverness and handiness of the animal who was ridden being far more remarkable than the strength or skill of the animal who rode. The third bull was fiercer than his predecessor ; and the horse, through weariness, less able to sustain the shock and elude the horn, had soon received two desperate wounds. Still he bore up bravely against his fate ; answering promptly both to the spur and rein, and showing no sign of terror or flinching, though you could see that his legs were failing fast. Again the enemy came on, with his tail in the air and his nose in the sand ; burying his horns in the belly of his SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 241 victim, he lifted his hind-quarters from the ground ; and he would have finished him outright but for the distracting flutter of cloaks interposed by the pro- tectionists in tags and silk breeches. When sepa- rated from the bull, the gored horse still kept on his legs, while the picador, unseated by the shock, lay like a sack across his path. From his gushing blood and quivering limbs you expected to see the poor beast fall upon the fallen man ; to avoid which the nobler animal, gathering all his ebbing force, leaped clear over the picador's body, and fell dead six feet beyond him. This return of good for evil in the death-agony, in which the poor instinct of a brute seemed to rise to the highest virtue of a Christian, was immediately perceived by a neighbouring bag- man, who expressed his admiration in French, yet it excited not the faintest murmur of applause from the spectators who spoke Castilian. Next come the chulos, and their performances : " These chulos, or assistants on foot, are the chief characters of the second act, of which the leading sources and incidents are faithfully set before us by Mr. Lake Price in these eight plates. These actors are picked young men, who thus commence their tauromachian career. The duty of this light division is to skirmish and draw off the bull when the picador is endangered, which they do with their parti- coloured silken cloaks : their mercurial address and agility is marvel- lous ; they skim over the sand like glittering humming-birds, seeming scarcely to touch the earth. The most dangerous position is when they venture into the middle of the Plaza, and are pursued by the bull to the barrier, over which they bound : the escape often takes place in the very nick of time, and they win by a neck ; and frequently so VOL. VI. Q XII. Act II. 242 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. Saltro tras el cuenio. close is the run that they seem to be helped over the fence by the bull's horns ; nay, so active are the bulls that they often clear the six feet high palisado, on which occasion an indescribable hubbub and confusion .takes place amid the combatants, water-sellers, alguazils and persons within ; all the doors are immediately opened, and the perplexed beast soon finds his way back again into the arena to new inflictions. The plates 14 and 17 represent two of the most dim cult and dangerous performances of the combatants on foot, and which are rarely attempted except by the most skilful and experienced toreros and matadors, who take part in these interludes. Such is the Suerte de la Capa, or feat of the cloak. When the infuriated bull, foaming with rage, stands lord of all he surveys, Montes would coolly advance, and when within two yards turn his back to the animal, and holding his cloak behind his shoulders, receive the rushing charge five or six times, stepping adroitly aside at each. " The second, El salto tras-cuerno, is even more hazardous : the per- former advances as before, and when the bull lowers his head to charge, places his foot between the horns, is lifted up, and lights on the other side. These touch-and-go experiments form no part of the strict duties of the chulo ; his exclusive province is the banderilla. This imple- ment consists of a barbed dart or arrow, which is wrapped round with papers of different colours, and in fanciful patterns of ornamental cruelty ; the bearer holding one in each hand, approaches the bull, presenting the point to him, and at the instant when he stoops to toss him, jerks them into his neck, turns aside and eludes him. To do this neatly requires a quick eye and a light hand and foot ; the ambition of the performer is to place the barbs evenly and symmetrically, one on each side of the bull's neck ; three and four pairs of these are usually stuck in. Sometimes, when the bull has given dissatisfaction, these ban- derillas are armed with crackers, which, by means of detonating powder, explode the moment they are fixed : the agony of the scorched animal makes him plunge and snort frantically, to the delight of a people whose ancestors welcomed the Auto-de-fe, and the perfume of burning living flesh." Amongst the feats for which the great Montes was famous, was the Saltro tras el cuerno. When he first performed it before Queen Christina, then a young and blooming bride, she was so charmed with SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 243 his grace and agility that she called for a repetition of the daring leap. Montes explained to her mes- senger that he could make no promise, because the thing depended on opportunities and chances which but rarely occurred. Her Majesty, in the wilfulness of beauty and power, repeated her encore. The great tauricide still hesitated, said he felt he should fail, but feeling also that faint heart would never win this fair lady, promised to try. The result was a dangerous wound, with which he was carried out of the plaza, as it was supposed, dying. The Queen was inconsolable, and lavished every attention on his sick-bed ; royal chaplains prayed for him, royal chamberlains went to see him ; and when, in spite of the royal leeches who attended him, he got well, a royal pension of half-a-dollar a day was settled upon him for life. We have seen this rash salto performed only once, by El Chidanero, the nephew of Montes ; the somersault between the horns being a peril of great price, reserved for great occasions, and not to be cast every day before the swinish multitude. " The fatal trumpet now sounds, and ushers in the third and last act. The arena is partially cleared, the chulos retire to the barriers, and the picadors ride out of the way, walking their wounded horses about, to keep them alive for the fresh bull. The matador (the executioner) stands alone before his victim. Previously to dealing the fatal blow, he addresses the president, holding his montera (cap) in his hand, which he then casts on the ground, and, bareheaded, turns to the bull. In his right hand he grasps a long straight sword, and waves in his left the mutela, or flag, which is about a yard wide ; a red colour is selected XTI. Act III., and last. 244 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. Xii. because it particularly irritates the bull, and conceals blood. The sword is made for this purpose : the blade is heavy, thick, and four-sided, with more than a bayonet power ; toughness, not temper, is what is most desired. Meanwhile, the chnlos wait in watchful readiness, and are prepared to fly instantly to the rescue should their services be required. Supernumerary matadors are also at hand in case of accidents, which may happen in the best regulated bull-fights. The matador, as he now stands forth alone, concentrates in himself all the interest which was divided before among the many combatants : he slowly advances to the bull to lure him to destruction. In these brief trying moments, when one surely must die, and both may, the matador looks somewhat pale, but presents the image of fixed purpose and energy. Sometimes even the fierce quadruped seems to feel that the last moment is come, and pauses, when brought face to face in the deadly duel with a single oppo- nent. The contrast between the two is striking now the power of knowledge is opposed to brute force the man, arrayed in an elegant ball-room dress, with no armour but his skill and valour, is pitted against an animal the most ferocious of its ferocious kind, and infuriated to madness by insults and injuries ; the one stands still, all coolness and presence of mind ; the other bounds and tears, all violence and blind rage. The matador who, during the first two acts, has been intensely studying the character of the bull, now rapidly and finally makes up his mind as to his disposition, by a few passes and foilings with the flag. The principle to be pursued in the attack depends on discovering whether the animal be a bold, fair, dashing antagonist, or a sly and undetermined one. Those which charge, and then stop short, or that run at the man, not at the flag, are chiefly to be dreaded. The matador must be quick and decided in his observations ; he must not let the bull run at the flag too often, or too long : the moral tension of the spectators is strained to such a degree, that a lengthened suspense could not be endured ; the populace vent their impatience in jeers and noises, and endeavour in every possible manner to irritate the matador, and thus make him lose his temper, and perhaps his life. There are many ways of killing the bull, each of which has its scientific and tech- nical name. In all of them the matador presents the flag to the bull, who, stooping his head, rushes at it with closed eyes. The sword is held above this flag, and the slayer, at the moment of the rush, eludes the charge by a slight turn of his body, and 'receives' the animal on the steady sword. This is the usual mode ; then the weapon, which is never thrust forward, enters just between the shoulder and blade-bone, SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 245 and is buried up to the hilt. Skilful matadors will sometimes withdraw the sword from the wound, and raise it in triumph above their prostrate victim. On all occasions, a firm hand, great nerve, and quick eye are essential. The populace is most fastidious as to the exact nicety of placing the death-wound. The bull is very often not killed by the first thrust ; if the sword strikes a bone it is ejected high in the air by the rising neck. When the blow is dealt truly, death is instantaneous, and the bull, vomiting blood, drops at the feet of his conqueror, and all that was fire, fury and life is still for ever. The gay team of mules now enters, and the carcase is carried off at full gallop. The matador wipes the streaming blood from his sword, and bows to the spectators. If he has accomplished his feat well, he is applauded to the skies, and is com- plimented with hats being thrown to him, which he picks up and throws back again : in the golden age of Spain, the matador used to be rewarded with a shower of doubloons. "When a bull will not run on the flag, he is doomed to the dis- honourable death of a traitor, and is houghed from, behind with a sharp steel crescent placed on a long pole. When the sinews of the hind-legs are thus cruelly divided, the poor beast crawls in agony and squats down ; then a butcher-like assistant the cachetero creeps up, and pierces his spinal marrow with a pointed dagger, which is the usual mode of slaughtering cattle in the Spanish shambles. To perform any of these vile operations is beneath a matador, who sometimes will kill such a bull by plunging the point of his sword into the vertebrae. The great danger gives dignity to this most difficult feat el descabellar. If the exact spot be hit death is immediate; if the aim misses, and the animal's side only is pricked, he dashes at the unprotected torero and frequently disables him. " Such is the fight with a single bull, each of which is repeated six or eight times with succeeding animals. The excitement of the spectators rises with each indulgence. After a short collapse, new desires are roused by fresh objects, and the fierce sport is recommenced, to cease only with the expiring day. " To discuss the metaphysics of the bull-fight would be quite out of place in any illustration of a purely artistical work. The spectacle undeniably combines many elements of the sublime and beautiful. It is impossible not to feel the magnificent effect of the assembled thou- sands, and the truly local and Spanish colour and circumstance. During some moments of painful details the foreign beholder is undoubtedly constrained to turn away his eyes ; but on the whole he continues to be XII. 246 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. Illustra- tions. Bull -fight the oldest popular amuse- ment. Ethics of hull- fighting. fascinated by the poetical and picturesque ferocity of this classical and real spectacle of life and death. " Be that as it may, the repulsive has been sedulously kept out of sight in these true and masterly sketches, which the preceding remarks will, it is hoped, have in some degree explained." We wish we could present our readers with some specimens of Mr. Price's drawings as well as of Mr. Ford's text. The pencil of the clever artist is well mated with the pen of the ready writer. We regret but one thing in their joint work, that one or two pages of letterpress had not been given to an his- torical and antiquarian notice of the sport from the earliest times such a sketch as Mr. Ford himself once contributed to the Quarterly Revieiv (No. CXXIV.). The volume would then have been not only excellent, but complete. It is in an historical and antiquarian point of view that the bull-fight, being the oldest, is also the most interesting of popular amusements. No other people's sport connects the distant past with the living pre- sent the world of the Forum and the Coliseum, and Christianity in the catacombs, with the world of parliaments, and printing, and Exeter Hall. We do not attempt to deny or palliate its barbarities. But we may ask what really popular spectacle has not shared in this blot since the days when the Athenian mob found its favourite show in the Agora and ^Eschylean drama ? Nor will we discuss the abstract question of man's right to amuse himself by killing SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 247 his lower fellow-beings ; but merely observe that in a bull-fight the pain inflicted bears a far smaller pro- portion to the enjoyment derived than it bears in many sports dear to England and orthodoxy. In Spain, the deaths of six or eight bulls and ten or twenty miserable horses, and a few bumps and broken ribs shared amongst twenty or thirty men, afford an afternoon of intense enjoyment to ten thousand people. In England, a Sir Fowell Buxton, hoarse and weary with the House and the platform, goes down into Norfolk, and for days together bags his fifty or hundred partridges, hares, or pheasants, not to mention those which he dismisses full of lead to deaths of lingering agony ; after which the honour- able gentleman probably makes a note, querulous about his bad sport, amongst sundry pious memo- randa against the sins of worldly-mindedness and self-indulgence. We confess we cannot see in what respect the matador, exposing (for bread) his em- broidered stomach to a bull's horns, is worse employed than the senator who, in thorn-proof leggings, lies in wait at the corner of a wood to mangle unwary phea- sants, and bring unsuspecting hares in sorrow to the grave. Certainly the able debater in over-alls and high-lows has no right to turn up his nose at his fellow-butcher, the poor semi- savage in tinsel and pumps, whose craft calls for at least ten times the coolness and dexterity required in his own perform- XII. Contrast with British " sport." 248 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XTI. Bull, fighting and game- preserving pros and con*. Bull. Fox. The bull- ring. ances. If the honourable gentleman assumes, or will venture to maintain such a right, then may he speedily fall into the hands of a few enlightened Spanish travellers, and become the bull of some social circle, with Mr. Ford to apply the banderillas del fuego, which he so well knows how to plant where they are deserved. For bull-fighting, as for game-preserving, it may be said that it is but fair in estimating the pros and cons to set against the pain endured by the victims the pleasures enjoyed by multitudes of the family, who never would have lived at all but for man's delight in depriving them of life. Were it not for the bull- rings of Seville and Madrid the cattle on a thousand sierras would be grievously diminished. Were it not for fox-hunting, adieu to the felicities of the vulpine domestic hearth in Wardley Wood, or Barkby Holt ; for assuredly, Reynard will not long survive his brother wolf, when squires and yeomen shall be weaned from bruising after the hounds across the ox-fenced pastures of Leicestershire. The bull-ring of Spain, in its form, arrangement, and many of its minute details, is precisely like the amphitheatres of imperial Rome, where the Dacian met the bold Briton, and where St. Paul fought with the Ephesian beasts. The architectural grandeur and solidity is of course altogether wanting; the plaza of Madrid in those respects standing in the SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 249 same relation to the amphitheatre of Merida, that the new suspension bridge over the river of Seville will stand to those noble arches which span the wild stream of Tagus beneath the rocks of Alcdntara. But as it is difficult to connect the sport, as it exists in Spain, with the Thessalian bull-fights com- memorated on a coin of Ceesar, and exhibited at Rome by Claudius and Nero, we must look for its immediate origin amongst the Moors of the Penin- sula. From the Moslem it was borrowed at a very early period by the Christians, and the Cid himself is said to have been the first sportsman who slew a bull from horseback. The first regular bull-fight on record is that which took place at Avila, in 1107, in honour of the marriage of Blasco Muiioz ; and the taste for the sport soon diffused itself over all Castile and Catalonia. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the city of Zamora was already provided with a public plaza de toros. Until the extinction of the dynasty of Austria the chief com- batants were always knights and nobles of high degree. Don Pedro Nino, famous for his piratical descent on the West of England, was an eminent performer, and so was Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru. Charles V., though a Fleming, slew a bull in the plaza of Valladolid, in honour of the birth of his son Philip II., a prince who never filled the shoes or saddle of his sire, nor ventured his Catholic XII. Thessalian bull-fight. Bull- fighting borrowed from Moors. First recorded bull-fight, 1107 Combat- ants for- merly . knights. D. Pedro Nino. Pizarro. Charles V. 250 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. Don Sebastian. The bull- ring in reign of Philip IV. Salgado's descrip- tion. person in any peril that he could avoid. Don Sebastian of Portugal was a keen and skilful torero ; and the bull-ring was one of the fields in which distinction was obtained by Philip IV., a man capable of almost everything but kingship. The reign of Philip IV. was perhaps the Augustan age of the aristocratic and knightly bull-ring. Trea- tises were written on the subject by Tapia, Bonifaz, and Torres, authors who wore the cross of Santiago ; and the performers vied with each other in the splendour of their equipments, and went into the plaza attended sometimes by a hundred, never less than fifteen or a dozen lackeys, in brilliant liveries. The pomp and circumstance of this glorious war against bulls is thus described by Diego Salgado, a Spaniard, who wrote in English, of this strange trans-pyrenean kind, in the reign of Charles II. : " Noblemen of singular magnanimity, being mounted upon horses in- comparable nimble and pretty, with costly harness likening the dignity of their riders and the splendour of the festival, appear in great state and pomp, whose grooms in a most decent manner carry the lances with which their masters intend to despatch the bulls. Their duty and charge is to irritate the fury and rage of the formidable beast. Those heroic minds managing their lances most dexterously, accomplish their noble purposes, very often by killing or wounding the foaming animals. Which if they fail to do, then the horses sustain great pre- judice, insomuch that their riders are dismounted, whom it behoves in that case to encounter with the bulls a-foot, lashing them with broad- swords, which if any decline to do, he is baffled and branded with the character of pusillanimity and cowardice. You may easily imagine that generous spirits will prefer death to such ignominy and reproach." SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 251 A splendid bull-feast was given to our Charles I. when he was at Madrid, making his vain court to the Infanta. Among other memorabilia of that show, a bull was killed by a man disguised in woman's clothes, to enhance the English prince's estimate of the daring of the Spanish dame. Lord Clarendon, who was present at the royal fiestas de toros, held in 1 649, in honour of the second marriage of Philip IV., reported that " in one day sixteen horses, the worst of which would that morning have brought three hundred pistoles, were slain, and four or five men, besides some maimed for life." Much bull-blood was likewise shed in honour of the nup- tials of Charles V., when the Duke of Medina- Sidonia greatly signalised himself in the plaza. In 1697, Don Juan de Velasco, newly appointed gover- nor of Buenos Ayres, happening to die of wounds received before the King at a farewell funcion de toros, his son was created by the grateful sovereign a " titulo " of Castile, and his daughter was made lady-in-waiting to the Queen. We doubt whether a peerage or place would be bestowed upon the family of the knight who should chance to fall in any new Eglintoun tournament that may be held in the Phoenix Park. Bull-fights were certainly far more common and far more bloody in the sixteenth century than they are now. Now it is only the capital and the great XII. Bull-fights, for Charles I. of Eng- land ; on second marriage of Philip IV.; and mar- riage of Charles V. Sixteenth century bull-fights 252 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. more bloody and fatal than now. Church averse to bull- fights. cities that can maintain regular plazas, and many considerable towns are unable to afford themselves the spectacle at all. But in 1613, Father Pedro de Guzman complained that the year before, at the feast of the Holy Cross, at Valladolid, ten persons had perished in the plaza; and he estimated that two or three hundred lives were annually lost in Spain by this sport, or, what a Scotch lawyer might call, this process of horning and poinding. " There is no city or town," he says, " hardly even a village, where each year bulls are not ' run ' once, twice, or even three times." At the grand mountain-city of Cuen9a, one mighty beast slew no less than seven men, an incident which created so great a sensation that a picture of the horned homicide, with his victims lying around him, was painted and hung up in a public place, to encourage the other bulls and bullyrooks. The sanguinary chances of the sport was a reason why the Church set its face against it, as it had done against tournaments, but with even less success. Pius V. let loose one of his Roman bulls against the Spanish animals, in which priests were forbidden to give the sacraments of the Church to those who were mortally wounded in the plaza ; and all ecclesi- astics who should attend the entertainment were de- clared, ipso facto, excommunicated. Nevertheless, the Church of Spain had its taurophile clergy, as SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 253 the Church of England has her sporting parsons. xn. Fray Francisco de Alco9er, who wrote on Games, in 1559, was of opinion that although prelates should abstain from the bull-ring, the sport which had been practised and loved by so many most Christian kings of Castile could not be unchristian ; that the bull- fighter escaped mortal sin if he avoided the bull's horns ; and that the spectator looking on from a well-grated window, sinned not at all. Doctor Juan de Eoa said the plaza was the best school for soldiers, both horse and foot ; and the belief of the vulgar that bull beef, killed there on saints' days, was a specific against fever and lunacy, seems a proof that the friars and parochial cle'rgy rather encouraged than condemned the popular pastime. One of the best balconies at the royal bull-feasts was always as- signed to the Inquisition and the great ecclesias- tics, and it was always well filled, as indeed might be expected of those whose function was to bait and burn heretics. The Jesuits alone preferred the parchment bulls of the Pope to the horned bulls of Belial, and stayed away ; but they took the precau- tion of compelling the abstinence of their younger companions by holding solemn functions in their churches at the same time that the more tempting /undone de toros was proceeding in the plaza. Mariana, the historian, as a Jesuit, wrote on the Mariana, anti-toresque side, discussing in his treatise, De 254 SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. XII. Decline of bull- fighting. Famous bull- fighters, and their feats. Spectaculis, the question, An agitatio taurorum sit licitaf and deciding that bull-bullying was sinful. But we think we can detect something of a lurking kindness for the condemned sport in the pride with which he dilates on the ferocity of the Spanish bull, and the dangers dared by the Spanish " agitator." When the star of the Bourbons rose upon Spain, that of the noble bull-ring set. The Frenchman, Philip V., turned up his nose at the national sport, and the Spanish nobility, to whose degeneration he mainly owed his throne, hastened to mould their ugly features after the royal model. But what the spectacle lost in dignity and brilliancy it gained, as modern amateurs think, in that perfection which art has reached in purely practical and professional hands. The matador, or bull-killer on foot, dates from the last century; and the skill and courage required in his most dangerous and difficult part soon threw the picador and the rest of the actors into the background. Candido, Rodriguez, Martin- cho, Eomero, Delgado (better known as Pepe Illo), and Conde, were amongst the most famous prede- cessors of Montes and the Chiclanero. Delgado, like Montes, described with his pen the feats which he performed with his sword. By these artists strokes of daring were introduced which had been undreamed of by the Velascos and Guzmans. Mar- tincho brought a chair into the plaza of Zaragoza, and SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS. 2 55 seated thereon, sword in hand, awaited the charge of the bull. Another time he stood upon a table, with gyves upon his ankles, and as the bull rushed upon his frail support, leaped over the beast's back. One Apinani met the bull with a pole, which he planted in front of his advancing nose, and swung him- self lightly over the horns and croupe of the beast a feat practised also by Montes, until the popu- lace, seldom intimidated by the danger of their slave, protested against their favourite's running so desperate a risk. Candido sometimes slew his bull, holding in his left hand his hat instead of the dis- tracting red flag. Pepe Illo, improving on the hint, advanced upon the levelled horns, holding out his watch. But for this, and other temerities, he finally paid with his life, being gored to death in the pre- sence of the Madrid public a public in which we fear St. Thomas of Villanueva would have found himself in a woeful minority if he had taken its sense upon his famous question " Can anything be more bestial than to prick a bull, in order to induce him to toss a man ? " XII. XIII. RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. 1 B, PRINCIPAL AND GENTLEMEN, The first duty which I have to per- form to-day is to thank you very sincerely for the high honour which you have done me in placing me in the chair of Rector of this ancient and famous University. With the distinction, 1 likewise accept all the responsibilities thereto at- tached ; and I hope to be able to discharge the duties of the post in such a manner as may not disappoint those who, at the recent election, were pleased to prefer my humble name to that of a noble Earl distinguished by high services rendered to the State. 2 The honour which you have conferred is valuable, not only for its own sake, not only because it was 1 Inaugural Address to the Students of the University of St. Andrews, delivered on installation as Rector of the University, on the i8th January 1863. 8 The Earl of Dalhousie. VOL. VI. R Perthshire Journal, Jan. 22, 1863. XIII. Acknow- ledgment of honour. RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Its value. Appeal to the young. Fortunes of their country in their hands. unexpected and unsolicited, but also because it has been conferred by young and generous hearts, whose sympathy and approval are more cheering and grate- ful to men of an elder generation than the givers can ever know until they themselves have ceased to be young. No one can look with any hope or interest into his own future, without looking earnestly and wistfully into the broader future of those who are following him in the journey of life. The limits of the one, and its possibilities, are already discernible. The more distant boundaries of the other give ampler room both for hope and achievement. All those whose duty it is to address mixed assemblages, single out the young as the objects of their most passionate appeals. The young heart, they know full well, is the kindliest soil for any seed they may have to sow, as it is also that in which the plant has the best chance of coming to maturity. It is therefore a high privilege to be selected by an audience wholly composed of the young, to address them in a few words of friendly counsel as to their present employ- ments and their future career. It is impossible to meet the assembled youth of a seminary of this rank without being struck by the thought, which cannot be too strongly pressed home to themselves, that theirs are the hands in which will soon be placed, in no inconsiderable degree, the future fortunes of their country. It will mainly RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. 2 S9 rest with you, and your contemporaries at our other seats of learning, whether the age which opens as you enter on the duties of life is to be a better or a worse portion of the world's history than that which is passing away ; whether it is to be an age of stagnation, or of feverish advance ending in retro- gression, or of orderly and triumphant progress ; whether intellectual life is to flourish in it, side by side with material prosperity; whether Scotland is to repose on her old laurels as the land of Napier and Adam Smith, of Watt and of Brewster, of Hume and Robertson, of Jeffrey and Carlyle, of Burns and Scott, and of Campbell and Aytoun ; or whether she is to produce other names worthy to be enrolled with these in the true golden book of this empire. In this great responsibility you are all jointly and severally concerned. There is one, and but one, way of meeting it. Let each one of you cultivate to the utmost the faculties with which he has been endowed, that he may bring them to the world's arena in the highest state of order and efficiency. That is the main purpose for which you are assembled in this University. You are here also to acquire habits of industry and application, the power of con- tinuously giving your minds to any subject until you have mastered it in its principles, and in its details. Lastly, you are here to store your minds with positive knowledge ; to provision them for the voyage of life, XIII. Scotland's future. Invocation to cultiva- tion. Purpose of univer- sities. 260 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Import- ance of improving opportu- nities. from the ancient storehouses and fountains ; and to obtain facility in using the keys of science, which hereafter may open for you the doors of the inner chambers of wisdom. I wish I could impress upon your minds the immense importance of improving your opportunities, and the bitterness of the unavailing regret with which you will look back on the neglect of them ; or convey to you some adequate idea of the price at which such opportunities would be purchased by some of us, for whom they are long since past and over. There is a time for all things a time for preparation and a time for action. When the latter hour has struck for us, we cannot by any device put back the hands of the clock. Prepared or not pre- pared, most of us must face the realities of life, and begin a sterner education under that hard taskmaster the world, who cares not where straw is found, but demands that bricks shall be made. Even those favoured few who, when their contemporaries are at work, may recur to the preparation for work, even they cannot recall the hours which they have lost, or the happy flexibility of faculty which they have wasted ; and they find themselves contending with obstacles far more serious than those from which they had before turned back, with powers rusted for want of use, and bad habits luxuriant from long indulgence. RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. 261 " To know That which before us lies in daily life Is the prime wisdom." That which lies before you, in this your academical life, is to learn the art of learning. You will never again have the choice of acquiring it on easier or on so easy terms ; and, if you succeed in acquiring it, it is an art which you will practise with profit and with pleasure to your dying day. The precise methods by which it is to be acquired, it is unneces- sary for me to attempt to describe, as it certainly would be presumptuous, in the presence of your distinguished Professors. Besides, the method must be discovered, in a great measure, by each man for himself. Our minds work in various ways, differing from each other as the tools of the carpenter differ. The saw, the chisel, the hatchet, and the plane are all made for cutting, but must be handled in differ- ent ways each in a way of its own, and none of them like the common knife, which can nevertheless be made to answer some of the purposes of all the four. Each man's experience will teach him the most effective mode of applying his own powers. The one thing needful is that they should be applied and kept in honest and healthy exercise. While I endeavour to press it upon you that you are here to submit your minds to a course of intel- lectual training, I do not forget that there is a moral XII T. Learn the art of learning. Methods various. Powers need exercise, 262 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XTTI. Moral dis- cipline. Duty of obedience to golden rule. discipline of at least equal importance to which you must betimes, and especially at this time, become accustomed. It is, in my opinion, a mistake to draw a broad distinction between these two kinds of train- ing, as if they were two distinct operations, and as if it were possible to choose the one and reject the other, and to carry on the one with success while the other is wholly neglected. Depend upon it this separation is not possible. Man cannot attain to any practice, or even to any just appreciation of what is true and beautiful in morals, without at the same time using and strengthening his intellectual powers. Nor can we exercise and improve our intel- lectual powers by any conceivable process which will not at the same time develop some of the most im- portant of our moral faculties. Self-control, self- denial, the habit of sacrificing the present to the future things lying at the foundation of all prac- tical virtue must be acquired before the high places of thought can be reached ; nor is there any surer way of acquiring them than by resolutely facing the hill of intellectual difficulty. Certainly one of your chief aims here ought to be to obey, in your studies, in your amusements, in your academic and social life, the golden rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." Like anything else worth learning, you will learn obedience to this rule more easily now than at a RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. 263 later period of life. The moral capacity of our nature, no less than its intellectual capacity, shrinks and stiffens if not brought early into active exercise. There is an error into which young students are apt to fall, at which I may here glance. It is an error to which those of a lively imagination are specially liable. They console themselves for neglect of their proper academical studies, and for their consequent deficiency in important branches of scholastic know- ledge, by the thought that they are pursuing in private some other reading which they find more attractive, and the results of which they persuade themselves will be of equal value. This is one of those flattering unctions which are ever at hand to soothe the stings of conscience. Work and play, even intellectual work and intellectual play, are two distinct things, and must not be confounded. Each is good in its way, and necessary for our intellectual and physical well- being, but neither can supply the place of the other. Of course it is possible to turn play into work, as Horace Walpole did, of whom it was said that after his serious business of collecting knick-knacks and chronicling gossip, he used to go and unbend his mind in the House of Commons. I doubt, however, whether this transformation is ever attempted or effected at college. Certain it is that the mind which has undergone the severe training of accurate scholarship and scientific reasoning, is in a very XIII. Error of indulging in private reading. Work and play. Wai pole's recreation. 264 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XTIT. More read- ing and less think- ing now-a- days. Desultory reading. Pleasure of books. different state of power and efficiency from that which has only disported itself in the flowery pastures of miscellaneous literature. It is also certain that the disciplined mind will derive much more advantage from subsequent desultory reading, will assimilate more quickly all that is nutritive in that circumam- bient atmosphere of print, in which we, of this age and country, live and move and have our being. I believe that even those who read very little now- a-days, read, or at least run their eyes over a greater amount of letterpress than was read a century ago by many who were true lovers of reading. For that very reason many of us, not naturally incapable of thought, think a good deal less. Never was there a time when so much loose and imperfect thought was served up by the aid of skilful cookery, and when it was of greater importance for the reader to keep his mental palate and digestive organs in a sound and healthy state. Do not understand me to speak with disparage- ment of desultory or general reading. In its proper place it is no less profitable than agreeable, and a taste for it is one of the happiest of inclinations. Books are a source of pleasure the purest and most lasting ; the wisest of men have found them the best of companions, as they are also, to use the apt words of a modern poet, the " Friends that can neither alter nor forsake." RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. 265 XIII. Extent, of printed matter. Special subjects. But in this companionship and friendship, free and various as it may be, there is great necessity for choice. Consider how enormous is the mass of real knowledge and thought that is now garnered in books ; how still more stupendous is the heap of sham knowledge, and second or tenth-hand thought of which they are the vehicles. Who ever yet glanced round the shelves of even a moderate library without encountering some book or books of which he had never before heard? Choose any subject, no matter how small, and visit a collection of books relating to that subject, or look into its bibliography, and you will find yourself in a hive of very strange and very busy bees, and will discover that even in the narrowest corner of literature, of the making of books there is no end. Some time since I visited a friend at Florence, and was shown into a noble room, about fifty feet long, nearly full of books. I remarked that he seemed to have collected a very fine Italian library. " Hardly Italian," he replied ; " for I have ... , Tuscany. nothing here but what relates to the history and literature of Tuscany." Sixteen years ago M. Du- plessis published his Bibliography of Books con- cerning Proverbs, in which he enumerated about one thousand separate works. A gentleman in Germany lately told me that he was thinking of editing a new edition, and that he had collected materials which would increase M. Duplessis' list Works on Proverbs. 266 RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Heraldry. British Museum. English publica- tions. Reading with a special purpose. threefold. A large octavo volume has lately ap- peared a Bibliography of French books of Heraldry ; and the French language, some fifteen years ago, already possessed six hundred treatises on the diseases of the vine. Think of the reading-room of the British Museum, with its magnificent circuit of four hundred and twenty feet of wall covered to the height of six feet with books of reference books, each of which may be supposed to be in frequent requisition by one or other of the readers. Lastly, turn over the pages of the London Publishers' Circular, a large annual volume, and behold the strong and steady stream of English books alone, which every year pours itself into the ocean of literature. In navigating this ocean, of which the stoutest mariner can pass over only some fractional part, it is surely well to keep some port in view. Reading with a special purpose even at leisure hours, with reference to some favourite period of history, or other branch of knowledge, gives an interest to all kinds of reading and a flavour not their own to very dry books. It is a habit into which lovers of books almost unconsciously fall ; yet it would be well for each man to select his sub- ject with deliberation, and with due consideration to the time at his disposal, and the opportunities within his reach. Many of you have probably already made, or will RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS 267 soon make, choice of a profession. This important subject has lately been so admirably and thoroughly treated in a book with which you all are or ought to be familiar, that I should be guilty of presump- tion if I did much more than refer you to the pages of Beginning Life. 1 Those of you who are destined for any of the branches of the public service at home or abroad, which are entered through competitive examinations, may be said to have begun life already. The dependence of success, in these examinations, on industry and diligence at college is too close and obvious to need illustration. Although the con- nection between success in other paths of life and a creditable college career is less obvious, and per- haps less close, the two things are, notwithstanding, intimately connected. Let me call your attention to what Principal Tulloch says of the learned pro- fessions, which he characterises as "the especially intellectual professions, demanding vivacious intel- lectual interest, and powers of independent thought " in all who would pursue them with honour to them- selves and usefulness to others. In these professions, while solid professional learning is essential, a large and various stock of knowledge is of immense value. What morsel of erudition or scrap of science is there which may not at some time or other be turned to 1 Beginning Life. By John Tulloch, D.D., Principal of St. Mary's College. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1862. XIII. Choice of a profession. Competi- tive exa- minations. Learned profes- sions. Knowledge always useful 268 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XJII. to the lawyer : Physician. good account by the lawyer, whose business, touch- ing, at all points, the whole circle of human interest and passion, may lead him into any subject on which dispute and litigation are possible, and who may, one day, have to deal with the foundations of British liberty, or the subtleties of international law, and the next to explain, clearly and neatly, the qualities of a coal or the fashion of a bobbin ? Let those of you who intend to practise the healing art listen to the opinion of Sir Benjamin Brodie a man whose own remarkable attainments justified the high stan- dard which he prescribed for others. "There is no profession," says this eminent man, " in which it is more essential that those engaged in it should culti- vate the talent of observing, thinking, and reason- ing for themselves, than it is in ours. How many branches of knowledge there are which, if not directly, are indirectly useful in the study of path- ology, medicine, and surgery. And all general knowledge, whether of moral or physical science, tends to expand the intellect, and to qualify it better for particular pursuits." 1 But, in truth, the bar and medicine are in small danger of being overcrowded with incompetent or uncultivated men, for in them such men have so little chance of employment that their connection 1 Discourse addressed to the Students of St. George's Hospital. 8vo, London, 1843, pp. 16-18. RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. 269 with either profession will be little more than in name. But in the sacred profession no such safe- guard exists. Into all sections of the Church there are ways of ingress from which no means have yet been found of excluding some persons very far below the mark of their high calling. How heavy, then, is the responsibility of those who are led, either by inconsiderate zeal or coarse worldly motives, to undertake awful duties for which they are not intellectually fitted ! I can imagine no position more humiliating to a man of any sense and feeling than to find himself, Sunday after Sunday, emptying the church which he has undertaken to endeavour to fill, and deterring his neighbours from the worship to which it is his chief business to draw them. But supposing the young aspirant for ordination to possess all the intellectual vivacity and spiritual fervour necessary for the effective performance of sacred functions, I see in the present aspect of opinion within and without the Church, strong reasons why he should pause and ponder maturely, before he binds himself with an irrevocable vow. I need hardly remind you in this place of the great changes of opinion to which all associations of men are liable. The law of change is abundantly exem- plified in the history of your own university. It is a Protestant university, founded by Papal bull, and endowed by prelates who shed the blood of Pro- XIII. Church. Reasons for caution. Changes of opinion. Changes in the univer- sity. 270 RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Changes in thought, in litera- ture, theology, churches. testant martyrs. It has seen various kinds of Pro- testantism established as the religion of the State. It has also seen the rise and growth of several flourish- ing Protestant sects. Men can no more go on think- ing the faded thoughts than following the superseded callings of distant times. It would be as impossible to restore any human interest to many of the ques- tions which most strongly moved the wisest minds of the fifteenth century, as it would be to revive the business of the monkish scribe and establish a scriptorium in Printing-House Square. Even of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to which we are linked by so many golden chains of poetry and eloquence, immortal as the minds which fashioned them of the centuries of Shakspeare and Jonson, of Bacon and Milton how much of the wit is now dim, how much of the humour is evaporated, how much of the thought is to us alien and unintelligible ! Articles and formulas of belief the most precise, the most consummate theories of ecclesiastical polity, are not exempt from the law of decay to which other productions of the human mind are subject. Look at what has lately happened in that Church of which it is the boast and pride that she is " from change and all mutation free." Pius IX., exasperated at the loss of his territories, fulminates excommunications into the air, addressed to all whom it may concern those concerned being two RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. 271 persons only, the King of Italy and the French xm. Emperor, a proceeding interesting to the world, in so far as it shows that the Pope is somewhat ashamed of his once formidable spiritual weapon. Mark the effect of the thunder among his own priesthood. Of the Italian clergy, upwards of 8,000, headed by the learned Passaglia, approach him with a petition praying that he will now resign the whole of that temporal power of which he has repeatedly and publicly declared that he cannot part with the smallest portion, and the invasion of a part of which had so lately called forth his severest spiritual censure. While an im- portant section of the Italian clergy is thus giving a practical exemplification of Catholic unity, some of our divines, eminent for learning, piety, and worth, are evincing uneasiness under the pressure of standards and formulas, which they had previously accepted and subscribed. Questions have been raised by them, certainly in no unbecoming spirit, on sub- jects on which a few years ago speculation would hardly have been considered allowable to persons of their cloth. They have endeavoured to show how old ideas may bear new meanings, how old truths may be brought into new combinations. Even those who have entered the lists as their antagonists, pro- fessing to stand strictly upon the ancient ways, seem sometimes to have indulged if I may venture to judge in novelties of their own. 272 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Advice to theolo- gical students. Upon these controversies this is no time or place to enter. But their existence, and the interest they excite, betoken a time of unusually free and active inquiry. I cannot help pointing out the importance of these questions, and this temper of the time, to you who are preparing yourselves for the ministry. I ask you seriously to consider how painful must be the position of the man who has to reconcile convictions which have been slowly growing up in his matured mind with vows taken, perhaps somewhat hastily, in his youth, and who, even if he succeeds in satisfying his own conscience, knows that the meaning which he now attaches to these vows is not the meaning which they commonly bear amongst those who have also taken them. With a mind fully endowed and cultivated, and a faith securely fixed, a minister of the Gospel stands second to none in the dignity and usefulness of his calling. But if he, imperfectly informed him- self, doubting himself, undertakes to enlighten the ignorance and solve the doubts of others, then he is, of all professional men, the most superfluous and the most miserable. Let me entreat you, while you are still without the pale of the one calling which a man can hardly quit without some shadow of discredit, to consider well the difficulties which lie on the threshold and the difficulties which you may find within. Recollect that on the day RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. 273 you enter it, you engage that your then thoughts xm. and opinions, on a wide range of complex subjects, shall be the thoughts and opinions of your whole life. If you feel any misgiving as to your power of keeping this engagement, let the painful conflicts on this very matter which have fallen to the lot of others, warn you, while there is yet time, to seek some other field of exertion. If, on the other hand, you feel no such misgiving, and resolve to continue your preparation for the ministry, remember that that preparation demands the strenuous exercise of all your faculties ; and especially set before you that precept of the Gospel which you aspire to preach, which bids you " Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." In conclusion, I shall take the liberty of offering J ' Hector. a few remarks on the nature and duties of the office in virtue of which I have the honour to address you. The office, as it at present exists in our Universities, is, as you are aware, the creation of the Universities Act of 1858. It was not created without some Creation. discussion, though, as that discussion took place, not in Parliament, but at a full meeting of Scotch members, no report of it was published. Those objections who objected to the creation did so on the ground that, as the example of Glasgow rectorial elections was sure to be followed, the elections would be apt to be mere political contests ; and that such VOL. VI. S Office of 274 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XIIT. Support. University representa- tion in Parlia- ment. contests might both interfere with academical dis- cipline, and have the effect of introducing amongst the students habits of premature political partisan- ship. On the other side, it was argued that it was a wholesome principle in a free country to introduce a good deal of the popular element into all our institutions ; that the students had never yet made any choice that was not creditable to them ; and that when the office ceased to be merely honorary, political leaders would be less ready than in former times to accept it. I think I may safely say that the majority who decided the question, and the minority who acquiesced in their decision, did so in the hope that the political element in the elections would be diminished rather than increased by the proposed changes. If there be a danger of its again unduly predominating, I think it will arise from the belief, natural perhaps, but unsound nevertheless, that some advantage will arise to the Universities from their rectors being distinguished politicians, or at least members of the House of Commons. 1 Desiring very earnestly to see our Universities enjoy direct representation in that House, I must take the liberty of warning you who, I hope, may one day vote for a member 1 This impression was sufficiently apparent in some of the speeches at the meetings preliminary to the late rectorial elections at St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. RECTORIAL ADDRESS: ST. ANDREWS. 275 for the Scottish Universities against supposing xin. that Parliamentary rectors are likely to fructify into Parliamentary representatives. Suppose some English borough, "much bemused in beer" and bribery, to be disfranchised next month, and the Scotch members to make an effort to secure the seat for our Universities observe what is not unlikely, under present circumstances, to happen. Other claimants advocating the claims of London, Middlesex, Cork, and I know not how many other constituencies may say to us "You are making a very unreasonable demand ; your Universities have three rectors in the House already two of them the Prime Minister and his first lieutenant ; they are, in fact, almost as strongly represented in point of numbers as the English Universities, and we protest against giving them a fourth seat." My two distinguished colleagues, with whom it is an honour to be associated, are, I fear, but too likely to take the same course and use the same argument. This adverse argument naturally arises from selecting rectors from the House of Commons. Until Parliament will consent to do justice to the claims of the Scotch Universities, their real repre- sentatives are and must be the members for the towns and counties in which they are situated. Your rectors have certain duties to perform here, and they ought to be chosen chiefly with a view 2 7 6 RECTORIAL ADDRESS : ST. ANDREWS. XIII. Conclusion. to the efficient performance of these duties with due regard, of course, had to personal character and not with a view to other functions which cer- tainly do not belong to the office, and which can hardly be safely assumed. It only remains for me to thank you for the attention with which you have heard me, and to announce my intention to give an annual ten-guinea prize, during my tenure of office, for the best English essay the subject of the first of which will ere long be made public. XIV. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE* T is difficult to read any book with- out receiving certain impressions of the character of the author, and impossible to read one which interests us without forming some theory as to his character in our own minds. If the style be anywhere the man, it must be in historical writing. No man can describe the doings of men without unfolding some part of his own human nature, and showing the qualities of his judgment and the tendency of his sympathies. The readers of Hume and of Gibbon would have con- structed for themselves a Hume and a Gibbon had Mr. Hill Burton never collected the letters or written his admirable life of the one, or had Lord Sheffield sup- pressed the autobiography of the other. When an author is personally known to us it seems as if we XIV. A book re- flects its author. Style. 1 An Address delivered to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, on the 3rd of November 1866, at the opening of the Session. 2 7 8 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. Hallam. Macaulay. Subject. Historians of their own times. could detect the very sound of his voice in almost every passage of his works. Open a volume of Mr. Hallam, and you will be sure to remark some proof of the scrupulous honesty of that great writer, of his care not to decide on imperfect evidence, of his anxiety to avoid saying more than he exactly knew, or ob- taining credit for having himself investigated that which he had taken upon trust. Look into a volume of Lord Macaulay, and in the first page of fascinating narrative or brilliant criticism, in the lucid state- ment, the ingenious theory, the convincing argu- ment, or even in the sparkle of illustration or allusion, you will find strong traces of that perfect self-confi- dence which originated Lord Melbourne's saying " I wish I were only as sure about any one thing as Macaulay is about everything 1 " In this institution, where history so frequently engages your attention, it appeared to me that some remarks on certain varieties of the historical style might not be unacceptable or out of place. My desire being to get at the man in the style, I shall confine myself to a class of writers who offer us pecu- liar facilities for attaining some personal knowledge of them those who have written on their own times. That fragment of his own time which an author exhibits in himself is often to his reader, as it cer- tainly was to himself, the most valuable portion of his salvage from a submerged and vanished world. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 279 From this class, and from the sixteenth century, I will select four a Spanish soldier of fortune, a Scot- tish divine, a Venetian statesman, and a French magistrate. Amongst records of personal adventure the True History of the Conquest of New Spain, 1 by Bernal 1 Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de Nueva Espana, escrita por el capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, uno de sus conquistadores. Sacada d luz por el P.M. Fr. Alonso Remon ; 4to, Madrid, 1632. This is the first edition. The best is that in the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles of Ribadeneyra, voL xxvi. ; 8vo, Madrid, 1853, with a preface by Enr. de Vedia. There are two English translations, by Maurice Keatinge, 4to, London, 1800, and by John Ingram Lockhart, London, two vols. 8vo, 1844. In the copy of the first edition of the Histwia in the Advo- cates' Library are the following notes : "El Dr. Robertson en su libro intitulado History of America hablando del libro de B al Diaz del Castillo dize, ' it contains a prolix minute con- fused narrative of all Cortes' operations, in such a rude vulgar style, as might be expected from an illiterate soldier,' despues anade, ' his book is one of the most singular that is to be found in any language.' Vease torn. 2 pag. 477 de la edicion de 8vo, 1788. El Dotor se ha equivocado en pensando que la historia de Bernal Dias del Castillo fue" de su mano. La verdad es que puso sus papeles entre las manos del Padre Fr. Alonso Remon Coronista G^n^ral de la orden de la Merced Red? de Cautivos, hombre muy docto predicador y autor de mas de 40 tractados sobre differentes materias de manera que su estilo no pudia llamarse el de ' illiterate soldier.' Yo conoci muy bien el Dotor Robertson, y puedo certificar que no savia bastantamente la lengua Espanola para averiguar si el estilo fu bueno o malo." D. S. Edimb? y Julio 17 de 1798. " Since writing the above, I have seen a translation of this work by Mr. (sic), who, with that facility of blunder which is attributed to his countrymen, has continued the mistake Dr. R. gave rise to." The translator who continued Dr. Robertson's mistake was doubtless Keatinge. I have been unable to identify the writer of the note and owners of the initials D. S. If Remon really wrote the work, the fact seems to have been unsuspected either by Torquemada, who mentions (in his Monarchia Indiana) that he himself knew Bernal Diaz, or by Nic. Antonio, or by Prescott, or by Mr. Ticknor. Don Enrique de Vedia, however, in his notice of Bernal Diaz and his book (Bib. de Autores Espanoles, vol. xxvi. pp. v.-viii.) cites some remarks from a XIV. Spanish, Scotch, Venetian, French. Bernal Diaz. z8o ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. His history. Diaz del Castillo, holds a very high place, on account as well of the strange and romantic events which it relates, as of its interest as a brilliant page in the history of a great people. By Cortes and his band of conquerors, the civilisation of the old world was brought face to face with the highest example of the civilisation of the new. In Bernal Diaz the collision of these two forces and two races found a chronicler of tolerable intelligence, and of perfect candour and veracity. His book was composed in his old age, about forty years after the events recorded, at San- tiago in Guatemala, where he had settled, and of MS. Historic/, de Guatemala, written about 1689, by Fra? de Fuentes y Guzman Jimenez de Urrea, a great-great-grandson of Bernal Diaz, who says he had read with great care and interest the original rough copy (original borrador) of his ancestor's Verdadera Historia, and compared it with the printed volume, and that the result of the comparison was to show that the text had been tampered with, both by omission and inter- polation. It is to be hoped that the MS., as prepared for the press, may still lie hidden in some safe corner, and that we may one day have the old Conquistador's story as he himself told it Vedia informs us that two editions of the book were issued at Madrid in 1632, one with an engraved frontispiece, and printed on very bad paper, and the other without the frontispiece, but printed in better style ; and that the con- tents of the two editions are the same, except that in the first only is found the chapter describing the inundation of Guatemala, in 1541, by a "volcano de agua" In my copy of the edition of 1632, the history ends with cap. ccxi. on the back of folio 254, but there is also the engraved frontispiece or title-page by I. de Courbes, as well as a letterpress title. The copy in the Advocates' Library has only the latter title, but it is in other respects similar to mine. The collation of my copy is two titles, five preliminary leaves, ff. 254, paged only on one side, and six leaves of Tabla de los Capitulos. Keatinge's translation omits the chapter de- scribing the inundation, and he has divided the book into chapters of his own ; Lockhart's translation contains the inundation, and has ccxiiL chapters. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 281 which he was a magistrate. He wrote, he says, " from his memory and his note-book," chiefly to correct the blunders of Lopez de Gomara, a chaplain of Cortes, who had published a History of the Indies in which, in Bernal Diaz's opinion, the chief had received more praise, and his companions less than was their due. He set forth from Medina del Campo, to make his fortune in the New World, in 1514, and landed in Cuba. A few chapters of his book are devoted to the earlier voyages in which he took part, but the main action and interest of his narrative begin in the nineteenth, where the Governor of Cuba fits out the expedition of Hernando Cortes, in 1518. After visiting various points on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, they pushed,, in the spring of 1519, from the harbour of Vera Cruz into the interior. A few battles, in which sixteen horses, thirty-three cross- bows, sixteen muskets, and some small cannon, made 500 Spaniards more than a match for vast multitudes of Indians by no means wanting in courage and resolution, resulted in the conquest of Tlascalla, the capital of an important tribe at war with Mexico. This conquest the prudence of Cortes turned into an offensive and defensive alliance. He then determined to occupy the country, and as an unanswerable reply to those of his followers who urged the dangers and difficulties of this daring XIV. DIAZ. Its object. Goes to the New World. Cuba. Mexico. Conquest of Tlascalla. 282 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. City of Mexico. Monte- zuma seized. scheme, he destroyed the vessels which had brought them from Cuba. Aided by the Tlascallans, and after a considerable interchange of hard blows and fair words, Cortes led his men in force into the city of Mexico that wondrous Venice of the West, rising from the bosom of an inland sea in one of the fairest regions of the earth, and in its size, population, splendour and wealth, surpassing the wildest of the dreams which had for thirty years fired the imagination of Europe. The monarch of Mexico, the great Montezuma, was a despot of a mild and feeble character, inclined at one time to oppose the invader by arms, and at another to receive him as the mysterious western stranger, whose conquest of the country was to be the fulfil- ment of an ancient prophecy. The aristocracy and the priesthood were, by a large majority, hostile to the Spaniards. Cortes, perceiving the extreme peril to which he and his handful of adventurers were exposed, determined to seize the person of Monte- zuma and hold him as a hostage in his own capital. This audacious plan was successfully executed ; and for some weeks the government of Mexico was carried on under the orders of Cortes. But a new danger threatened him from another quarter. The Governor of Cuba, who had repented of entrusting him with the expedition, and had endeavoured to recall it, fitted out a new and stronger armament, ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 283 and ordered its commander, Narvaez, to follow Cortes and bring him back dead or alive. With his small Spanish force and what aid he could derive from the friendly Indian tribes, Cortes had to meet 1,300 well-equipped Spaniards and So horse, and at the same time to hold the city of Mexico. Leaving a detachment to guard Montezuma, he returned to the coast, and by a singularly happy combination of diplomacy, generalship and force, he contrived, to capture Narvaez and win over a greater part of his followers. Thus reinforced, he hurried back to Mexico, But his lieutenant had not acted with the prudence of the chief. Cortes found the city in open revolt, and he was obliged to make the terrible midnight retreat, known as the Woeful Night, and, after many desperate conflicts, returned to Tlascalla with 440 wounded Spaniards and 20 horses, his arsenal of European weapons being reduced to 1 2 crossbows and 7 muskets. The winter of 1520-21 was spent in diligent recruitment and preparation, and in minor expeditions, which had the effect of strengthening the alliances of Cortes amongst the Indian tribes. At Easter he reviewed, at Tezcuco, a friendly town on the lake of Mexico, a force of about 950 Spaniards, including 84 cavalry, of whom only 194 were armed with crossbows and muskets. He had a few cannon, sufficient to arm twelve brigantines, built during XIV. DIAZ. Narvaez' mission to bring back Cortes. Narvaez captured by Cortes. The Woe- ful Night. Forces of Cortes. 284 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. Style of narrative unpreten- tious. the winter, which lay ready for service on the lake ; and from 20,000 to 30,000 Indians were enlisted under his banners. With this force he laid siege to Mexico, and about the middle of August it was once more in his power. Other expeditions of Cortes and his conquerors are related in subsequent chapters ; but the main interest of the book lies in the first advance upon Mexico, the disastrous flight, and the long siege, and final conquest of the Indian city. The old soldier relates all these marvellous ex- ploits and memorable events with a mingled sim- plicity and shrewdness, which makes his history one of the most delightful books in the language of Lazarillo and Don Quixote. From its first line, where he announces his departure from Castile, in the train of Pedro Arias de Avila, the governor of the Spanish mainland, in 1514, to the last words of his preface, written, as he says, in the very loyal city of Guatemala, on the 26th day of February 1568, where he implores the unknown printers, into whose hands it may fall, " not to take away or add a single syllable," it bears the stamp of the man and the age. Disclaiming any pretension to literary skill or fame, he speaks with profound respect, in which there may be a touch of sarcasm, of the historian Gomara, whose errors he desires to correct. He is himself, as he frequently tells us, a rude ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 285 soldier, quite unfit to enter the lists of lettered controversy with a licentiate and chaplain, to whom, however, he administers some severe thrusts in the concluding sentences of many of his chapters ; but his criticisms are always expressed in the language of a courteous cavalier, and generally tempered by words of regret that so much beautiful writing should have unwittingly been made the vehicle of falsehood, and that so learned an historian should have been so egregiously misled. For his time and country, Bernal Diaz seems to have been a well-read man. The monastic institu- tions must have brought many of the black-letter books, of which Spanish literature chiefly consisted, to the New World before the close of his career. His knowledge of Latin, he tells us, did not justify him in hazarding on a translation of the motto of Cortes. Nevertheless, he was fairly conversant with ancient history. The siege and fall of Mexico re- mind him of the similar fate of Jerusalem ; and when he records how he heard Cortes, on signing the death-warrants of certain mutineers, regret that he had learned to write, he remembers the similar observation of the barbarous Emperor Nero at the promising commencement of his reign. He had not only read Gomara's chronicle with great care, but he had detected the evil influence of that partial chaplain in the historical works of Paul Jovius and XIV. DIAZ. His know- ledge and reading. 286 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. Style simple. Dr. Illescas. His allusions to Amadis and the romances of chivalry are numerous : he compares certain living Mexican artists to Michael Angelo and Berruguete ; and at the end of the book he boasts that he had been in 119 battles, the precise number ascribed, he says, by historians, to the Emperor Henry IV. But his historical allusions are chiefly classical, according to the fashion of his age, a fashion of which he gives a somewhat remark- able instance and illustration in a speech of Cortes. At the close of the siege of Mexico, a dispute arose between two Spanish captains about the capture of the king. The Mexican monarch had surrendered himself to the commander of one of the brigantines, but the commander-in-chief of the flotilla claimed the honour of the prize. Cortes decided that so important a question could be resolved only by the Emperor Charles V. himself ; and he then warned his officers of the danger of differences for the future, by telling them a story, not of the Moorish wars, or of the later Italian campaigns of the last reign, but one out of Sallust, of the unhappy results of the quarrel which Marius had with Sylla about the capture of Jugurtha. The style of Bernal Diaz is always simple and natural, sometimes rising into vigorous eloquence, sometimes declining into gossiping garrulity. He was so impressed with the greatness of the achieve- ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 287 ments of the little band of conquerors to which he xiv. was so proud to have belonged that he considered nothing undeserving of record that a good memory had retained of those immortals. He has given us a most minute muster-roll of them, and in not a few instances, descriptions of their persons and character, and notices of their subsequent fortunes. Some of his portraits are most elaborate, as, for example, those of Cortes with his noble countenance and win- ning smile, his velvet cap and gold medal, his chain and his great diamond ring ; Alvarado, " beautiful and strong, with so cheerful an aspect that the Mexi- cans called him Sunshine ; " Sandoval, with his curly locks, massive shoulders, and bandy legs ; boastful Pedro de Ircio, whom they called " the Agramant of many words and few deeds ; " the gigantic Luis, who was nicknamed " our little boy ; " and of Christoval de Olea, of the powerful frame, who died in saving the life of Cortes, and over whom, as a townsman of his own town of Medina del Campo, Bernal Diaz drops an especial tear, saying, " Even as I now write my heart yearns to him, and I think I see him, with his fine presence and great valour, as I have often seen him when we were fighting side by side." He tells us how some heroes died in the Woeful Night, others in captivity amongst the Indians ; how some were sacrificed and eaten, and others died in their beds ; how one went home to Castile a rich man, a second 288 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. xrv. rose to be a chief-justice, a third became an inn- keeper; how some turned monks or hermits, while others were hanged for sedition or violence. Of the horses which formed part of the original force we have a very careful catalogue, with a notice of the colour, points, paces and qualities of each. We are twice introduced to a grey mare, belonging to Alonso Puerto carrero, which Cortes purchased at Cuba with the gold fringe cut from the bottom of his robe of state. But another grey mare, " very powerful, fast, and handy, which we commonly called bobtail," appears to have been the better horse. Although thus minute in some of his reminis- cences, our old soldier does not pretend to recollect everything, and where his tenacious memory is at fault, he says so with a candour which inspires us with confidence in his veracity. In the more impor- tant portions of the narrative, its current flows with great breadth and clearness, and the reader is made to share both the adventures and the feelings of the Spaniards. The New World is spread before us with its vast valleys and soaring mountains, its fields of unknown produce, its forests of tropical vegetation ; and we sympathise for the moment with the enthusi- astic scouts who return to Cortes with the intelli- gence, that from yonder hill-top they have descried a great city built entirely of silver. We take part in the horrors of the Woeful Night, and in the carnage ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 289 of the siege ; we see the fierce encounters on the xiv. causeways and around the pyramid shrines, on whose summits the Christian prisoners are sacrificed to the idols ; and our ears are filled with the ceaseless boom- ing of the dismal drum of the war-god. Neither the stately Castilian of Solis, nor the beautiful English of Robertson and Prescott, in spite of the far ampler store of materials at the command of these great writers, have added much to the tale of wonder so simply and finely told by the veteran companion of Cortes. To break down the monopoly of Mexican glory which Gomara sought to secure, and in the opinion of Bernal Diaz had to a great extent actually secured for Cortes, and to vindicate the fame of his com- panions, were, as we have seen, the motives which impelled the honest soldier to unwonted literary exertion. " The chronicler Gomara," he complains, " is always saying Cortes did this, went there, came back from yonder, and many other things that will not hold water. Had Cortes really been, as Gomara says, made of iron, he could not have been every- where and done everything himself. It would have been enough to say that he acted like a good captain, as he always was ; and I must say that over and above the great mercies which Our Lord showed us in all our deeds, it is also manifest that grace and wisdom were given to our soldiers to counsel Cortes VOL. VI. 290 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. xiv. in such wise that what was done was done well. DIAZ Indeed," he continues, "the chronicler Gomara makes no mention of our ever being killed or wounded, weary or sick, but writes as if we had found every- thing done ready to our hands. How ill-informed he must have been by those who made him write thus ! Surely it might have occurred to him that when we conquistadors saw his history we should think it right to declare the truth." l In exposing the partiality of the chaplain for his chief, the old soldier takes care to avoid the similar error of unduly exalting the followers. " Cortes," he frankly acknowledges, " deserves the praise and glory of all our victories, and greater honour than any Eoman conqueror." The great adventurer is generally the central figure in his canvas. Only on two occasions does he represent him as sinking under the terrible exigencies which so often surrounded him ; once, when, returning from the coast, he found Mexico in revolt, and received his prisoner Monte- zuma with impolitic discourtesy; and once again, when, weary and wounded, and after a severe reverse during the siege, he resigned for a brief space the chief command to Sandoval. If the claims of the leading officers to the credit of any particular exploit seem doubtful, Bernal seldom decides in their favour 1 Cap. 66. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 291 without assigning his reasons, and he sometimes xiv. decides against them. The story of Alvarado's leap, during the Woeful Night when that popular hero is said to have swung himself on his lance over a very wide breach in the causeway, he examines and dis- allows, though the evidence has induced other his- torians to accept it. Of his own feats of arms he speaks with great modesty, claiming for himself little credit beyond that of being always ready to do his duty, and generally present when fighting was going on. He records with pride that he was amongst those who first came in sight of Mexico before the siege ; that he helped to rescue a brigantine from the enemy ; and that Sandoval thereupon reported his conduct to Cortes in terms which he did not choose to repeat, but which were well known in the army; and he dwells with some satisfaction on his own prowess in delivering himself from a party of Mexicans who had nearly carried him off to the altar of the war-god. In proof of the hardships to which the conquistadors were inured, he says he had got so reconciled to sleep- ing in armour, that he had some difficulty in breaking himself in to the practice of undressing and sleeping in a bed ; and, he adds, " Even now, in my old age, when I visit the townships of my commandery, I seldom take a bed with me, and when I do, it is only in order that the gentlemen who accompany me may not suppose that I have not got a good one." For 292 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. Character of Cortes. this little bit of egotism he apologises to the reader, assuring him that he mentions the circumstance not out of vanity, but to show what hard work the conquistadors had to do, and how thoroughly they learned to do it. The character of Cortes is brought before us with remarkable distinctness, by means of a hundred minute touches, throughout the work, and we know him far better than most historical personages, and almost as well as we know his countryman Don Quixote, or our countryman Sir Dugald Dalgetty, even before we come to the chapter in which Bernal Diaz finally portrays and dismisses him. We make his acquaintance at Cuba, as the dandy and duellist ; admire the skill with which he obtains his expe- ditionary command from a jealous governor, and the adroitness with which he keeps it, in spite of all the governor's efforts to dislodge him ; and we are thus prepared to follow with interest the career, chequered with success and disaster, in which he proves himself to be great amongst the leaders and rulers of men. Full of ambition, courage, energy, and resource, it is very seldom he fails in foresight or caution, and if he is betrayed into a false step, he as soon recovers his balance. No means by which his object can be gained, comes amiss to him ; he can be magnanimous, generous, gentle, mean, treacherous, or cruel, by turns, or all at once ; ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 293 and is always prepared to throw a veil of plausibility . xiv. over the worst transactions, or clothe brave deeds Duz in noble and appropriate language. After battles in which he has shown the genius of a general, and the valour of a gladiator, he proceeds to divide the spoil in the spirit of a cardsharper. If the plunder be gold and pearls, what with the Emperor's fifths, and the commander-in-chief's fifths, and the charges for the cost of the expedition, the poor adventurers find that there is a mere pittance to be divided amongst them. If the booty consists of Indian women, the young and handsome ones are drafted off during the night before the partition, and only the old and ugly remain to reward the brave who had deserved the fair. After such tricks have been played two or three times, murmurs are heard on all sides. " How comes it," asks one poor fellow, "that we seem to be living under two Emperors ? " " Indeed," says another, looking ruefully at his small handful of gold dust, " I am thankful that the governor, considering the vast deductions and calculations he makes, has not brought me in a debtor instead of a creditor." When the discontent grew serious, Cortes would privately give a bar of gold here, or a gold chain there, and scatter promises all around with a lavish hand, and then, says Bernal, " he would summon us all into his presence and make us a speech of most 294 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. xiv. mellifluous words." He would tell them that he owed all he had to their valour, and that the whole plunder yet taken was but a trifle to what was to come ; and if such mellifluous words were not enough, he would resort to further bribes and promises, until tolerable good-humour was restored. Although our old soldier freely expresses his opinion of the meanness of these proceedings, they do not seem to have much diminished the affection and admiration with which he regarded his great leader. When he relates how Cortes lost his finest jewels in escaping from the wreck of his galley at Algiers, 1 he speaks of the loss in a tone of friendly sympathy, wholly overlooking an occasion for moralising which some biographers with less personal provocation would not have failed to improve to the very dregs. Utterly unscrupulous about what he himself did in this world, Cortes was curiously anxious about what other men believed respecting the next. His zeal for the headlong conversion of Indians amounted to a passion. Allowing a good deal for his desire of pleasing influential persons at home by its ex- hibition, it is impossible to believe that this zeal was wholly, or even in great measure, fictitious. It seemed almost as if he laboured under an aber- ration of mind, or as if powerful intellects were in 1 Cap. 203. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 295 that age liable to be affected by impulses now un- xiv. known. He tried to convert savage tribes at first meeting with them, before he had gained their confidence, or obtained any trustworthy means of communicating with them. His chaplain, a man of sense and courage, sometimes declined to deliver the unseasonable sermons which his chief desired him to preach, sometimes interfered for the pro- tection of the native idols which his chief would have compromised the safety of the expedition by destroying. When the good father consented to preach, his sermon was usually followed by a supple- mentary exhortation by the commander-in-chief him- self. The channel by which these Gospel streams reached j the Mexican mind, was the mouth of a woman of remarkable ability, the Indian concubine of Cortes. Bernal Diaz records all these proceedings with perfect gravity, and without appearing to per- ceive in them any tinge of absurdity and indecency. In like manner, when Montezuma declines to be converted by Cortes, or hustled out of the old reli- gion of his race into one of which he comprehends nothing, the chronicler reports the reasonable words of the unhappy monarch without being in the least affected by their force. In attempting to guess at the religious opinions of a Spaniard of the sixteenth century from his writings, we must always recollect how very likely 296 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. xiv. any suspicion of heterodoxy was to get a man into trouble even in Guatemala. Bernal Diaz wrote DIAZ. without any distinct view of the press, though not without the hope that his book might be ultimately printed ; and it is, therefore, probable that he freely read his manuscript to his friends. No man in those days could be quite sure that his friend was not a familiar of the Inquisition. The old soldier appa- rently shared with his countrymen of our own day a distaste for abstruse speculation, and a belief that it is right and proper that all men should hold the holy Roman Catholic faith. He was by no means a philosopher, or in any respect in advance of his age. He saw no harm in invading peaceful countries and slaughtering and enslaving their inhabitants ; he classed negroes with horses, and regretted the in- conveniently high price of both; 1 he thoroughly approved of the sentiment of " the very pious Fran- ciscan, Fray Toribio Motelmeo," who said it was perhaps a pity the Indians had compelled the Span- iards to put so many of them to death, but that the great bloodshed had at least the effect of showing them that their gods were no gods at all ; and he sneered at Bishop Las Casas as a meddling grievance- monger, who was very ill-disposed and very unfair to gentlemen adventurers. 2 1 Cap. 34. 2 Cap. 83. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 297 Still, after the fashion of his times, he seems to xiv. have been a man religiously and devoutly disposed. His hairbreadth escapes by flood and field are ascribed to Divine favour, yet without the arrogant assumption that he was himself the special favour- ite of the Almighty. If some of his illustrations of the doctrine of a special providence excite a smile such as his opinion that the Mexicans had left off eating their European prisoners because God had mercifully and suddenly made the flesh of the Spaniards bitter they never seem to be intended to display his own personal importance. In a Spanish army of 1520 it was impossible that miracles should not be rife. St. James or St. Peter it was doubtful which on a grey horse led on the Christians at Tabasco ; and, on the later field of Otumpan, St. James again appeared, and such had been the effect of the preaching of Cortes and his friars, that the holy apparition was manifested to a Mexican convert. Bernal Diaz chronicles these events with due rever- ence, but he is careful to confess that, although he was present at both places, he, sinner that he was, had not the good fortune to behold either saint. According to the custom of the period, he devotes a chapter to prodigies and portents, showers of frogs, tempests and floods, mingled with evil spirits, and the like ; but he does not profess that he himself saw anything more wonderful than a comet. 298 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. DIAZ. JohnKnox. His Hittory, It is impossible to avoid contrasting his catalogue of the benefits conferred on Mexico by the Spanish invasion, Christianity, improved agriculture, splendid churches, convents, colleges, towns, bull-fights, the manufactures of Europe, and the other blessings of civilisation, with the actual result of the expedition of Cortes, and that process of the rehabilitation of the Latin race in the New World now going on there under the orders of the French Emperor and at the cost of the French people, in the manner known to all readers of newspapers, except those published in France. Of this, too, we may one day have a true history. May it be as honestly written as this of old Bernal Diaz, than whom few writers of their own adventures ever had a better right to say, " When you look into my history, you will perceive its sincerity and good faith." Amongst the historical works of authors who have described their own times, and who were themselves important actors in the events recorded, Knox's History of the Reformation holds, for us at least, a very high place. If some of our countrymen have been disposed to exaggerate the influence which our great Keformer exercised on the Reformation in this island, few Englishmen will deny that he is one of the figures which still loom the largest on that distant stormy horizon. No man in England or ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 299 Scotland who values liberty, national, civil, or religious, can speak of Knox without reverence and gratitude. He was one of the foremost of that small band of Scots statesmen who perceived that close alliance with England was the true policy of their country. Ancient animosities and predilec- tions were strong enough to lead many true and patriotic Scots to the belief that in all things in which Scotland needed aid from without, her destiny was better secured by alliance with the lilies of France than by ingraftment on the English rose. Looking into the sixteenth century, as far as possible with the eyes of a Scotchman of the sixteenth cen- tury, it is easy still to find plausible reasons for that belief. But looking back to that remarkable epoch by the light of the experience of three hundred years, of the various results at home of that French policy which the anti-English party would, if they could, have followed here, we may well be thankful to those who resisted to the death counsels which might have changed the whole current of the history of this island. The purpose of Knox's History was the vindica- tion of this resistance to foreign domination, and of the separation of the Protestant party from a Church which was the chief support and bulwark of the party of the House of Lorraine. It was written, he says, "to the end that as well our XIV. J. KNOX. Its pur- pose. 300 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. J. KNOX. enemies as our brethren, in all realms, may under- stand how falsely we are accused of tumult and rebellion, and how unjustly we are persecuted by France and their faction ; and also that our brethren, natural Scotsmen, of what religion so ever they be, may have occasion to examine it themselves, if they may with safe conscience oppose themselves to us who seek nothing but Christ Jesus, His glorious evangel to be preached, His holy sacraments to be truly ministrate, superstition, tyranny, and idolatry to be suppressed in this realm, and finally the liberty of this our native country to remain free from the bondage and tyranny of strangers." l To persuade the adherents of the old religion that it was unlawful to offer further opposition to the new, might seem to most men a hopeless task. But Knox was of the stuff of which men are made who lead forlorn hopes to victory. He doubtless set himself to this literary task with that full assurance of success which had inspired him to undertake so many more perilous if not more dif- ficult enterprises. The enthusiasm and self-confidence of the more active reformers of the sixteenth century is displayed hardly so much in the perils which they confronted and the sufferings which they actually endured, as 1 History of the Reformation in Scotland, 2 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. p. 298. OX SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 301 in the plans which they proposed for the future. xiv. After a struggle, in all cases long and fierce, they j KNOX had emancipated themselves and their followers from the yoke of a Church which they had found too heavy to be borne. But no sooner had they burst these old Roman fetters ; nay, indeed, before these had been utterly broken, and in the presence of the power which still hoped to thrust them back into prison, they set themselves in all seriousness and good faith to devise and construct new shackles for themselves and their children. Their unseemly quarrels over the shapes and forms of these con- trivances form no inconsiderable part of the political and religious history of Northern Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The habit of subjection, the growth of centuries, was stronger than the house of bondage itself. But the trammels which the Reformation imposed were happily of an altogether different temper from those which the Reformation broke. They were fashioned, indeed, very much on the old pattern, and they were and have been pressed into the service of many of the old purposes. But the Roman kind were wrought in the forge of absolute authority, authority resting on postulates, against which, if they be conceded, argument is unavailing. The chains of the reformed sects came from the workshop of free inquiry, and the metal, therefore, 302 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. J. KNOX. contained within itself a wholesome element of weakness and decay. That liberty of thought and speculation which gave them being was sure to destroy them whenever they had served their turn. Take as a very obvious instance those propositions of the Confession of Westminster, in which the right of enforcing purity of doctrine is claimed for the civil magistrate, 1 and that mysterious power known as the power of the keys, is ascribed to the ministers of the Church. 2 Something like the first of these will be found in the Confession of Knox ; 3 the second seems to belong to a later age, 4 when 1 The civil magistrate . . . hath authority, and it is his duty to take order that security aud peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God he kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline pre- vented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, adminis- tered, and observed. Confession of Faith, 1647, chap, xxiii. section iii. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1836, pp. 141-2. 3 The Lord Jesus, as king and head of His Church, hath therein ap- pointed a government in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate. To these officers, the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent both by the word and conscience, and to open it unto penitent sinners by the ministry of the Gospel and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require. Confession of Faith, chap. xxx. sect. i. and ii., p. 166. 3 To kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates we affirm that chiefly and most principally the reformation and purgation of the religion appertains ; so that not only they are appointed for real policy, but also for the main- tenance of the true religion and for suppressing of idolatry and supersti- tion whatsomever. Confession of Faith, 1561. Knox's History, book iii. vol. ii. p. 1 1 8. * The Rev. Dr. Lee, Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Edinburgh, in a letter which appeared in the Scotsman of the 6th November, points out that I am "mistaken in supposing that our first ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 33 Protestantism had waxed fat and kicked against the essential conditions of its existence. The two taken together imply a theory altogether fatal to that liberty of thought and conscience which is the noblest fruit of the Reformation. Yet of those who are most disposed to condemn these propositions, few, I believe, would attribute to them much prac- tical mischief. Of those persons who accept this Confession as their rule of faith, I question if there be one who now holds that the civil magistrate XIV. J. KNOX. Reformers were behind their successors in asserting for themselves the power of the keys ; for though the doctrine be not laid down in the Scotch Confession (of Knox), it is asserted Avith solemn emphasis, and applied with unflinching severity, in the other public documents in which Knox and his coadjutors explained their ecclesiastical principles, espe- cially in the ninth chapter of the First Book of Discipline and in the Form of Excommunication contained in Knox's Book of Common Order." After quoting a passage from the Invocation of the Name of Jesus Christ to excommunicate the impenitent, which certainly fully jus- tifies his position, " that the power of the keys was asserted and insisted on by our first Reformers with a distinctness and earnestness not exceeded by the Catholic clergy themselves, and certainly not equalled either by the Westminster Divines or by any Presbyterian minister since their day," the learned Professor says that, as regards persecution, "the only difference between the doctors of the two churches was ' who should burn and who should be burned.' They were cordially agreed that one party was worthy of death." I have left my mistake standing in the text, for the sake of giving, if possible, some further currency to the words in which my learned friend has corrected it. In a letter printed in the Times of November gth, and replying to one in which S. G. O. himself a highly esteemed clergyman had said that the Anglican clergy were not priests in the Romish sense, the Bishop of Salisbury maintains that these gentlemen, at their ordination, "have committed to them the same powers which the priests of the rest of the Catholic Church, both in the east and west, have ever claimed as their inheritance." It is fortunate that the Reformation, which has altered theories so little, has on the whole affected practice so much. 34 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. J. KNOX. Laing's edition of ought to possess any such power over doctrine, or who would in plain language assert his belief that one man, or any guild of men, can open or close to any other human soul the gates of heaven. Knox's History, of which we have at last a thoroughly satisfactory edition, 1 appears to have been begun in 1559, but the greater part of its four books was chiefly written in 1566, during some brief season of comparative leisure which then occurred in his life of preaching and political correspondence and conference. It appears to have been dictated to a secretary, with little attempt at arrangement, beyond that which chronology sug- gested. The first book is introductory to the rest, and contains a general account of the movement against ecclesiastical abuses, which resulted in the new form of religion. Although not personally engaged in the earlier events which he records, Knox had reached man's estate before many of them had happened, and could, therefore, speak of them from the best sources of information. The other three books deal with the great political and religious affairs in which he was a chief actor. The rough, careless, vigorous style of the book is most characteristic of the man. James Melville has 1 History, by John Knox ; edited by David Laing, 2 vols. 8vo, Edin- burgh, 1848, an edition which, in various and minute learning and patient care, leaves nothing to be desired. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 305 Questions of the Re- formation. left us so good a portrait of him in his declining xiv. years, on his way to church, muffled in his " furring of marticks," " going hulie and faar," leaning on his staff and his servant's arm, and finally lifted into the pulpit, which, however, ere the sermon was done, he was " like to ding into blads and flic out of." It is easy to imagine many passages of the History having been dictated with similar energy and passion. To those whose eyes are open to the abstruse nature of the questions raised at the Reformation, the speculations which are offered to us in place of evidence on these questions, the irreconcilable conflict of opinion about them which has prevailed amongst learned, honest and wise men before and since, the total absence from the mind of the his- torian of anything like doubt or misgiving on any point whatever is absolutely marvellous. Of course the presence of doubt or misgiving is and must be fatal to the pretensions and the success of the poli- tical or religious agitator, and it is only the most shameless of the quacks in either line who would, even when retired from business, venture on a con- fession like that which Wilkes made when he said that he had never been a Wilkite. There was that in Knox, however, which precludes the faintest suspicions of an unworthy motive. In his early life, of which we know so little, his mind may VOL. VI. 306 ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. XIV. J. KNOX. His sincerity. have passed through vicissitudes of which we know nothing. Indeed, in one of the first clear glimpses of him which we obtain in his History, we find him bursting " into most abundant tears," and retiring to his chamber, when called to exercise the functions of a Protestant preacher by his fellow-labourer John Rough, and for many days together, while debating within himself whether he should accept the call, going about with "countenance and behaviour" which " did sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart." l But after he had put his hand to the plough his grasp was never relaxed ; nor was his eye dimmed by any shadow of doubt. In no passage of his History or of his subsequent career does it ever appear to have occurred to him that the opinions which he had adopted might be reasonably rejected by other men. The revolution of 1543, or whatever date may be assigned to the new era, had for him blotted out all that had elapsed between that date and the days of the Apostles. That that old religion of which, until the age of about forty, he had been a minister, should retain any hold on the spiritual hopes, or fears, or the affections, on anything save the baser feelings of other men, was to him inexplicable and intolerable. In the ferment of religious opinion which then prevailed in most 1 History, i. p. 188. ON SOME VARIETIES OF HISTORICAL STYLE. 307 XIV. His impa- tience of others. countries of Europe, it was, perhaps, natural that Knox should believe that the Roman Church was T v Macdonald's Higher Aims of Education, Edinburgh, 1875 ; Rev. J. Stark's Suggestions as to the Amendment of Education in Scotland, 1875 ; Murison On the Province of Secondary Education, Aberdeen, 1876 ; Prof. S. S. Laurie's Inaugural Address on entering on the Chair of Education, Edinburgh, 1876. XVIII. Depress- ing. Remedies. 452 CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS: GLASGOW. XVIII. University education of teachers discou- raged, but desirable. Higher class schools required. Bursaries. Revision of Code. tion. Now every inducement which Codes can offer is held out to the members of the teaching pro- fession to content themselves with the narrower training of a Normal School. If a University degree, coupled with a sufficient knowledge of the art of teaching, were made the qualification for a certificate, the schoolmasters of Scotland would soon again stand on the vantage-ground occupied hy their predecessors. It has also been suggested that public schools of a higher class should be established in fitting centres of population, so that higher culture at a moderate cost might be within the reach of all those who were capable of receiving it with advantage. Bursaries should be instituted, to be competed for by the best scholars of either sex, in certain groups of public schools, and to enable the successful competitors to pursue more advanced studies, either in these schools or in schools of a higher grade. The exist- ing Code should be so revised as to allow school- masters to derive some pecuniary benefit from the success of their leading pupils. A plan has been proposed, in a quarter deserving of much respect, that the standards of the Code should be revised and extended, so that higher instruction might be obtained at all, or at least at many, of the public schools. Many other schemes have been proposed, which time forbids me even to notice. Amongst CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS : GLASGOW. 453 them, however, few are of more importance than the proposal to institute entrance examinations in our Universities, and so raise the standard of instruction in the schools which furnish them with students. Introduced gradually, and with due regard to the present condition of the schools concerned, there can be little doubt that those examinations would benefit both the schools and the Universities. 1 The question how Scotland is to recover educa- tional advantages which she once possessed and prized, and now appears in danger of losing, is a grave and anxious one. But its solution ought to be greatly aided by the fact that there is a wide district of country (namely, those counties where the Milne and Dick bequests prevail), of which the recent educational position may serve as a model for the guidance of future action. Another question arises : How is the cost of im- proving a system already very costly to be defrayed ? Again I must answer, that these funds must be pro- vided, if at all, by voluntary effort. I do not see how they can be looked for either from the public purse, or from the ratepayer, who has already borne very considerable and unexpected burdens with laudable equanimity. Possibly a time may come when the ratepayer may be disposed to exercise the 1 See Professor Eamsay's Statement on Entrance Examinations, Glasgow, 1876; and Hutchison's Secondary Education, Glasgow, 1875. XVIII. University entrance examina- tions. Cost of im- provement must be provided volunta- rily. 454 CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS : GLASGOW. XVIII. Endowed Schools Commis- sion. Existing endow- ments. Glasgow endow- ments. powers given him by the Education Act to tax himself for higher education, hut that time is not yet. The most hopeful source of educational im- provements as yet discoverable is that pointed out by the late Endowed Schools Commission, the vast mass of educational endowment provided by our forefathers, and of which so large a portion is either misemployed, or employed for purposes embraced by recent legislation, or not employed at all. The educational endowments of Scotland, exclusive of University endowments, amount to ,175,000 a year, and, of this, less than ^4,000 goes to public secondary schools. Upwards of ; 170,000 may therefore be assumed to be annually spent mainly in the reduction of rates in a few favoured localities. In this city there are bequests for edu- cational objects amounting in all to some ; 100,000, which have, as yet, never been applied to any object whatever. With these large funds, thus employed or lying idle, it seems the duty of the Government to deal. Until they are dealt with, I should say that our members of Parliament would not be doing their duty if they were to consent to any fresh application of imperial funds or of local rates to educational purposes. England has its School Commission, 1 empowered 1 Now a department of the Charity Commission. CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS: GLASGOW. 455 tions for Scotch Commis- sion. to deal with endowments, subject to the control xvm. of Parliament. It is working well, and a similar Commission would find plenty of work here, and I see no reason why it should not do it with equal suc- cess. 1 The capital sum under the care of the English Commission is of course actually much larger than the amount of our endowments here, but when com- pared with the resources of England, it is consider- ably less. Probably the Scotch Commission need only be appointed for a term of years, and its duties might afterwards be transferred to some other public board, or vested in the Court of Session. The per- sons intrusted with these important executive func- tions would of course be directed by the Legislature, as well as naturally disposed, to exercise them with due regard to the intentions of the donors with whose bequests they would have to deal. It is now generally admitted that property be- queathed for a public object is, in fact, public pro- perty, and that no public property is more liable to mismanagement and waste than that which is administered by irresponsible trustees. A volume might be filled with instances of the abuse of trusts, arising much more frequently from want of care than from want of honesty. One of the latest I 1 ["The Educational Endowments (Scotland) Act," since passed, ap- pointed Commissioners who have done much work in the directions above indicated.] Public bequests public 45 6 CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS : GLASGOW. XVIII. Ought to be managed on modern principles. Other matters managed by the State. have noticed was in the newspapers of the I5th of this month. Under an ancient will twenty-one sixpences are annually distributed in the church- yard of St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield to as many poor old widows. The money, it seems, is dropped on the ground, and the candidates who are too stiff to pick it up must leave it to their suppler sisters. This pitiful version of She Stoops to Conquer was enacted in Smithneld no later than last Good Friday. I believe charitable and educa- tional absurdities of a like kind are in vigorous existence near home. To allow them to continue to exist is not only not to respect, but in most cases it is to disregard, the intentions of the benevolent dead. In cases where a trust has been fulfilled to the letter, and yet has grown into a folly or a nuisance, it is almost certain that the evil arises from changes of time and place, the force of which would have been at once acknowledged by the testator had he survived. To maintain a contrary opinion is to assert that a man who, living in 1576 or 1676, was wise above his fellows, and quick to perceive and anxious to relieve their wants, would, if he were alive in 1876, be beyond other men stupid and blind to the signs of the times. Large and important branches of human affairs poor relief, public health, elementary education which, formerly untouched, or scarcely touched, by the State, exer- CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS: GLASGOW. 457 cised the minds or wrung the hearts of the benevo- lent, have now been taken by the State into its own hands, to be administered by public servants at the public charge. In these matters, private benevolence has almost ceased to be needed, and, if rashly administered, may become positively injurious ; and it seems to me that the State has a perfect right to say that henceforward it must be administered in conformity with existing public arrangements. I attach little weight to the argument that if the State interferes with the administration of private foundations we shall have no more founders. There are unfortunately many motives which lead to so- called pious bequests, and which are neither by any means pious, nor likely to cease to influence will- makers. One forlorn testator within my knowledge made a will in favour of the Bank of Scotland, a commercial corporation admirable in many ways, but hardly to be esteemed a fair object for charitable endowment. People who make bequests of this kind deserve little consideration, and if such be- quests could be reviewed by competent authority, I do not see how public interests would suffer. But it is only fair to credit the benevolent founder with a little common sense, as well as with benevolence. A man of sense, looking around him for some useful public work to which to devote his fortune, is likely to be diverted from that object much more by XVIII. Objections. 458 CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS: GLASGOW. XVIII. Conclu- sion. despair, induced by experience of the fate of trusts and the pranks of trustees, than by dread of the interference of the State. He sees other foundations, with fine names, minished and brought low by mis- management, or grown fat and lodged in palaces, and yet demoralising their localities ; and he pauses and says " Vain are the hopes the sons of men Upon their works have built," and so, leaving his plans for the regeneration of Glenmutchkin, he turns, with a sigh, to reconsider the claims and the character of his scapegrace nephew, and concludes to give that young man another lecture and another chance. The nephew, I believe, would be in much greater danger of losing the inheritance if the uncle were told that a court was constituted which would keep an eye on his trustees, see that they did their duty, and aid them in providing in the future against such contingencies as might turn his good intentions into a curse to people yet unborn, and make his endowment, in a moral as well as a legal sense, his mortification. I am glad to say that these are the views of many of the able and much-occupied men from whose ranks trustees in this country are commonly chosen, and with whom I have conversed. Experience has taught them the difficulty that often attends the CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS : GLASGOW. 459 fulfilment of even clear testamentary instructions, xvm. and the assistance that individual trusts might derive from the counsels of a tribunal equipped with a wide and comprehensive knowledge of this branch of affairs. The more maturely the subject is con- sidered, the more favourably I think these views will be received. It seems to me that they are worthy of especial consideration at the present time, and it is for that reason that I have ventured to address them to the Senate and the General Council of this University, who collectively form the trustees of one of our greatest and most venerable educa- tional trusts, and count for much in forming the public opinion of Scotland. Again, Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen, let me thank you for the distinguished honour which your suffrages conferred upon me last year, and for the kindness with which I have been this day received amongst you. WUlcr LCoLU.Ph.Sc. INTERIOR OF KEIR LIBRARY. BIBLIOGRAPHY. A POSIE OF POESIES. Cambridge (J. & J. J. Deighton), 1839. Title, Dedication, and Contents, 3 leaves, and pp. 51. Contains 26 poems, of which 13 bear the initial I., n W., 2 being unsigned. Dedication : Asa parting token, [ we | dedicate these poems | to | our friends in the University, | who are willing | "Gently to hear, kindly to judge." The volume is the joint production of Sir William Stirling-Max- well and the Right Hon. Alexander Beresford-Hope. Sm. 8vo. SONGS OF THE HOLY LAND. Edinburgh, 1846. Pp. 70, printed in black, with headings, rules, and initials in red. Contains 10 poems- I. The Wiving of Isaac. II. Jael. III. Jephthah's Vow. IV. Rizpah the Concubine. V. The Lament of Solomon. VI. The Burden of Tyre. VII. Shallum. VIII. The Assyrian. IX. The Valley of Bones. X. Judith. " They are memorials of the pleasant mouths in 1842, when the writer 'took to himself his curtains, his vessels, and his camels,' and became 'a dweller in tents, by the Red Sea, and in the deserts of Sinai and Seir, when he rode over the plains of Jericho and climbed to cedars of Solomon the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon' and spent many a tranquil evening in the cloisters 462 BIBLIOGRAPHY. of the Holy Land, especially with those worthy friars whose hos- pitable palace crowns the brow, and is the chief 'excellency' of Carmel" (from Prefatory Note, dated Christmas 1845). 8vo. Not published : only forty copies printed. Cos AS DE ESPANA; or, Scraps from the Portfolio of a Traveller. London, 1847. Title, Contents (2 pp.), and 15 leaves, each bearing a woodcut. Consists of 15 of the woodcuts executed for the Annals of the Artists of Spain, printed with a separate title and table, before the work appeared, to be sold at a Charity Bazaar at Perth, in 1847. I2mo. Twenty copies privately printed. SONGS OF THE HOLY LAND, second series. London, 1847. Pp. 33, including Title and Contents. Contains u poems. I. Hagar and Ishmael. II. Ruth. III. The AVoman of Endor. IV. The Battle of Gilboa. V. The Life of Man. VI. The Keeper of Israel. VII. The Captives of Babylon. VIII. The Love-Song of Solomon. IX. The Burden of Egypt. X. The Burden of Edom. XI. The Daughter of Babylon. 8vo. Twelve copies printed. TALBOTYPE ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE ANNALS OF THE ARTISTS OF SPAIN. London, 1847. Pp. xii., and 66 illustrations. 8vo. Only twenty-five copies printed, and one copy, roy. Svo, on large thick paper, with extra printed Title-page and Dedication. ANNALS OF THE ARTISTS OF SPAIN. London (John Ollivier), 1848. Pp. xliii. (including engraved and printed Title-pages) and 1481, and Errata, 2 pp., unnumbered. 3 vols. Svo, paged continuously (sometimes bound in 2 vols.). BIBLIOGRAPHY. 463 Twenty-five extra copies on large thick paper, printed with proof im- pressions of the plates on India paper, rules and initial letters in red, and two additional plates, being the Dedication and the Virgin and Child, facing p. 795, and with also one ornamented leaf before Title-page, and extra engraved and printed Title- page without vol. number. Reviewed Quarterly Review, Vol. 83, No. 165, pp. 1-37, June 1848. Fraaer's Magazine, Vol. 38, No. 225, pp. 300-308, Sept. 1848. SONGS OF THE HOLY LAND. London (John Ollivier), 1848. Title, Preface, and Contents, 3 leaves, and pp. 124. Contains the 21 poems printed in the first and second series, and three additional pieces. X. The Forsaken Vine. XVI. The Lament of Jeremiah. XXIII. The Restoring of Sion. Preface dated London, January isth, 1848. Sni. 4to. AN ESSAY TOWAKDS A COLLECTION OF BOOKS RELATING TO THE ART OF DESIGN, being a Catalogue of those at Keir. London, 1850. (Motto) Qui ubique est, nusquam est. Pp. v. and 64. 8vo. Twenty-five copies privately printed. The copy at Keir has, bound in at end, 7 leaves of bookbinders' stamps used on the books. THE LIFE OF DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y VELAZQUEZ, Painter to Philip IV., King of Spain. By Richard Ford. London, 1837. Reprinted by the Anastatic Process. London, 1851. Title, i leaf and pp. n. 8vo. Twenty-five copies, reprinted from the Penny Cyclopaedia. THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. London, 1851. (Part I.) Fraser's Magazine, Vol. 43, No. 256, pp. 367-380, April. (Part. II.) Do. Do. No. 257, pp. 528-545, May. 8vo. LEMMATA PROVERBIALIA. Londini, 1851. Title and 12 leaves. Printed in red. 4to. Only ten copies printed, nine on paper and one on vellum. 464 BIBLIOGRAPHY. THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. London, 1852. Pp. xxvii., Errata, and 271. Sm. 8vo. Preface dated Keir, 3ist May 1852. Dedication : To | Richard Ford, | in token of admiration of his writings, and as a memorial of friendship, this work is | inscribed. Reviewed Quarterly Review, vol. 92, No. 183, Art. V., pp. 107-36, December 1852 (by Richard Ford). Translation: Das Klosterleben Kaiser Karls des Fiinften. Von William Stirling, aus dem Englischen von M. B. Lindau. Pp. xiv., Contents, and 319. 8vo. Dresden, 1853. Printed in Roman type throughout. Second edition, probably from 3rd English edition. Dresden, 1858. A few large paper copies printed, roy. 8vo. THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. Second edition. London, 1853. Pp. xxvii. and 293. Sm. 8vo. Postscript for a second edition, dated 128 Park St., Grosvenor Square, December 2ist, 2852 (sic), in which the author states that he has bestowed on its pages a careful revision, as well as some new matter. Reprinted in America, and published by Crosby, Nichols, & Co., Boston, and Charles S. Francis & Co., New York, 1853. Pp. xxv. and 322. I2mo. Translation : Das Klosterleben Kaiser Karls des fiinften, aus dem Englischen des William Stirling, von Dr. A. Kaiser. Leipzig, 1853. Pp. xxx. and 334, and one page of errata at end. i2mo. With addition on pp. xxix. and xxx. of Naclisckrift des Ueber- sekers. In German type throughout. THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. Third edition, enlarged and corrected (with an index). London, 1853. Pp. xxx. and 342. Sm. 8vo. Twelve extra copies printed for presents, on thick tinted paper, each with eighteen photographic plates, and list of illustrations BIBLIOGRAPHY. 465 Postscript for a third edition, dated 128 Park St., Grosvenor Square, London, June 25th, 1853. Translation : Af stand, Kloosterleven en Dood van Karel V. naar Stirling, Mignet en Pichot, door J. L. Terwen. Utrecht, 1854. Pp. xii. and 346. 8vo. Voorrede, dated Gouda, September 1854. SCOTTISH EDUCATION. Speech on the Second Reading of the Lord Advocate's Bill, for making further provision for the education of the people of Scotland, in the House of Commons, on i2th May 1854, by William Stirling, of Keir, Member for Perthshire. Perth , 1854. Pp. 1 6. 121110. ORIGINAL LETTER in the Autograph of Thomas James, Fellow of New College, Editor of Philobiblon Richardi Dunelmensis, sive de Amore Librorum et Institutions Bibliothecce, 4to, Oxoniae 1599. And inscribed in the copy of that work which belonged to Lord Lumley, now in the Library of the British Museum, Press mark 619, g. I. London, 1854. Communicated by William Stirling to the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, of which 100 copies printed on laid, and 25 copies on wove paper. Pp. 5- Sm. 4to. A few copies printed separately, pp. 5. ON THE FIRST EDITION OF THE Adagia OP ERASMUS. By William Stirling. London, 1854. Sm. 4to. Pp.5- Item 17 of Vol. I. Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, of which 100 copies printed on laid, and 25 copies on wove paper. A few copies printed separately. Sm. 4to, pp. 5. THE PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY OP SCOTLAND. An Address to the School of Arts, at Stirling, on the opening of the Session, 1855-6. By William Stirling, of Keir, M.P. Stirling, 1855. Pp. 20. 8vo. VOL. VI. 2 G 466 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Twelve copies printed on blue paper. Published at the request of the audience, the proceeds of the sale to be given in aid of the Funds of the School of Arts. VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. London, 1855. With bust portrait of Velazquez, within red ornamental border, on Title-page. Pp. xx. and 236, and Catalogue of Prints, after works of Velazquez, pp. 237-256. Cr. 8vo. Translations : VELAZQUEZ UND SEINE WERKE. Von William Stirling. Berlin (Heinrich Schindler), 1856. Pp. xvi. and 224. I2mo. Note by Sir William Stirling- Maxwell : " This translation was made by Miss Emma Wackerhagen of Han- over, who applied, through Mr. J. W. Parker, for my permission to do so. I sent her some additions and corrections which reached her too late to be incorporated with the work. They will be found at pp. 217-224" (of her book). VELAZQUEZ ET SES OEuvRES. Par William Stirling. Traduit de 1'Anglais. Par G. Brunet. Avec des notes et un Catalogue des Tableaux de Velazquez. Par W. Burger. [Theodore Thore\] Paris, 1865. Pp. viii. and 295. Table I page, and Annexe k 1'appendice, 2 leaves unnumbered. 8vo. A FEW SPANISH PROVERBS ABOUT FRIARS. By William Stirling, Esq. London, 1856. Pp. 7. Sm. 4to. Item 12 of vol. ii. Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society. 100 copies printed on laid paper. 25 wove A few copies printed separately, pp. 7. UNOS QUANTOS EEFRANES ESPANOLES ACERCA DE LOS FRAILES. BY J. M. SBARBI. [Translated from the English, entitled A Few Spanish Proverbs about Friars. Signed W. Stirling. By J. M. Sbarbi.] BIBLIOGRAPHY. 467 NOTICES OP THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH IN 1555 AND 1556 : Selected from the Despatches of Federigo Badoer, Ambassador from the Republic of Venice to the Court of Bruxelles. By "William Stirling. London, 1856. Pp. 58. 8vo. Only twenty-five copies printed separately, on wove paper. Item 8 of vol. ii. of the Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, of which 100 copies printed on laid paper. 25 wove SUGGESTIONS FOR AN EPITAPH. Stirling, 1857. (For Lady Matilda Harriet Maxwell (ne6 Bruce), wife of Sir John Maxwell, Baronet of Pollok, uncle of Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart.) With lithographed portrait. Title and 7 leaves. 8vo. Only forty-five copies printed. Contains 13 epitaphs, of which the authors are as follows : I., IV., VI., IX., X. William Stirling. II. Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, Junr. III. Edward Stillingfieet Cayley. V. John Grant. VII. George John Cayley. VIII. and XI. Hon. Mrs. Norton. XII. Frederick Locker. XIII. (Rev. Professor) Robert Herbert Story. Nos. I. and VI. are inscribed on the Memorial Brass at Eastwood Churchyard. CANTILLON'S LEGACY ; When was it Paid, and who Paid it ? Speech . . . in asking the above question in the House of Commons, on the i ath February 1858; with reply of Viscount Palmerston, K.G., &c. London, 1858. Pp. 36. 8vo. NAPOLEON'S BEQUEST TO CANTILLON. A Fragment of International History. London, 1858. Pp. xii. and 186. 8vo. Prefatory Note dated 128 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, 8th May 1858. 468 BIBLIOGRAPHY. THE STIRLIXGS OF KEIR AND THEIR FAMILY PAPERS. By Wm. Fraser. Edinburgh, 1858 Pp. Ixx., 570 ; plates, pp. 571-598 ; Indexes, 599-622. Sm. 4to. 150 copies privately printed [for (Sir) Wm. Stirling (-Maxwell, Bart.)] WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. In Memoriam. London, 1859. Fraser's Magazine, vol. 59, No. 351, March 1859. [Initialed W. S.J Pp. 378-382. 8vo. WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. A Memorial Sketch. London, 1859. Prefatory Note : The following sketch is reprinted, with con- siderable additions, from Fraser's Magazine for March 1859. William Stirling, 128 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, March 8th, 1859. Pp. 24. 8vo. Fifty copies privately printed. Reprinted in "Storio del regno di Fillippo II." in the "Nuova Collegione di opere storiche," vol. 9, 1865, &c. THE DESIGNS FOR THE WALLACE MONUMENT. A Letter to the Lord Advocate for Scotland, Convener of the Committee of the Wallace Monument, dated 2gth January. *%S9- Pp. 10. 8vo. THE WALLACE DESIGNS. A Letter to the Editor of the Stirling Journal and Advertiser, dated February loth, 1859. Stirling, 1859. Pp. 2. 4to. THE ARMORIAL BEARINGS OP THE STIRLINGS OF KEIR AND OTHERS OF THE NAME : A Series of Designs for Dessert Plates. Glasgow, 1860. Pp. 1 6, and 50 tinted plates of the Heraldic Bearings and Badges, printed in violet ink on thick Whatman paper, with the de- scriptions in duplicate mounted opposite each. The vellum copy has, in addition, duplicate plates richly hand-coloured. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 469 Royal 4to. Twenty-six copies printed, of which one is on vellum. Motto : " This Booke is not for every rude and unconnynge man to see, but for Clerkys and very gentylmen that understande gentylnes and Scyence." CHAUCEK. Note : There is, at Keir, a set of dessert plates made from these designs. A SELECTION OF ORIGINAL CHARTERS AND PAPERS OF THE FAMILY OF STIRLING OF KEIR, COMMENCING IN THE YEAR 1338. Vol. I., containing Papers from Bundles i. to xiv. (inclusive) of the Inventory, MDCCCLX., pp. 1-16. Vol. II., pp. 17-30 xv. to xxv. III., pp. 31-44 xxvi. to xxxv. IV., pp. 45-52 xxxvi. to xli. V., pp. 53-58 xlii. to xlvi. VI., pp. 59-64 xlvii. to 1. Roy. fo. AN ESSAY TOWARDS A COLLECTION OF BOOKS RELATING TO THE ARTS OF DESIGN, being a Catalogue of those at Keir. London, 1860. Pp. 144, and 2 preliminary leaves. 8vo. Twenty-five copies privately printed. On back of title is a lithographic coloured print of view of the interior of the Library at Keir, 1860, from a drawing by Robert Frier. AN ESSAY TOWARDS A COLLECTION OF BOOKS relating to Proverbs, Emblems, Apophthegms, Epitaphs, and Ana, being a Catalogue of those at Keir. London, 1860. Title with ornamental shield of Stirling arms printed in black and red ; on back thereof a coloured lithographed view of the interior of " The Library at Keir in 1860." 3 leaves, pp. vi. and 244. Proverbs, pp. i to 107. Emblems, pp. 109-160. Apophthegms, Epitaphs, and Ana, pp. 161-244. 8vo. Seventy-five copies privately printed. Note. Writing to Mr. J. Barclay Murdoch, 6th April 1870, Sir William stated : " The Catalogue by no means represents the present state of my Collection, which now consists of about 1200 works or editions of works." 470 BIBLIOGRAPHY. SPEECH in moving the omission of Clause I. of the Appropriation of Seats Bill, for the purpose of inserting other Clauses providing Parliamentary Representation for the Universities of Scotland. Delivered in the House of Commons on the ist of July 1861. By William Stirling, Member for Perthshire. London, 1861. Pp. 28. 8vo. MEMOIRE DE LA COUR D'ESPAGNE sous LE REGNE DE CHARLES II. (1678-1682). Par le Marquis de Villars. Edite par William Stirling, Esq., M.P. London (Whittingham), 1861. Pp. 380. 8vo. Only 100 copies published. Dedicated and presented to the Members of the Philobiblon Society, London, by the editor. INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OP THE UNIVERSITY OP ST. ANDREWS. Delivered on installation as Eector of the University, on the 1 8th January 1863. By William Stirling, of Keir, LL.D. of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, M.P. for Perthshire (from the Perthshire Journal, 22nd January 1863). Perth, 1863. Pp. 9. 8vo. A small number of copies printed on pink writing-paper. CYPHERS DESIGNED FOR HER ROYAL HIGHNESS ALEXANDRA PRINCESS OF WALES. By W. S. Glasgow, 1864. Executed by Robert Brydall, under the superintendence of Charles Heath Wilson, architect, Glasgow. Twenty copies printed. 4to. Contains 16 designs. Note. The copy on vellum at Keir contains 16 designs, richly hand-coloured. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA ; or, Passages from the History of the Sixteenth Century, MDXLVI.-MDLXXVIII. By William Stirling. London. Pri- vately printed. 1859-1864. Roy. 8vo. Note. Of this book only ten copies have been printed, each chapter separately paged. December 5, 1864. Printed on blue and pink writing paper. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 471 ON SOME VARIETIES OP HISTORICAL STYLE. An Address delivered to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh on the 3rd of November 1866, at the opening of the Session. By Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart., M.P. for Perthshire. Edinburgh, 1866. Pp. 57- 8vo. THE POLLOK-MAXWELL BARONETCY : Statement of the Eight of William Stirling of Keir, and now of Pollok, to the Baronetcy held by his Maternal Uncle, the late Sir John Maxwell of Pollok. By William Fraser. With Illustrative Documents and the Opinions of Coun- sel in the case. Edinburgh, 1866. Pp. viii. 38. 4to [uniform with The Maxwells of Pollok, by (Sir) William Fraser]. Fifty copies printed. Note. This is included here as having been produced under the direction of Sir William Stirling- Maxwell. CYPHERS DESIGNED FOR LADY ANNA MARIA STIRLING- MAXWELL. 1866. Executed by Robert Brydall, Glasgow. Three preliminary leaves and 24 Cyphers, all hand-coloured and illuminated on vellum. 4to. ILLUSTRATIONS EXECUTED FOR DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA ; or, Passages from the History of the Sixteenth Century, MDXLVII.-MDLXXVIII. London, 1867. Pp. 15. Title, Note, and Contents. Pp. -66. Initial Letters. -26. Typographical Ornaments. -24. Devices, Heraldry, Armour, and Weapons. -16. Shipping and Figures. -20. Portraits of Don John of Austria. -18. ,, ,, Royal Personages. -23. Miscellaneous Portraits. Fifteen copies privately printed. Roy. 8vo. EXAMPLES OF THE ORNAMENTAL HERALDRY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. London, 1867-8. Vol. i., pp. x. and 73. Vol. ii., pp. x. and 36 (2nd series). Index, 4 pp. 472 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ornamental Title-pages and 1 10 pp. of illustrations executed in fac- simile by Stephen Ayling from engraved and woodcut works, ornate bindings, drawings by Albert Diirer, Geoffry Tory, Burgkmair, Jobst Ammon, Stimmer, &c. 300 copies printed for private distribution, half with ornaments in red and half in black. Fo. SOPRA L'EFFIGIE DE CESARE, fatta per M. Enea Vico da Parma. Dichiaratione del Doni In Venetia 1550. Facsimile. London, 1868. Fifty copies printed. Fol. PERTHSHIRE ELECTION, 1868: Speeches delivered by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart., at Perth, October 2nd; Crieff, October 2oth; and Blairgowrie, October 23rd. 1868. Pp. 14. 8vo. Reprint from newspaper type. THE FALL OP Two EMPIRES, 1814 and 1870. An Address to the Stirling School of Arts, published by request. Stirling, 1870. Pp. 29, and 3 pp. of Opinions of the Press. I2mo. THE CHIEF VICTORIES OP THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. Designed by Martin Heemskerck in MDLV., and now illustrated with por- traits, prints, and notes. London and Edinburgh, 1870. Only 200 copies printed. Some copies have an extra leaf at p. 74, of a shield which was issued separately some time after the book. Pp. xxxvi. and 92. Fo. Dedicated to the Due D'Aumale, Patron of the Philobiblon Society of London. ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS at a Public Dinner and Presentation of Plate to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart., of Keir and Pollok, in the City Hall at Perth, on the 22nd of April 1870. Perth, 1870. Title-page and pp. 79. 8vo. ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OP THE SCHOOL OP ART, EDINBURGH, under the Charge of the Commissioners of the Board of Manufactures. Edinburgh, 1870. 8vo. [Teste British Museum Catalogue.] BIBLIOGRAPHY. 473 ADDRESS ON THE CENTENARY OP SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., in proposing " The Memory of Sir Walter Scott," at the festival held in the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, pth August 1871. 1871. Published in the Scotsman and other newspapers of the day. Re- printed in Pen and Pencil, Glasgow, 6th August 1887. CATALOGUE OF PLATE IN THE POSSESSION OF SIR WILLIAM STIRLING- MAXWELL, BART., AT KEIR. N.B., AND X UPPER GROSVENOR STREET, LONDON. London, 1871. Pp. viii., 69. 8vo. Twenty copies printed. ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. Delivered on the 5th February 1872, at his installation as Rector. By Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart. Edinburgh, 1872. Pp. 26. 8vo. ARMS, DEVICES, INITIALS, MONOGRAMS, AND CYPHERS (executed by Mr. Robert Brydall, Glasgow). London and Glasgow ', 1872. Title, Contents (i leaf), and 60 designs (of the Stirling-Maxwell arms, &c.) 4to. Printed in red and black. Only forty copies printed. EXAMPLES OF THE ENGRAVED PORTRAITURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CEN- TURY. London and Edinburgh, 1872. Only fifty copies privately printed numbered i to 50, the odd numbers on thin and the even numbers on thick paper. Half-title, 2 pp. Title, 2 pp. Preface, 8 columns in 4 pp. List of Illustrations, 16 columns in 8 pp. 114 pp. of Portraits. Index Title, 2 pp. Index of Portraits, 2 pp. Index of Artists, I page. Index, Miscellaneous, 2 pp. Ornamental device, i page. Twenty-four copies of Index printed separately (25 in. x 10 in.) for facility of reference. Five extra portraits inserted in author's own copy. With specially printed lists, 2 pp., after List of Illustrations. Fol. 474 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Eikones Crispiani Passsei Coloniae, MDXCIX. States Hominum Secundum Anni tempora. Reproduced in Facsimile by photo-lithography, executed for Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart., by Mr. Peter Ferguson, 44 Pitt St., Edinburgh, from a copy in the Library of the Marquess of Lothian at New- battle. Edinburgh, 1872. 4to. Title and Explanatory Note, dated Keir, August 3ist, 1872, 2 pp. printed in red, and 7 plates. Only twenty-five copies printed. EMBLEMATA AMORIS. Typis lac ab Heyden. Reproduced by photo- lithography, executed for Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart., by Mr. Peter Fergusson, 45 North Pitt Street, Edinburgh, from a copy in the Library of the Marquess of Lothian, at Newbattle. Edinburgh, 1872. Title and Explanatory Note printed in red (dated Keir, August 3ist, 1872), 2 pp., and 13 plates. Only twenty-live copies printed. 4to. THE TURKS IN MDXXXIII. A series of Drawings made in that year at Constantinople by Peter Coeck of Aelst and published from woodblocks, by his widow, at Antwerp in MDLIII. ; reproduced, with other illustrations, in facsimile, with an Introduction by Sir William Stir ling- Maxwell, Bart. London and Edinburgh, 1873. Pp. via., 70 columns (2 on a page). 100 copies privately printed, bound in emblematic cloth. Oblong folio. Register. This volume consists of thirty-five leaves : Leaves. General Title, Presentation Page, and two leaves of Con- tents (pp. i.-viii.) Title to Introduction, and eighteen leaves of Introduction signed A S (pp. 1-70) Mceurs ct Fachons defaire des Turcz, ten leaves . Cypher of Peter Coeck, and Register, two leaves . 19 10 2 35 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 475 The facsimiles of the Portrait of Solyman the Magnificent (O, pp. 53-4), and of the Mceurs et Fachons, are by Mr. C. B. Praeto- rius, 7 Gloucester Grove West, London ; and those of the other subjects by Messrs. George Waterston & Son, 56 North Hanover Street, Edinburgh. The Typography is by Messrs. T. Brettell & Co., 51 Rupert St., Haymarket, London. A second edition was prepared, and 200 copies of the plates, title, &c., prepared. Imp. 4to (half the size of the above edition). ESSAY TOWARDS A CATALOGUE OF PRINTS, engraved from the "Works of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez and Bartolome Este"ban Murillo. London, 1873. 100 copies privately printed. Pp. xvi. and 137, with 2 woodcut portraits. rzmo. Fifteen copies printed on large paper, with extra portrait of Velaz- quez, a facsimile of a drawing at Keir. 8vo. A few copies printed in narrow folio for reference to collection of prints after Velazquez and Murillo, in 3 vols., atlas folio, at Keir. ANDREA VESALII TABULA ANATOMIOE SEX. Six Anatomical Tables of Andrew Vesalius. Venetijs Imprimebat V. Vitalis, Venetus, Sumptibus Joannis Stephani Calcarensis MDXXXVIII. Privately printed for Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, MDCCCLXXIV. London, 1874. Thirty copies printed on paper. One on vellum, and one on parchment. Elephant folio. Contents. Leaves. Presentation page i Title-page i Contents 3 Portrait of Andrew Vesalius 4 Notice of the Life of Andrew Vesalius and of his Tab. Anat. 5 & 6 Tabulae . 7-12 PREFACE [pp. vii.-xiv., dated Keir, November 6, 1872] to "A Descrip- tive Account of the Portraits, Busts, Published Writings, and Manu- scripts of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., collected and exhibited at Edin- 476 BIBLIOGRAPHY. burgh, on the occasion of the Scott Centenary in 1871. Prepared for publication by Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart., David Laing, LL.D., and James Drummond, R.S.A." Edinburgh, 1874. 4 to. " UT PICTURA POESIS ; " or, An Attempt to Explain in Verse the Em- blemata Horatiana of Otho Vaenius. Dedicated to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart., who contributes Bibliographical Notice on the Works of Otho Vsenius, pp. xiii.-xxxii., and Note on the Engraved Portrait of Otho Vsenius, pp. xxxiii.-xxxiv. 1875. Thirty-six copies printed, and eight copies printed on one side only, four with headlines and four without. THE PROCESSION OP POPE CLEMENT THE SEVENTH AND THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH, after the Coronation at Bologna on the 24th February MDXXX. Designed and engraved by Nicolas Hogenberg, and now reproduced in facsimile, with an Historical Introduction. Edinburgh, 1875. Only 250 copies printed. 62 leaves. Fo. Register. Leaves. Half-title, Title, and General Table of Contents, pp. i.-viii. . 4 Introduction, pp. 1-28 14 Autograph Letter of Pope Clement^ VII. , with Printed Copy and 1 These leaves are not>> Translation, Title to Procession, I numbered, hut if I with Portrait of Emperor j numbered they would j 3 Charles V., List of Plates and J form pp. 29-34 . J Arms. J Plates of Procession numbered 1-40 40 Register and Imprint i 62 THE ENTRY OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. INTO THE CITY OF BOLOGNA on the 5th of November MDXXIX. Reproduced from a series of engravings on wood printed at Venice in MDXXX. Florence, London, and Edinburgh, 1875. 100 copies privately printed. 4 leaves and 16 plates. Fol. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 477 MEMOIR [pp. Ixii.] OF MATTHEW JAMES HIGGINS ["Jacob Omnium"], prefixed to Essays on Social Subjects. By Matthew James Higgins. London, 1875. I2H10. ADDRESS TO THE SENATUS AND GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. Delivered at his installation as Chancellor of the University, on the 27th April 1876. Glasgow, 1876. Pp. 21. 8vo. SOLTMAN THE MAGNIFICENT GOING TO MOSQUE. From a Series of Engravings on Wood, published by Domenico De' Franceschi at Venice in MDLXIII. Florence and Edinburgh, 1877. 4 preliminary leaves, including title, and 9 plates. 100 copies privately printed. Fo. ANTWERP DELIVERED IN 1577. A Passage from the History of the Troubles in the Netherlands. Illustrated by facsimiles of a rare series of designs by Martin de Vos, and of prints by Hogenberg, the Wierexes, &c. London, 1878. 250 copies printed. Pp. xiv. and 43 leaves. Fo. Register. Leaves. Half-title, Title, Table of Contents and List of Illustrations, with Frontispiece of the "Patria Libertati Restituta" Prints, pp. i.-xiv 7 Antwerp Delivered, being a Historical Account of Events illustrated by the " Patria Libertati Restituta " Prints, in which these are included, also View of Antwerp and Namur, not numbered, forming pp. 1-50 . . . .25 Preface, Transcription and Translation of Autograph Letter by Don John of Austria, and Register, pp. i.-xii. of Appendix 6 Facsimile of Autograph Letter by Don John of Austria, inter- leaving the translation, not numbered .... 4 Imprint i 43 478 BIBLIOGRAPHY. A NEW ARTISTIC ALPHABET. Designed by Theodore de Bry, Frankfort- on-Main, 1595. Facsimile reproduction from a copy in the Library of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell at Keir. Edinburgh, 1880. Title-page and Introduction, pp. 3, and 24 Alphabetical Plates, in paper wrapper with ornamental title. ; Large 4to. THE SMITH INSTITUTE, STIRLING. Descriptive Catalogue. Stirling, 1882. I2mo. Title, Contents, Prefatory Note, and pp. 50. Contains pp. 6-15. Address at opening, on nth Aug. 1874, by Sir William Stirling- Maxwell, Bart. Reprinted from the Stirling Journal and Advertiser. Also published in the British Architect, No. 34, pp. 120-1, 2ist Aug. 1874. DON JOHN OP AUSTRIA; or, Passages from the History of the Six- teenth Century, 1547-1578. Illustrated with Numerous Engrav- ings. 2 vols. Edited by Rev. Sir George W. Cox, Bart. London, 1883. Vol. i. pp. xx., 513. Vol. ii. pp. xiv., 526. Large 8vo. Reviewed: Edinburgh Review, vol. 158, No. 323, pp. 1-57, July 1883. Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 137, No. 833, pp. 392-419. March 1885. " The Hero of Lepanto and his Times." Glasgow Herald, January 3rd, 1884. [By the Rev. Jardine Wallace, Traquair.] The Literary World, February 8th, 1884, pp. 81-83. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA; or, Passages from the History of the Six- teenth Century, MDXLVII.-MDLXXVIII. Illustrated with Plates and Numerous Engravings. 2 vols. London, 1883. Vol. i. pp. xxix., 439 (18 plates). Vol. ii. pp. xxii., 421 (15 plates). Folio. 115 copies printed for subscribers and private distribution only. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 479 MISCELLANEA AND OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PERIODICAL PRESS. The Morning Chronicle. 3oth January 1850. Review : Memorials of Montrose and His Times. By Mark Napier. The Examiner, gth March 1850. Review : Sketches and Notes of a Cruise in Scotch Waters, on board the Duke of Jutland's Yacht "Revolution," in the Summer of 1848. By J. C. Schetky and Lord J. Manners. TJie Morning Chronicle. 2gth March 1850. Review: The Village Notary, translated from the Hungarian of Baron Eb'tvos. By Otto Wenckstern, with Introductory Remarks by Francis Pulszky. 3 vols. The Examiner, ist June 1850. Review: Gaspacho, or Summer Months in Spain. By William George Clark, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and The Pillars of Hercules, or A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848. By D. Urquhart, Esq., M.P. The Examiner. 2 8th December 1850. Review : Descriptive Catalogue of Impressions from Ancient Scottish Seals, from 1094 to the Commonwealth. By Henry Laing. The Morning Chronicle. 6th January 1851. Review : Die Devisen und Motto des Spateren Mittelalters. Von [General] J. von Radowitz. The Examiner. i8th January 1851. Review: Music on the Waves. Written and composed by the Hon. Mrs. Norton. Edinburgh Evening Courant. i^th February 1851. Review: Music on the Waves. Written and composed by the Hon. Mrs. Norton. The Examiner. 3rd May 1851. Review : Stuart of Dunleath : A Story of Modern Times. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 480 BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Examiner. lyth May 1851 and 24th May 1851. Review : The Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino. By James Dennis- toun of Dennistoun. 3 vols. Eraser's Magazine. August 1851, pp. 2 1 0-2 1 7. Review : The Bridgewater Gallery. Eraser's Magazine. May 1852, pp. 533-541. Review : Tauromachia ; or, The Spanish Bull Fights. Illustrated in Twenty-six Sketches by Lake Price : with Illustrations. By Kichard Ford. Folio. London. 1852. The Examiner. 6th November 1852. Review: TheHistory of the Painters of All Nations. By M.Charles Blanc. Translated by P. Berlyn and edited by Mr. Digby Wyatt. Part I., Life of Murillo. (Plates.) 4to. London, 1852 (Cassell). Eraser's Magazine. December 1852, pp. 637-643. The New Curiosities of Literature. By the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P. With Notes and Illustrations. The Examiner. 7th May 1853. Review: Digby Or and: an Autobiography. By G. J. Whyte- Melville. The Courant. Edinburgh, 2ist January 1854. Speech as Chairman at Dinner to Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton, Bart., M.P., in Hopetoun Rooms, Edinburgh, 2oth January 1854. The Perthshire Constitutional. 27th December 1854. Leader : The Foreign Enlistment Bill. The Examiner. 7th April 1855. Review : General Bounce ; or, The Lady of the Locusts. By G. J. Why te -Melville. Eraser's Magazine. June 1855, pp. 628-644. Review : Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, Engraver, and of his Brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden. By James Dennistoun of Dennistoun. 2 vols. sm. 8vo. London, 1855. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 481 Fraser's Magazine. August 1855, pp. 149-151. The Laws of Marriage and Divorce. A review of (a.) The Laws of England and the Practice of Parliament relat- ing to Marriage and Divorce. 8vo. London, 1854. (b.) A Letter to the Queen, on Lord Chancellor Cranworth's Marriage and Divorce Bill. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 8vo. London, 1855. The Constitutional and Perthshire Agricultural and General Advertiser. loth October 1855. Obituary Notice of The lion. Captain Robert Drummond of Cromlix. The Saturday Review. i5th March 1856. Notes on Modern Painting at Naples. Review of Notes on Modern Painting at Naples. By Lord Napier. Frasers Magazine. September 1856, pp. 345-347. Pius IX. and Lord Palmerston. Review of Pie IX. et. Lord Palmerston. Par le Comte de Ch. Montalembert. 2e edition. Paris, 1856. The Athenceum, No. 1508. 2oth September 1856. The Velazquez "Boar Hunt." Letter dated Keir, September loth, signed ""William Stirling." Stirling Journal and Advertiser. 2oth January 1857. Lecture on " The Newspaper." The Athenaeum. 28th February 1857. Letter on ShaJcspearian Relics, dated 23rd February, initialed " W. S." Fraser's Magazine, Vol. Ivi., No. 332. August 1857, pp. 141-150, initialed "W. S." High and Low Latitudes. A review of (a.) Letters from High Latitudes. By Lord Dufferin. (b.) Chow-Chow. By the Viscountess Falkland. The Times. 4th September 1858. Obituary Notice of the late Richard Ford. The Press, nth September 1858. Obituary Notice of Richard Ford, under the heading " The Week." VOL. VI. 2 H 482 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Stirling Journal and Advertiser. lyth December 1858. Leader : On the Action for Damages, Weatherley v. The Duke of Beaufort. The Journal (Stirling). 6th January 1859. The Death of the Dowager Lady Gray. Stirling Journal and Advertiser. The Designs for the Wallace Monument. (Letter dated Keir, 27th January 1859. Signed "William Stirling.") [This letter was afterwards, with some additions, republished in pamphlet form as "A Letter to the Lord Advocate of Scot- laud." Supra.] Stirling Journal and Advertiser. The Wallace Design. (Letter dated Keir, February joth, 1859. Signed "William Stirling.") Stirling Journal and Advertiser, gth December 1859. Leader: On Letter from Messrs. Shaw, Miller, Irving, & Blackioell, merchants, Liverpool, to Napoleon I., and reply thereto from M. Mocquard. Stirling Journal and Advertiser. i6th December 1859. Leader : On " The Volunteer Movement." The Perthshire Journal, igth January 1860. Leader : On Paper by Mr. Smythe of Methven, on " The Amend- ment of the Lunacy Act." Stirling Journal and Advertiser. 2oth January 1860. Letter : On " The Wallace Monument." [Dated Keir, i6th January 1860 (signed " William Stirling"), addressed to John Dick, Esq., of Craigengelt, Provost of Stirling, with reply thereto, dated jyth January 1860.] Glasgow Herald. 6th June 1860. The " Stained Glass in the House of Lords." Letter, dated 4th June, signed " William Stirling," in reply to Letter, dated 28th May, Glasgow Daily Herald, 3oth May 1860, from James Ballantine, on an article on "Painted Glass" in the same paper of 7th May 1860. Reply by James Ballantine, dated 6th June, Glasgow Herald, yth June 1860. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 483 Glasgow Herald, nth June 1860. Letter from James Ballantine, dated 7th June, enclosing copy of his Letter of 6th June to Mr. Stirling, and Letter, dated 9th June, from Mr. Stirling in reply. Glasgow Herald, izth June 1860. Letter from James Ballantine, dated nth June 1860, to Mr. Stirling. Notes and Queries. 8th September 1860. Query Marquis de Villar's " Memoires de la Cour d'Espagne." Glasgow Herald. 3oth October 1860. Stirling Journal and Advertiser. 2nd November 1860. North British Daily Mail, Glasgow. 3oth October 1860. Letter: "Mr. Stirling of Keir, M.P., on the French Emperor." Dated Keir, October 27tb, 1860. Signed "William Stirling." Keply by Mr. A. Murray Dunlop, M.P. Dated Edinburgh, 3ist October 1860, in Glasgow Herald, November 7th, 1860, and Stirling Journal and Advertiser, November gth, 1860. Edinburgh Evening Courant. 23rd May 1863. Review : Lispings from Low Latitudes ; or, Extracts from the Journal of the Hon. Impulsia Gushington. Plates. Oblong 4to. London, 1863. Glasgow Herald, gib. November 1860, and Stirling Journal and Advertiser, i6th November 1860. Letter : Mr. Stirling, M.P., of Keir, in reply to Mr. Dunlop, M.P. Dated Glasgow, 8th November 1860. Reply by Mr, Dunlop. Dated Corsock, November I3th, 1860, Glasgow Herald, November I5th, 1860. Edinburgh Evening Courant. i5th August 1863. The " Wigtown Martyrs." The Edinburgh Review and " The Case for the Crown." A Review of The Case for the Crown in re TJie Wigtown Martyrs found to be Mythes, versus Lord Macaulay, Patrick the Pedlar, and Principal Tulloch. By Mark Napier, Sheriff of Dumfriesshire. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1863. 484 BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Realm. loth February 1864. Leader on " The Queen's Speech " at the opening of Parliament on 4th February. The Realm. i7th February 1864. Messrs. Cobden and Delane. Review : Mr. Cobden and the " Times" Correspondence between Mr. Cobden, M.P., and Mr. Delane. 8vo. Manchester, 1864. The Realm. lyth February 1864. " The British Institution." A criticism. The Realm. 24th February 1864. " William Hickling Prescott." Review of Life of William Hick- ling Prescott. By George Ticknor. 4to. Boston. 1864. The Realm Continuation of do. The Shilling Magazine. Vol. I. May 1865. Pp. 44-48. " Wit and Wisdom from West Africa." Review of A Book of Proverbial Philosophy, Idioms, Enigmas, and Laconisms. Compiled by Richard F. Burton, late H.M. Consul for the Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po. London, 1865. Edinburgh Courant. i3th December 1866. Letter, dated Keir, nth December 1866, on Mr. McLaren and the Office of Lord Cleric Register. In reply to a letter of Mr. M'Laren, M.P., in the same paper, of 5th December 1866. The Scotsman and Edinburgh Courant. 3oth October 1867. Speech, as Chairman of Banquet, in the Corn Exchange, Edin- burgh, to the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, 2Qth October 1867. Glasgow Herald and Glasgow News. 2oth November 1873. Speech, as Chairman of Banquet, in the City Hall, Glasgow, to the Eight Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., igth November 1873. Edinburgh Courant. 1877. Article: "A Famous Venetian Library." A. PAGE AIKMAN, WILLIAM, painter . .124 Alcald, de Henares, University of . 442 Alciati, Dr ..... .-.::> , . 202 Alcocer, Fray F, de . . 253 Amory, Susan ... 59, 89 Ancient languages . . .411 Ancient Scottish seals . . .215 Arnold, Dr ...... 417 Austria, Don John of . . 322, 323 B. BANCROFT, GEORGE . Bembo, Cardinal . . Bodleian Library . . Bonaparte, Napoleon . Books .... Brodie, Sir Benjamin . Bull-fights Their antiquity . First recorded fight . The Church averse to 83 197 416 33& 264 268 235 246 249 252 Burton, Sir Richard F., his Book of Proverbial Philosophy 41, 49 Burton, Robert . . . .416 Buxton, Sir Fowell . . . 247 c. CASTIGLIONB . Charles Edward, Prince Chulos . .- . 197 127, 128, 163 . 241 Cisneros, Cardinal Ximenes de Classical learning . . . Cooper, Richard, engraver . Strange apprenticed to him Cortes, Hernando . . . PAGE . 442 .411 .122 . 124 .281 His conquest of Mexico . 281-284 His companions .... 287 His character .... 292 Covenanters, as treated by Sir Walter Scott . . . .391 D. DENNISTOUN, JAMES . . 119,165 Sketch of his life . . 165-169 His works ..... 168 His Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino .... 171-200 Descamps, Strange studies under. 134 De Thou, Jacques Auguste 330-335, 419 His History of European Affairs 330-335 Devises and mottoes . . 201-214 De Witt, painter . . . .123 Diaz del Castillo, Bernal . 279-298 His style and knowledge . . 284 Duplessis, Mons., his Bibliography of Proverbs .... 4 E. EDGEWORTH, MARIA, her book- markers ..... 96 486 INDEX. Edinburgh, Philosophical Institu- tion of . . . . . 277 Edinburgh University, Rectorial Address at .... 407 England, friendship of Napoleon III. for 369 Erasmus, his Adagia . . 42, 5 1 The extreme rarity of the first edition 51 Copy of title-page . . 52 F. FALL of two Empires . . . 337 Ferguson, David, his collection of Proverbs . . . .14 Ford, Francis Clare . . 110,117 Ford, Richard IOI-IIO, 111-117, 235 His ancestry . . . 101, in His travels in Spain . . 102, 1 12 His famous work, the Handbook for Spain . . . 104, 113 His style 107 His knowledge of art . . . 107 His social characteristics . .109 His death no Freeman, E. A 424 G. GLASGOW, city of . . . . 439 Glasgow University, Chancellor's Address 437 Gomara, Lopez de . . . .281 Grote, George . . . .421 H. HALLAM, HBNBT .... 278 Henderson, Andrew, his collection of Pi o verbs . . . .14 Hickling, Catherine 57 Historical style, on some varieties of 277 Horses at bull-fights . . . 240 Howell, James, his Proverbs (1659) 9 Hunterian Museum in Glasgow . 446 INTERNATIONAL copyright PACK 72 J. JAMESON, GEOBGE, the "Scottish Vandyck" .... 123 Jovius, Paul 208 K. KELLY, JAMES, his collection of Proverbs . . . .14 Knox, John .... 298-320 His History of the Reforma- tion .... 298-320 His character 305 L. LAING, DAVID .... 304 Laing, Henry . . . 215. 221 Lawrence, Abbot . . . JI Le Bas, J. P., engraver, Strange studies under . . . . 135 Lee, Rev. Dr. . . . 302, note 4 Linzee, Captain .... 56 Lockhart, John Gibson . . 97 His Life of Scott . . . 399 Lumisden, Andrew, 126, 128, 137, 1 60, 161 One of the secretaries of Prince Charles Edward . . .128 Becomes Under-Secretary to the Chevalier St. George . . 161 Is made Secretary . . .162 Continues Secretary to Charles Edward . . . .162 Is dismissed by him . . .164 His Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome ..... 164 His death 165 Lumisden, Isabella, wife of Sir Robert Strange . . .126 Forces her lover to become a Jacobite . . . . . 1 28 INDEX. 487 Marries Strange. . . .132 Her character and capacity . 155 Her letters . . . -155 Her Jacobitism . . . .158 M. MAOAULAY, LORD ... 97, 278 Macintosh, Donald, his Collection of Gaelic Proverbs . . .14 Mariana, the historian . . . 253 Mary Queen of Scots . . .314 Matador 243 Medina, J. B., painter . . . 123 Melville, James .... 304 Milburn, W. H 74 Monmouth, Henry Carey, Earl of 321, note I Montes, the "Chulo" . . . 242 Mottoes 20 1, 225 N. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE . His campaigns . His abdication . His final fall Napoleon III. The coup-d'ttat . . . Made emperor . His failures . . . His government. The Franco-Prussian War . Nunez, Comendador Hernan, Spanish Proverbs . . 338 339-355 355 357 357-378 359 . 360 363 366, 368 372-378 his 27, 37, 43 0. OLLIVIER Oxford, Bishop of . 368 97 P. PALMER, Sir Roundell . . . 408 Palmerston, Lord, on British art . 122 Paruta, Paolo . . . 320-330 PAGB Peel, Sir Robert, and Mr. Prescott 69 Picadors 238 Pius IX., Pope . . . 270 Pottery of Urbino . . . .195 Prescott, Colonel William . . 56 Prescott, Judge William . . 57 Prescott, William Hickling . 55-84 Ticknor's Life of Prescott . 85-100 Price, Lake 235 Profession, choice of a . . . 267 Proverbial Philosophy of Scotland. I Proverbs in general ... 4 Proverbs, Scottish .... I Spanish 37 West African . . . .41 K. RADOWITZ, Von J. V. . . 201, 205 Raffaelle . . . 182, 194 Ramsay, Allan, painter . 124, 139 Ramsay, Allan, his collection of proverbs 14 Rectorial Address at St. Andrews 257 At Edinburgh .... 407 Rectors of universities, the office of 273 Reformation, the .... 305 Religion, few Scotch proverbs on . 25 Remon, Fr. Alonso . 279, note I Roa, Dr. Juan de . . . . 253 Rogers, Samuel .... Runciman, painter Russell, Lord John S. ST. ANDREWS, Rectorial Address at St. Francis of Assisi . . . Salgado, Diego .... Santillana, Marquis of, his collec- tion of Spanish proverbs . Sanzi, Giovanni .... Sanzi, Raffaelle, see Raffaelle. Scotland, Proverbial Philosophy of Scotland, influence of its early strug- gles as a nation on its proverbs 97 124 5 257 190 250 29 182 18 4 88 INDEX. PAGE Scott, Sir Walter . . . 383-406 Amount of his work . . .384 As a poet 385 As a writer of prose fiction . 389 As a historian .... 391 His character and life . . 399 His politics .... 403 Scottish seals, ancient . . 215, 222 Scribe, Monsieur ..... . 70 Seals, ancie.nt Scottish . . .215 Biblical reference to . . .216 Historical value of . .217 Earliest English . . .219 Ecclesiastical . . . .220 Secondary education in Scotland . 450 Selim II., Sultan .... 322 Snubert, painter . . . .124 Southey 425 Spanish bull-fights . . .235 Description of . . . .237 Stanley, Dean . . . .421 Stirling School of Arts ... I Strange, Sir Robert . . 119-169 Strange, the family of . . .119 T. Tauromachia ; or, Spanish Bull- Fights Illustrated . . . 235 Thiers 360 Ticknor, George . . . .83 His Life of Prescott . . 85-100 Tulloch, John, D.D. . . . 267 U. UMBRIAN art . . . .191 Universities worthy of stately archi- tecture 444 Urbino . . . . . . 171 Its importance in art . . . 171 Its early history . . .172 Federigo, Duke of . . 173-180 His martial feats . . .175 His good government . .176 His book-collecting . -177 Francesco Maria I., Duke of 182-185 Francesco Maria II., Duke of 186-188 Guidobaldo I., Duke of . 180-182 Guidobaldo II., Duke of . 185-186 Literature of . . .196 Pottery of . . ... .195 V. VARIETIES of Historical Style, on some 277 Venice, her position among Euro- pean powers . . . -325 w. WALKER, Dr., President of Har- vard University ... 83 Wax used in old seals, colour of . 230 Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Ox- ford 97 Wishart, George . . . .310 Women, proverbs against . . 30 University education of . . 428 X. XIMENES DE CISNEROS, Cardinal . 442 Y. YOUTH, importance of improving opportunities in . . 258, 260 BALLANTYNE PRESS : EDINBURGH AND LONDON. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. . APR 1 5 1991 RECEIVED APR 03 1991 ART LIBRARY 315 ^