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Title: Memorabilia - Or Recollections, Historical, Biographical, and Antiquarian
Author: Savage, James
Language: English
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MEMORABILIA.
MEMORABILIA;
_RECOLLECTIONS_,
HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL,
AND
Antiquarian,
BY JAMES SAVAGE.
TAUNTON:
PRINTED FOR JAMES SAVAGE,
AND SOLD BY
J. POOLE, BOOKSELLER, FORE-STREET, AND
BY BALDWIN, CRADOCK, & JOY, PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON.
1820.
TAUNTON:
PRINTED BY J. POOLE, FORE-STREET.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following pages have been compiled from various sources, and from an
extensive course of reading. The Editor has in some instances placed his
authorities in the notes at the bottom of the page; and, where he has
copied from former writers, he has inserted the names of those from whom
he has borrowed his materials. His chief object has been to confine
himself to facts; he has therefore carefully avoided giving opinions
upon, or drawing conclusions from, the various subjects of which he has
treated. He has endeavoured to place many points of history in a new
light, and in every part to illustrate, in some degree, the several
matters which have occupied his attention. It has been his desire to
present the reader with a volume, from which he hopes both instruction
and amusement may be drawn, and he submits it with confidence, to the
perusal of young persons in particular, as a collection of biographical
and historical Miscellanea, calculated to beguile the tedium of an hour,
without inculcating a single idea that may sully the purest mind.
_Taunton, May 31st, 1820._
CONTENTS.
Anecdotes of Dr. Kennicott, 1
Remarkable Historical Coincidences, 4
Charles XII. of Sweden, 6
British Pearls, 8
Pillars of Commemoration, 9
Mason, the Poet, 13
Bishops of Sodor and Man, 17
The Table, 19
Clocks, 20
Aldus Manutius, 22
Bottles of Skin, 24
English Slave Trade, 25
Oliver Cromwell’s Wife, 26
Shakespeare, 28
University Degrees, 31
Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester, 33
Figs, 35
Fruits cultivated at Rome in the time of Pliny, that are now grown in
our English gardens, 37
Peacocks, 51
Ancient Libraries, 52
King Charles the First, 58
The Fair Geraldine and the Earl of Surrey, 60
Jews in England, 66
The English Bible, 67
Luxury of Ancient Rome, 68
Rhyme, 70
Mr. Coquebert de Montbret, 72
Dr. Thomas Pierce, 73
Writing among the Greeks, 74
Account of the Scriptoria, or Writing Rooms in the Monasteries of
England, 76
Torture in England, 105
Dr. Johnson’s Conversation with the late King, 114
Dr. Beattie’s Conversation with the late King & Queen, 121
Sacred Gardens, 128
Sir Thomas Wyat, 129
The Hand, a Symbol of Power, 132
Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I, 135
Last Moments of Philip Melancthon, 142
House of Commons, 145
Mosaic Painting, 165
King Egbert, 168
The Latin Language, 171
Dr. Herschel, 174
Parodies, 177
Mourning for the Dead, 178
Garrick, 179
Lemons, 181
Origin of the Point of Honour, 182
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 185
Lifting up the Hand in Swearing, 205
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 207
King Arthur, 210
Alchemy, 213
Account of several Noble Families, in England, who owe their elevation
to the Peerage to their Ancestors having been engaged in Trade, 214
Last Moments of Queen Caroline, 220
The Britons, according to the Greek and Latin Classics, 221
The Seven Sleepers, 227
John Ray, the Naturalist, 230
London Bankers and their Origin, 233
Elucidation of the Ornaments with which the Greeks and Romans adorned
the Human Head on Coins & Medals, 237
The Tradescants, 243
Orange Trees, 249
Articles of Use and Luxury introduced into Europe by the Romans, 251
Account of the Escape of the Earl of Nithsdale from the Tower, in 1716,
255
Account of the first rise of Fairs in England, and the Manner of Living,
in the 16th and 17th Centuries, 269
Sir Richard Clough, 277
Royal Clemency, 279
Lotteries, 280
Herculaneum Manuscripts, 283
Wolves in England, 286
Professor Porson, 288
History of Sepulchral Monuments, 297
Dr. KENNICOTT.
Dr. Kennicott was the son of the parish clerk of Totness, once master of
a charity school in that town. At an early age young Kennicott took the
care of the school, and in that situation wrote some verses, addressed
to the Hon. Mrs. Courtenay, which recommended him to her notice, and to
that of many neighbouring gentlemen, who laudably opened a subscription
to send him to Oxford.
_The following inscription, written by Dr. Kennicott, is engraven on
the tomb of his parents_:
As Virtue should be of good Report,
Sacred be this humble Monument to the Memory of
BENJAMIN KENNICOTT,
Parish Clerk of Totness,
and ELIZABETH his Wife;
The latter an example of every Christian Duty,
The former animated with the warmest zeal, regulated by the
best good sense, and both constantly exerted
for the salvation of himself and others.
Reader! soon shalt thou die also;
And as a Candidate for Immortality, strike thy breast and say,
“Let me live the life of the righteous,that my
latter end may be like his.”
Trifling are the dates of Time, where the subject is Eternity.
Erected by their Son, B. Kennicott, D. D.
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
It is said that when Dr. Kennicott took orders, he came to officiate in
his clerical capacity in his native town,—when his father, as parish
clerk, proceeded to place the surplice on his shoulders, a struggle
ensued between the modesty of the son and the honest pride of the
parent, who insisted on paying that respect to his son which he had been
accustomed to shew to other clergymen; to this filial obedience he was
obliged to submit. A circumstance is added, that his mother had often
declared she should never be able to support the joy of hearing her son
preach; and that on her attendance at the church, for the first time,
she was so overcome as to be taken out in a state of temporary
insensibility.
* * * * *
_The following Letter from Dr. Kennicott to the Rev. William Daddo
has been preserved_:
“_To the Rev. Mr. Daddo, in Tiverton, Devon._
“_Wadh. Coll. Mar. 30, 1744._
“Rev. and Hon. Sir,
“Gratitude to benefactors is the great law of nature, and lest I
should violate what was ever sacred, I presume to lay the following
before you.
“There are, Sir, in the world, gentlemen who confine their regards
to self, or the circle of their own acquaintance, and there are
(happy experience convinces me) who command their influence to
enlarge and exert itself on persons remotely situate, both by
fortune and education. To you, Sir, belongs the honour of this
encomium,—to me the pleasure of the obligation, and as I am now
first at leisure in the place whither your goodness has transplanted
me, I lay this acknowledgment before you, as one of the movers in
this system of exalted generosity; for when I consider myself as
surrounded with benefactors, there seems a bright resemblance of the
now exploded system of Ptolemy, in which, Sir, (you know) the
heavenly bodies revolved around the central earth which was thus
rendered completely blest by the contribution of their cheering and
benign influence.
“And now, Sir, the sentiments of duty rise so warm within me, that
every expression of thanks seems faint, and I am lost in endeavours
after a suitable acknowledgment of my obligations.
“But I know, Sir, whom I am now addressing; I know those who most
deserve can least bear praise, and that your goodness is so great,
as even to reject the very thanks of the grateful; like the sun in
its splendour, which forbids the eye that offers to admire it.
“That Heaven may reward yourself and Mrs. Daddo with its best
favours, and console you under your parental sorrows, is my daily
and fervent prayer; and I shall esteem it one of the great honours
of my life to be favoured at your leisure with any commands or
advices you shall condescend to bestow on
Rev. Sir,
Your dutiful and obliged Servant,
BENJAMIN KENNICOTT.”
* * * * *
The Rev. William Daddo was for many years head-master of Blundell’s Free
School, in Tiverton, where young Kennicott received the rudiments of his
classical education. Mr. Daddo having acquired a considerable fortune
from the emoluments of his school, quitted Tiverton, and retired to
Bow-hill House, in the neighbourhood of Exeter, and there died many
years ago, leaving a daughter, an only child, afterwards married to the
Rev. Mr. Terry.
REMARKABLE HISTORICAL COINCIDENCES.
Among the curiosities in the British Museum are shewn two helmets; the
one Roman, found in the ground on which the battle of Cannæ was fought,
216 years before Christ, and the other made of feathers, brought from
one of the South Sea Islands, by Captain Cook. On comparing these
helmets, the shape will be found exactly similar, though the latter was
made by an uncivilized people living at the distance of more than 2000
years since the battle of Cannæ was fought, and who had never even heard
of the Roman name.
A second coincidence is found in the same collection. Two breast-plates
are shewn to the visitors, exactly corresponding in uniformity of shape,
though made of different materials, the one taken from the bosom of an
Egyptian Mummy, which had been dissected, if I may be allowed to use the
term, in the Museum, and the other brought by Captain Cook, among
various other curiosities, from the South Sea Islands.
A third coincidence is the mode of cookery practised by the South Sea
Islanders as described by Captain Cook, especially in roasting their
hogs. This is by means of hot stones placed in a hole dug in the ground.
In Ossian’s Poems the reader will find that the Caledonians of that time
made use of the same method in cooking their hogs for the table.
The extinction of the Roman Empire in the West, about the year 476, by
Odoacer, King of Italy, was attended by one of the most memorable
coincidences in the history of mankind. The patrician Orestes had
married the daughter of Count _Romulus_, of Petovio in Noricum; the name
of _Augustus_, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at
Aquileia as a familial surname; and the appellations of the two great
founders, the first of the city of Rome, and the second of the Roman
monarchy, were strangely united in the last of their successors. The son
of Orestes succeeded to the throne of the Western Empire, and assumed
and disgraced the names of ROMULUS AUGUSTUS; the first was corrupted
into Momyllus by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the
Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of this
inoffensive youth, the last Sovereign of the Roman Empire in the West,
was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer, who dismissed him, with
his whole family, from the imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance
at 6000 pieces of Gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in
Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement.
CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.
That Charles the twelfth did not fall by a shot from the walls of
Fredericshall, as is commonly supposed, but met his death from a nearer
and more secret hand, has been fully ascertained; and M. Megret, a
French Engineer, who accompanied him, was, no doubt, concerned in the
murder. Many years afterwards, one Cronsted, an officer, on his death
bed, confessed that he had himself, at the instigation of the Prince of
Hesse, brother-in-law of Charles, and whose wife was declared Queen of
Sweden, fired the shot that killed the unfortunate monarch.
In the arsenal at Stockholm, the Swedes preserve, with great care, the
clothes he was habited in at the time he fell. The coat is a plain blue
cloth regimental one, such as every common soldier wore. Round the waist
he had a broad buff leathern belt, in which hung his sword. The hat is
torn only about an inch square, in that part of it which lies over the
temple, and certainly would have been much more injured by a large shot.
His gloves are of very fine leather, and as the left one is perfectly
clean and unsoiled could only have been newly put on. Voltaire says that
the instant the King received the shot, he had the force and courage to
put his hand to his sword, and lay in that posture. The right hand glove
is covered in the inside with blood, and the belt at that part where the
hilt of his sword lay, is likewise bloody, so that it seems clear, he
had previously put his hand to his head, on receiving the shot, before
he attempted to draw his sword and make resistance.
In the same case that contains his clothes is preserved the cap he wore
on the terrible day at Bender, when he so desperately defended himself
against the Turks. It is of fur; and has one tremendous cut on the side,
which must have been within a hair’s breadth of there ending the career
of this wonderful man.
BRITISH PEARLS.
The River Conway in North Wales was of considerable importance, even
before the Roman invasion, for the Pearl muscle, (the _Mya
Margaritifera_ of Linnæus) and Suetonius acknowledged, that one of his
inducements for undertaking the subjugation of Wales, was the Pearl
Fishery carried forwards in that river. According to Pliny, the muscles,
called by the natives _Kregindilin_, were sought for with avidity by the
Romans, and the pearls found within them were highly valued; in proof of
which it is asserted, that Julius Cæsar, dedicated a breastplate set
with British Pearls to Venus Genetrix, and placed it in her temple at
Rome. A fine specimen from the Conway is said to have been presented to
Catherine, consort of Charles II. by Sir Richard Wynne of Gwydir; and it
is further said that it has since contributed to adorn the regal crown
of England. Lady Newborough possessed a good collection of the Conway
pearls, which she purchased of those who were fortunate enough to find
them, as there is no regular fishery at present. The late Sir Robert
Vaughan had obtained a sufficient number to appear at Court, with a
button and loop to his hat, formed of these beautiful productions, about
the year 1780.
PILLARS OF COMMEMORATION.
The erection of a column or pillar, on the highest point of that ridge
of hills, called Blackdown, which separates the county of Somerset from
that of Devon, in commemoration of the great victories obtained by the
Duke of Wellington, is an inducement to look into history, to see how
the nations of antiquity, particularly those of Greece and Rome,
rewarded their heroes who signalized themselves by the performance of
feats of military courage, valour, and skill.
Among the Grecians it was usual to confer honours and rewards upon those
who distinguished themselves in battle by valiant and courageous
conduct. The ordinary rewards presented to conquerors in all the states
of Greece, were crowns, which were sometimes inscribed with the person’s
name and actions that had merited them, as appears from the inscription
upon the crown presented by the Athenians to Conon. The Athenians
sometimes honoured those who had performed great actions with permission
to raise pillars, or erect statues to the gods, with inscriptions
declaring their victories. Plutarch, however, supposes this to have been
a grant rarely yielded to the greatest commanders. Cimon, who commanded
the Athenian fleet against the Persians, became master of the city of
Eion, in Thrace, and was, on account of his not imitating former
commanders, by standing upon the defensive, but repulsing the enemy, and
carrying the war into their own country, highly respected and admired by
his countrymen, who allowed him, in honour of his success over the
enemy, to erect three pillars of stone or marble, each surmounted with
the head of Mercury; but though they bore an inscription, Cimon was not
permitted to inscribe his name upon them. These pillars were considered
by his contemporaries as the highest honour which had then been
conferred upon any commander.
Various Pillars were erected at Rome in honour of great men, and to
commemorate illustrious actions. Thus there were the _Columna Ænea_, a
pillar of Brass, on which a league with the Latins was written. The
_Columna Rostrata_, the Rostral Column, erected in the Forum, in honour
of Duillius, was adorned with figures of ships, and was constructed of
white marble. This column is still remaining with its inscription. It
was built in honour of a great victory gained by Duillius over the
Carthaginian fleet near Lipara, in the first Punic war. Another Pillar
was erected by M. Fulvius, the Consul, consisting of one stone of
Numidian marble, nearly 20 feet high.
But the most remarkable columns were those of _Trajan_ and _Antoninus
Pius_.
Trajan’s Pillar was erected in the middle of his Forum, and was composed
of twenty-four great pieces of marble, but so curiously cemented as to
seem but one. Its height is 128 feet. It is about 12 feet in diameter at
the bottom, and 10 at the top. It has in the inside 185 steps for
ascending to the top, and forty windows for the admission of light. The
whole pillar is incrusted with marble, on which are represented the
warlike exploits of that Emperor and his army, particularly in Dacia. On
the top was a Colossal figure of Trajan, holding in his left hand a
sceptre, and in his right a hollow globe of gold, in which his ashes
were put, but Eutropius affirms that his ashes were put under the
pillar.
The pillar of Antoninus was erected after his death, by the Senate, in
honour of his memory. It is 176 feet high, the steps of ascent 106, and
the windows 56. The sculpture and other ornaments are much of the same
kind with those of Trajan’s pillar, but the work is greatly inferior.
Both these pillars are still standing, and justly reckoned among the
most precious remains of antiquity. Pope Sixtus V. instead of the
statues of the Emperors, caused the statue of St. Peter to be erected on
Trajan’s pillar, and of St. Paul on that of Antoninus.
Pompey’s Pillar, as it is commonly called, in the city of Alexandria in
Egypt, is equally celebrated with the two just mentioned. It is composed
of red granite. The base is a square of about 15 feet on each side; this
block of marble, 60 feet in circumference, rests on two layers of stone
bound together with lead. The shaft and the upper member of the base are
of one piece of 90 feet long, and nine in diameter. The capital is
corinthian, with palm leaves, and not indented; it is 9 feet high. The
whole column is 114 feet in height. It is perfectly well polished, and
only a little shivered on the eastern side. Nothing can equal the
majesty of this column; seen from a distance it overtops the town, and
serves as a signal for vessels. Approaching it nearer, it produces
astonishment mixed with awe. The eye can never be tired with admiring
the beauty of the capital, the length of the shaft, nor the
extraordinary simplicity of the pedestal.
Among the first inhabitants of the world after the flood there were
pillars erected sacred to the Pythonic god, Apollo, or the Sun. These
pillars had curious hieroglyphical inscriptions; they were very lofty
and narrow in comparison of their length; hence among the Greeks, who
copied from the Egyptians, every thing gradually tapering to a point was
stiled an Obelisk.
MASON THE POET.
The merit of this gentleman as a poet is well known. However he was not
satisfied with the applause he received in that character; he was
desirous also of being esteemed a good musician and a good painter. In
music he succeeded better than in painting. He performed decently on the
harpsichord, and by desire, I undertook, says Dr. Miller, in the History
of Doncaster, to teach him the principles of composition; but that I
never could effect. Indeed, others before me had failed in the attempt,
nevertheless he fancied himself qualified to compose; for a short Anthem
of his, beginning “LORD of all power and might,” was performed at the
Chapel Royal, of which only the melody was his own; the bass was
composed by another person. The same may be said of two more Anthems,
sung in the Cathedral of York. In painting he never arrived even to a
degree of mediocrity; so true is Pope’s observation:
“One science only will one genius fit,
”So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
Fond, however, of being considered as a patron both of music and
painting, he contributed to the advancement of several young men by his
recommendation: yet I never knew him patronize but one, in either of
these arts, whom he did not desert afterwards, without his former
favourite ever knowing in what he had offended him.
“When young,” says Dr. Miller, “I was one of those he took under his
protection. He permitted me to dedicate the music of some elegies to
him, and also gave me pieces of his own writing to set to music,
particularly the ‘Ode to Death’ in Caractacus. However, at the end of a
few years, I found myself involved in the disgrace of others, though I
never knew the cause of my dismissal; most probably our disgrace
proceeded from the envy of some officious tale-bearer. On recollection,
I have often observed him listen attentively to these characters; and
his favourite servant had it in his power to lead him which way he
pleased, even to the changing a former acquaintance as easily as he
would change his coat. Rather late in life he married Miss Sharman, of
Hull, which was his native place. The reason he assigned for making her
an offer of marriage was, that he had been a whole evening in her
company with others, and observed, that during all that time she never
spoke a single word. This lady lived about a year after their marriage.
She died at Bristol, where, in the Cathedral, he placed a handsome
monument to her memory, on which are inscribed some beautiful and
much-admired lines as an epitaph. During the short time this lady lived
with him, he appeared more animated and agreeable in his conversation;
but after her decease, his former phlegm returned, and he became silent,
sullen, and reserved.
“Though he had a good income, and was by no means extravagant, yet he
frequently fancied himself poor, to that degree, that he once asked an
acquaintance to lend him a hundred pounds, though at that very time he
had considerable sums of money in the public funds, for which he
neglected taking the interest. A great attachment appeared to exist
between him and a very hospitable family in the neighbourhood of
Doncaster, to whom he was nearly related, and with whom he used to pass
some months in the summer. At length he fancied they expected to receive
a good legacy at his decease, but resolving to disappoint them, he did
not even mention them in his will, but left the greater part of his
property to a person who had formerly been his curate.”
* * * * *
_The following Letter from Mason to Dr. Beattie, is preserved in Sir
William Forbes’s Life of the latter_:
_York, 17th October, 1771._
“In my late melancholy employment of reviewing and arranging the
papers, which dear Mr. Gray’s friendship bequeathed to my care, I
have found nine letters of yours, which I meant to have returned ere
this, had I found a safe opportunity by a private hand; but as no
such opportunity has yet occurred, I take the liberty of troubling
you with this, to enquire how I may best convey them to you. I shall
continue here till the 12th of next month, and hope in that interval
to be favoured with a line from you upon this subject.
“I should deprive myself of a very sincere gratification, if I
finished this letter, with the business that occasions it. You must
suffer me to thank you for the very high degree of poetical pleasure
which the first book of your ‘Minstrel’ gave my imagination, and
that equal degree of rational conviction which your ‘Essay on the
Immutability of Truth’ impressed on my understanding. I will freely
own to you, that the very idea of a Scotsman’s attacking Mr. Hume,
prejudiced me so much in favour of the latter piece, that I should
have approved it, if, instead of a masterly, it had been only a
moderate performance.
“I shall be happy to know, that the remaining books of your
‘Minstrel’ are likely to be published soon. The next best thing,
after instructing the world profitably, is to amuse it innocently.
England has lost that man, (Mr. Gray) who, of all others in it, was
best qualified for both these purposes; but who, from early chagrin
and disappointment, had imbibed a disinclination to employ his
talents beyond the sphere of self-satisfaction and improvement. May
Scotland long possess, in you, a person both qualified and willing
to exert his, for the pleasure and benefit of society.”
BISHOPS OF SODOR AND MAN.
The Bishopric of Sodor and Man was first erected by Pope Gregory IV,
about the year 840, and had for its diocese the Isle of Man and all the
Hebrides or Western Islands of Scotland; but when the Isle of Man became
dependent upon the kingdom of England, the Western Islands withdrew
themselves from the obedience of their Bishop, and had Bishops of their
own, whom they entitled _Episcopi Sodorenses_, but commonly Bishops of
the Isles. The Prelates of the diocese of the Isles had three places of
residence, namely, the Isle of Icolumkill, Man, and Bute; and in ancient
writs, are promiscuously styled _Episcopi Manniæ et Insularum_,
_Episcopi Æbudarum_, and _Episcopi Sodorenses_, which last title is
still retained by the Bishops of the Isle of Man; and the reason of this
style is as follows: The Island of Ily, or I, or Ionah, was in former
ages a place famous for sanctity and learning, and very early became the
seat of a Bishop. This little Island was likewise denominated
Icolumkill, from St. Columba (the companion of St. Patrick) founding a
monastery here in the sixth century, which was the mother of above one
hundred other monasteries situated in different parts of Britain and
Ireland. From the many learned men who came to study here, the Picts and
English Saxons of the North owe their conversion to Christianity. The
Scots used long ago to commit the education of the presumptive heir of
the crown to the care of the Bishops of this see; and so holy was the
Island of Icolumkill reckoned, that most of the Scottish monarchs were
interred there. The Cathedral church was dedicated to our Saviour, for
whom the Greek word is _Soter_, hence _Soterensis_, now corrupted to
_Sodorensis_; and it seems probable that this is the reason why the
Danes called these Islands _Sodoroe_. The civil wars that raged among
the Scots enabled the Danes and Norwegians to seize the Isle of Man; and
about the year 1097 or 1098, Donald Bane, an usurper, who then sat on
the throne of Scotland, treacherously put the Norwegians in possession
of the Western Isles, for the assistance they had given him. It is
probable that these foreigners were the cause that the see was
translated entirely to the Isle of Man. They were at length however,
expelled from all their usurped dominions. During the great contest
between the houses of Bruce and Baliol for the throne of Scotland, King
Edward III., of England, made himself master of the Isle of Man, and it
has remained an appendage of the crown of England ever since. The Lords
of the Isle of Man sat up Bishops of their own, and the Scottish
monarchs continued their Bishops of the Isles. The patronage of the
Bishopric of Man was given, together with the Island, to the Stanleys,
by King Edward IV. and they came by an heir-female to the Duke of Athol,
who still keeps it; and on a vacancy thereof, he nominates the intended
Bishop to the King, who sends him to the Archbishop of York for
consecration. This is the reason why the Bishop of Sodor and Man is not
a Lord of Parliament, as none can have suffrage in the house of Peers
who do not hold immediately of the King himself.
THE TABLE.
The form of a half-moon for a table is of very ancient date; the Romans
called it the _Sigma_, from its resemblance to the Greek letter so
called, which was in the time of the Roman Emperors like the letter C.
Martial tells us this sort of table admitted but of seven persons,
_septem sigma capit_. And Lampridius, in his life of Heliogabalus,
mentions it very frequently, and says it was for seven only; he tells us
the Emperor once invited eight, on purpose to raise a laugh against the
person for whom there would be no seat. The same form of a table
continued in after ages. The authors of the life of St. Martin say, that
the Emperor Maximus invited him to a repast, where the table had the
form of a sigma; and again in the lower ages, Sidonius Apollinaris
speaks of the same thing in the life of the Emperor Majorianus; and it
is likewise represented in a manuscript of the fifth or sixth century.
The seat itself was only a common bench or form; the sigma was the
principal piece of furniture, and most ornamented. In the time of Homer
the guests sat round the table, as we do now, but afterwards some
nations adopted the custom of a reclining position at their meals.
CLOCKS.
The first Clock we know of in this Country was put up in an old tower of
Westminster Hall, in the year 1288, and in 1292, there was one in the
Cathedral of Canterbury. These were probably of foreign workmanship; and
it may be doubted, if there was at that time any person who followed the
business of making clocks. There was, however, one very ingenious
artist, Richard of Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans, who constructed a
clock which represented the motions of the sun, moon, and stars, and the
ebbing and flowing of the sea. That this wonderful piece of mechanism
might be of permanent utility to his Abbey, he composed a book of
directions for the management of it. And Leland who appears to have seen
it, says, that in his opinion all Europe could not produce such another.
There is a fine specimen of ancient Clock-making in Wells Cathedral. It
is a clock constructed by Peter Lightfoot, one of the monks of
Glastonbury, about the year 1325, of complicated design and ingenious
execution. It was originally put up in that celebrated Monastery, and
was placed in the south transept, and by means of a communication tolled
the hours on the great bell of the central tower, whilst the quarters
were struck by automata on two small bells in the transept. The dial
plate shews the hours, and also the changes of the moon, the solar and
other astronomical motions; on its summit there is an horizontal frame
work, which exhibits by the aid of machinery, eight knights on horseback
armed for a tournament, and pursuing each other with a rapid rotatory
motion. At the Reformation this clock was removed from Glastonbury Abbey
to its present situation in Wells Cathedral.
The Clock in Exeter Cathedral was erected by Bishop Courtenay in the
year 1480. It is on the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy and of a curious
construction for the age in which it was put up. The earth is
represented by a globe in the centre; the sun by a fleur-de-lys; and the
moon by a ball painted half black and half white, which turns on its
axis, and shews the different phases of that luminary.
ALDUS MANUTIUS.
[DIED 1516.]
It would be difficult to say whether the exertions of any individual,
however splendid his talents, or even the labours of any particular
association, or academy, however celebrated, ever shed so much lustre on
the place of their residence as that which Venice derives from the
reputation of a stranger, who voluntarily selected it for his abode. I
allude to ALDUS MANUTIUS. This extraordinary person combined the lights
of the scholar, with the industry of the mechanic; and to his labours,
carried on without interruption till the conclusion of a long life, the
world owes the first or _principes editiones_ of twenty eight Greek
Classics. Among these we find Pindar, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle. Besides these,
there are few ancient authors of any note, of whom this indefatigable
editor has not published editions of acknowledged accuracy, and as far
as the means of the art of printing, then in its infancy, permitted, of
great beauty. In order to appreciate the merit of Aldus, we must
consider the difficulties under which he must have laboured at a time
when there were few public libraries; when there was no regular
communication between distant cities; when the price of manuscripts put
them out of the reach of persons of ordinary incomes; and when the
existence of many since discovered, was utterly unknown. The man who
could surmount these obstacles, and publish so many authors till then
inedited; who could find means and time to give new and more accurate
editions of so many others already published, and accompany them all
with prefaces mostly of his own composition; who could extend his
attention still farther and by his labours secure the fame, by
immortalizing the compositions of the most distinguished scholars of his
own age and country, must have been endowed in a very high degree, not
only with industry and perseverance, but with judgment, learning, and
discrimination. One virtue more, Aldus possessed in common with many of
the great literary characters of that period, I mean, a sincere and
manly piety, a virtue which gives consistency, vigour, and permanency to
every good quality, and never fails to communicate a certain grace and
dignity to the whole character.
BOTTLES OF SKIN.
The Ancients made use of bottles of skin to hold their wine, as is usual
in many countries to this day. Thus Homer mentions wine being _brought
in a goat’s skin_. (Il. II. iii. line 247. Odys. VI. line 78, IX. line
196, 212) Herodotus (ii. 121,) mentions _skins_ being filled with wine.
And Maundrell in his Travels to Jerusalem, speaking of the Greek Convent
at Bellmount, near Tripoli, in Syria, says, “The same person whom we saw
officiating at the altar in his embroidered sacerdotal robe, brought us
the next day on his own back, a kid, and a _goat’s skin of wine_ as a
present from the Convent.”
ENGLISH SLAVE TRADE.
A great article of exportation among the Anglo-Saxons was Slaves, in
which kind of traffic, the Northumbrians in particular, were very
famous, amongst whom this trade continued, according to William of
Malmesbury, for some time after the conquest. The people of Bristol were
also very much employed in the Slave Trade, which they pursued with such
eagerness, that they frequently spared not their nearest relations; but
at length they were prevailed upon by the preaching and exhortation of
Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, who possessed that See at the time of the
Conquest, to quit such a barbarous and inhuman traffic.
In the history of the Saxon period there is frequent mention of living
money, in contradistinction to coins of gold, silver, &c. This living
money consisted of slaves and cattle of all sorts, which according to
the value fixed upon them by law, were equally current with gold or
silver in the payment of debts.
In Domesday Book it is said that in the Borough of Lewes, four-pence was
to be paid to the Portreeve for every man sold within that borough.
The Monks were forbid by an ancient Canon to manumit their slaves, and
this unhappy race of men seems to have been longer perpetuated on the
estates of the Monasteries than elsewhere, for in the survey of
Glastonbury Abbey taken after the dissolution, there is mention of “271
bondmen, whose bodies and goods were at the King’s Highness’s pleasure.”
OLIVER CROMWELL’S WIFE.
The two following notable instances of this Lady’s niggardliness are
taken from a very scarce little book intitled “The Court and Kitchen of
Elizabeth Cromwell,” &c. printed in 1664.
“The first, was the very next summer after Oliver’s coming to the
Protectorate in 1654. In June, at the very first season of green pease,
where a poor country woman living some where about London, having a very
early but small quantity in her garden, was advised to gather them and
carry them to the Lady Protectress; her counsellors conceiving she would
be very liberal in her reward, they being the first of that year;
accordingly the poor woman came to the _Strand_; and having her pease
amounting to a peck and a half, in a basket, a cook by the _Savoy_ as
she passed, either seeing or guessing at them, demanded the price, and
upon her silence offered her an angel (a coin so called) for them, but
the woman expecting some greater matter, went on her way to _Whitehall_,
where after much ado, she was directed to her chamber, and one of her
maids came out, and understanding it was a present and a rarity, carried
it in to the Protectress, who out of her princely munificence sent her a
crown, which the maid told into her hand; the woman seeing this
baseness, and the frustration of her hopes, and remembering withal what
the cook had proffered her, _threw back the money into the maid’s hands,
and desired her to fetch her back her pease, for that she was offered
five shillings more for them before she brought them thither, and could
go fetch it presently_; and so half slightingly and half ashamedly, this
great lady returned her present, putting it off with a censure upon the
unsatisfactory daintiness of luxurious and prodigal epicurism. The very
same pease were afterwards sold by the woman to the said cook, who is
yet alive (that is in 1664) to justify the truth of this relation.
“The other is of a later date. Upon Oliver’s rupture with the Spaniards,
the commodities of Spain grew very scarce, and the prices of them raised
by such as could procure them under-hand. Among the rest of these goods,
the fruits of the growth of that country were very rare and dear,
especially oranges and lemons. One day as the Protector was private at
dinner he called for an orange to a loin of veal, to which he used no
other sauce, and urging the same command, was answered by his wife, that
_Oranges were oranges now; that crab oranges would cost a groat, and for
her part she never intended to give it_; and it was presently whispered
that sure her Highness was never the adviser of the Spanish war: and
that his Highness would have done well to have consulted his digestion,
before his lusty and inordinate appetite of dominion and riches in the
West Indies.”
SHAKESPEARE.
The following ingenious reasons are assigned by Mr. Charles Butler, in
his “Memoirs of the English Catholics,” as grounds for a belief that
Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic.
“May the Writer premise a suspicion, which from internal evidence, he
has long entertained, that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic. Not one of
his works contains the slightest reflections on Popery, or any of its
practices; or any eulogy of the Reformation. His panegyric on Queen
Elizabeth is cautiously expressed; whilst Queen Catherine is placed in a
state of veneration; and nothing can exceed the skill with which
Griffith draws the panegyric of Wolsey. The Ecclesiastic is never
presented by Shakespeare in a degrading point of view. The jolly Monk,
the irregular Nun, never appear in his Drama. Is it not natural to
suppose, that the topics, on which at that time, those who criminated
Popery loved so much to dwell, must have often solicited his notice, and
invited him to employ his muse upon them, as subjects likely to engage
the favourable attention both of the Sovereign and the subject? Does not
his abstinence from these justify a suspicion, that _a Popish feeling_
with-held him from them. Milton made the Gunpowder Conspiracy the theme
of a regular Poem. _Shakespeare is altogether silent on it._”
* * * * *
The Editor of the Morning Chronicle has given a short comment on the
above Paragraph: “We will only oppose” says he, “a single observation to
Mr. Butler’s suspicion. Shakespeare was buried _at his own desire in a
Protestant Church_, with this rather curious Inscription, which we
recommend to Mr. Butler’s perusal:
_Good Friend for Jesu’s sake forbear_
To dig the dust inclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
The Editor of the Morning Chronicle does not give his authority for
stating that Shakespeare was buried _by his own desire_ in a Protestant
Church. The poet, in his will, does not express any _desire_ about being
buried in any particular place, and being buried in a Protestant Church,
neither proves one thing nor another respecting his religion. It is no
proof that he was a Protestant because he was buried in a Protestant
Church, even if it were clearly shewn that it was by his own desire;
neither is it any proof that he was not a Roman Catholic because he was
buried in a Protestant Church. Let us ask the Editor of the M. C. where
the Catholics of Shakespeare’s time could bury their dead but in
Protestant Churches, or in consecrated ground belonging to Protestant
Churches?
The inscription which the Editor of the M. C. mentions to have been
placed upon Shakespeare’s tomb, certainly does not prove any more
respecting his religion than does his being buried in a Protestant
Church. It has been observed with a high degree of probability that the
inscription in question alludes to the custom which was then in use of
removing skeletons after a certain time, and depositing them in Charnel
Houses. Similar execrations are found in many ancient Latin Epitaphs.
It is one of the observations of Mr. Butler, in proof of his suspicion,
that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic, that the poet has not eulogized
the Reformation. In the speech (play of Henry VIII. scene the last)
which Archbishop Cranmer makes at the christening of the Princess
Elizabeth, Shakespeare puts into the Prelate’s mouth these prophetic
words—
“In her days ...
“GOD shall be truly known” ...
which appear evidently to infer that in the Roman Catholic times GOD was
not truly known, but that the Reformation, so eminently promoted by
Queen Elizabeth, had brought forth light and truth. Mr. Butler seems to
have overlooked these lines, and the inference that may be drawn from
them, namely, that Shakespeare was _not_ a Roman Catholic.
The author of a Tragedy, recently published, entitled “Moscow,” says (p.
67.) that “he has discovered that Shakespeare was a Free-Mason. Let
every brother of the _third degree_, therefore SEARCH the works of the
immortal bard, and he will find the TRUTH of the above assertion.”
UNIVERSITY DEGREES.
It does not appear that there were any degrees in either the Greek or
Roman academies; the only distinction was that of masters and scholars.
The first seminaries of learning among christians were the cathedral
churches and monasteries, but in process of time the schools belonging
to them were regulated, and men of learning opened others in places
where they could find protection and encouragement. Hence the origin of
universities, which at first were merely a collection of those schools,
to which Princes and great men gave liberal endowments, and granted
particular immunities and privileges. Degrees were not conferred till
the universities were incorporated; a circumstance extremely probable,
when we recollect that all civil honours must be derived from the
supreme magistrate.
The most ancient degrees were those of Bachelor and Master of Arts.
Before the existence of a certain statute, which obliged the theologists
to be regents in arts previously to their ascending the chair of Doctor,
they were only students, and bachelors, or masters of divinity, without
reading the arts. At that time the degrees in arts were held in such
estimation, as to be thought superior to that of doctor in any other
faculty.
The degree of Doctor was not known in England till the time of Henry II.
It afterwards became common, and was taken not only by Professors of
Divinity, Law, and Medicine, but by those of Grammar, Music, Philosophy,
Arts, &c. As the Doctors of those professions, however, seldom obtained
great honour or riches, this degree declined and fell into neglect. That
of Music is the only one which has survived.
GUY CARLETON,
LORD DORCHESTER.
When General Wolfe was appointed to the Command of the Land Forces
destined to act against Canada, in 1759, Mr. Pitt, then Secretary of
State, told him, that as he could not give him so many troops as he
wanted for the Expedition, he would make it up to him in the best
manner he could, by allowing him the appointment of all his
Officers. Accordingly the General sent in a list, in which was the
name of Lieutenant-Colonel Carleton, whom he had put down as
Quarter-Master-General. This Officer, who had been Aide-de-Camp to
the Duke of Cumberland during the campaign in Germany, in 1757, had
unfortunately made himself obnoxious to George the Second, by some
unguarded expressions relating to the Hanoverian Troops, and which
had by some officious person been reported to the King. Lord
Ligonier, then Commander in Chief of the Forces, took General
Wolfe’s list to his Majesty for his approbation, when the King
having looked over it, made some objections in pointed terms, to
Colonel Carleton’s name, and refused to sign his commission. Lord
Ligonier reported the King’s objections and refusal to Mr. Pitt, who
immediately sent his Lordship a second time to his Majesty with no
better success. Mr. Pitt then suggested that his Lordship should go
again, which he refused, on which Mr. Pitt told him, that unless he
went to the King and got Colonel Carleton’s commission signed he
should lose his place. Lord Ligonier then went a third time to the
King, and represented to him the peculiar state of the expedition,
and that in order to make the General completely responsible for
every part of his conduct, it was necessary that the officers
employed under him should be those who enjoyed his entire and
perfect confidence, so that, if he did not succeed, he might not
accuse the Government at home with putting under him officers who,
either by incapacity, want of energy, or inactivity, should thwart
his commands, and thus paralyse the most skilful arrangements. The
King listened to his Lordship’s reasons with a favourable ear, and
his resentment against Colonel Carleton, was so completely disarmed,
that he immediately signed the commission under which that Officer
accompanied General Wolfe as Quarter-Master-General of his army.
FIGS.
Figs have from the earliest times been reckoned among the delights of
the palate.
Moses, in the Pentateuch, enumerates among the praises of the promised
land, (Deut. viii. 8.) that it was a “Land of Fig Trees”.
The Athenians valued figs at least as highly as the Jews. Alexis (in the
Deipnosophists) calls figs “Food for the Gods.” Pausanias says that the
Athenian, Phytalus, was rewarded by Ceres for his hospitality, with the
gift of the first fig-tree. Some foreign guest, no doubt, transmitted to
him the plant, which he introduced into Attica. It succeeded so well
there, that Athensæus brings forward Lynceus and Antiphanes vaunting the
figs of Attica as the best on the earth. Horapollo, or rather his
commentator Bolzair, says that when the master of a house is going a
journey he hangs out a broom of fig-boughs for good luck.
By one of the laws of Solon all the products of the earth were forbidden
to be exported from Athens; under this law the exportation of figs was
prohibited, and it is from this circumstance we have the word
_sycophant_ from the Greek; those who violated this law were subject to
a heavy penalty, and the informer against the delinquents was called a
sycophant from the original word literally meaning an “exhibiter of
figs,” as thereby substantiating his charge. The name was afterward more
extensively applied, and is now associated with the ideas of meanness,
servility, and calumny.
A taste for figs marked the progress of refinement in the Roman Empire.
In Cato’s time but six sorts of figs were known; in Pliny’s twenty-nine.
The sexual system of plants seems first to have been observed in the fig
tree. Pliny in his Natural History alludes to this under the term
_caprification_.
In modern times the esteem for figs has been more widely diffused; when
Charles the 5th visited Holland in 1540, a Dutch merchant sent him, as
the greatest delicacy which Zuricksee could offer, a plate of figs. The
gracious Emperor dispelled for a moment the fogs of the climate by
declaring, that he had never eaten figs in Spain with more pleasure.
Carter praises the figs of Malaga; Tournefort those of Marseilles; Ray
those of Italy; Brydone those of Sicily; Dumont those of Malta; Browne
those of Thessaly; Pocock those of Mycone; De la Mourtraye those of
Tenedos and Mitylene; Chandler those of Smyrna; Maillet those of Cairo;
and Lady Mary Wortley Montague those of Tunis. What less can be inferred
from this conspiring testimony than that wherever there is a fig there
is a feast?
It remains for Jamaica, and the contiguous Islands, to acquire that
celebrity for the growth of figs, which yet attaches to the Eastern
Archipelago; to learn to dry them as in the Levant, and to supply the
desserts of the English tables.
FRUITS,
CULTIVATED AT ROME IN THE TIME OF PLINY, THAT ARE NOW GROWN IN OUR
ENGLISH GARDENS.
APPLES.—The Romans had twenty-two sorts of Apples. Sweet Apples
(_melimala_) for eating, and others for cookery. They had one sort
without kernels.
[Eugene Aram, in his collections for a dictionary of the Celtic
language, says that the name of the Apple Tree is a corruption of
“Apollo’s Tree.”—“And that this is its original, will be easily
deducible from a little reflection on the proofs in support of it. The
prizes in the sacred games were the Olive Crown, Apples, Parsleys and
the Pine. Lucian, in his Book of Games, affirms that Apples were the
reward in the Sacred Games of Apollo; and Curtius asserts the same
thing. It appears also that the Apple Tree was consecrated to Apollo
before the Laurel; for both Pindar and Callimachus observe that Apollo
did not put on the Laurel until after his conquest of the Python, and
that he appropriated it to himself on account of his passion for Daphne,
to whom the laurel was sacred. The Victor’s wreath at first was a bough
with its apples hanging upon it, sometimes with a branch of laurel; and
antiquity united these together as the reward of the Victor in the
Pythian games.”]
APRICOTS.—Pliny says of the Apricot (Armeniaca) _quæ sola et odore
commendantur_. He arranges them among his plums.—Martial valued them but
little, as appears by his epigram, xiii. 46.
[The Apricot, we are told came originally from Armenia, whence its name
_Armeniaca_. Wolfe, gardener to King Henry the 8th, first introduced
Apricots into England. Tusser mentions the Apricot in his list of fruits
cultivated here in 1573.]
ALMONDS—were abundant, both bitter and sweet. [The Almond was introduced
into England in 1570; it is not, however, in Tusser’s list of fruits
cultivated here in 1573.]
CHERRIES—were introduced into Rome in the year of the city 680, B. C.
73, and were carried thence to Britain 120 years after, A. D. 48. The
Romans had eight kinds, a red one, a black one, a kind so tender as
scarce to bear any carriage, a hard fleshed one (_duracina_) like our
bigarreau, a small one with a bitterish flavour (_laurea_) like our
little wild black, also a dwarf one, the tree bearing which did not
exceed three feet in height.
[Cherries are said to have come originally from Cerasus, a city of
Pontus, from which Lucullus brought them into Italy, after the
Mithridatic War. They so generally pleased at Rome, and were so easily
propagated in all climates into which the Romans extended their arms,
that within the space of a hundred years, they had become common. It has
been erroneously supposed that Cherries were first introduced into this
country by Richard Haynes, fruiterer to King Henry the eighth, who
planted them at Teynham, in Kent, whence they had the name of Kentish
cherries; but Lydgate who wrote his poem called “Lickpenny” before the
middle of the fifteenth century, or probably before the year 1415,
mentions them in the following lines, as being commonly sold at that
time by the hawkers in the streets of London:
“Hot pescode oon began to cry,
”Straberys rype, and cherreys in the ryse.”
Ryce, rice, or ris, properly means a long-branch; and the word is still
used in that sense in the West of England.
Dr. Bulleyn shews there were plenty of good native cherries at
Ketteringham, near Norwich; pears, called the Blackfriars, in and about
that city; and excellent grapes at Blaxhall in Suffolk, where he was
rector from 1550 to 1554.]
CHESNUTS.—The Romans had six sorts, some more easily separated from the
skin than others, and one with a red skin. They roasted them as we do.
[The chesnut, _castanea_, is a native of the South of Europe, and is
said to take its name from Castanea, a city of Thessaly, where anciently
it grew in great plenty. Gerard says that in his time there were several
woods of chesnuts in England, particularly one near Feversham, in Kent;
and Fitz-Stephen, in a description of London, written by him in Henry
the second’s time, speaks of a very noble forest which grew on the north
side of it. This tree grows sometimes to an amazing size. There is one
at Lord Ducie’s at Tortworth, in the county of Gloucester, which
measures 19 yards in circumference, and is mentioned by Sir Robert
Atkyns, in his History of that County, as a famous tree in King John’s
time; and by Mr. Evelyn in his Sylva, to have been so remarkable for its
magnitude in the reign of King Stephen, as then to be called the great
chesnut of Tortworth; from which it may be reasonably supposed to have
been standing before the conquest. Lord Ducie had a drawing of it taken
and engraved in 1772. Formerly a great part of London was built with
chesnut and walnut timber.]
The Horse Chesnut was brought from the northern parts of Asia into
Europe, about the year 1550, and was sent to Vienna, about the year
1558. From Vienna it migrated into Italy and France: but it comes to us
from the Levant immediately. Gerard in his Herbal, printed in 1597,
speaks of it only as a foreign Tree. In Johnson’s edition of the same
Work printed in 1633, it is said, “Horse Chesnut groweth in Italy, and
in sundry places of the East Country; it is now growing with Mr.
Tradescant at South Lambeth.” Parkinson says “our Christian World had
first the knowledge of it from Constantinople.”—The same Author places
the Horse Chesnut in his Orchard, as a fruit tree between the Walnut and
the Mulberry. How little it was then known, 1629, may be inferred from
his saying not only that it is of a greater and more pleasant aspect,
for the fair leaves, but also of a good use for the fruit, which is of a
sweet taste, roasted and eaten as the ordinary sort.—This tree does not
seem to have been so common a hundred years ago as it is now. Mr.
Houghton (1700) mentions some at Sir William Ashhurst’s at Highgate, and
especially at the Bishop of London’s at Fulham. Those now standing at
Chelsea College were then very young. There was also a very fine one in
the Pest-house garden near Old-Street, and another not far from the
Ice-house under the shadow of the Observatory in Greenwich Park.
FIGS.—The Romans had many sorts of figs, black and white, large and
small; one as large as a pear, another no larger than an olive.
[The fig has been cultivated in England ever since 1562. It is omitted
by Tusser in his list of fruits cultivated in our gardens. Cardinal Pole
is said to have imported from Italy that tree, which is still growing in
the garden of the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. It is the oldest fig
tree that is known in this kingdom. In the Percy Household-book, the
person who had the charge of providing for the consumption and use of
the Earl of Northumberland’s numerous family, was ordered to purchase
four coppets of figs, for which he was to pay twenty pence for each
coppet. This quantity was to serve for one year.]
MEDLARS.—The Romans had two kinds of medlars, the one larger, and the
other smaller.
MULBERRIES.—The Romans had two kinds of the black sort, a larger and a
smaller. Pliny speaks also of a mulberry growing on a briar: _Nascuntur
et in rubis_, (1. xv. sect. 27) but whether this means the raspberry, or
the common blackberry, does not appear.
[The mulberry, _Morus_, is a native of Persia, whence it was introduced
into the southern parts of Europe, and is commonly cultivated in
England, Germany, and other countries where the winters are not very
severe. “We are informed,” says Forsyth in his treatise on fruit trees,
“that mulberries were first introduced into this country in 1596; but I
have reason to believe that they were brought hither previous to that
period, as many old trees are to be seen standing at this day about the
sites of ancient abbeys and monasteries, from which it is at least
probable that they had been introduced before the dissolution of
religious houses. Four large mulberry trees are still standing on the
site of an old kitchen garden, now part of the pleasure-ground, at Sion
House, which, perhaps may have stood there ever since that house was a
monastery. The first Duke of Northumberland has been heard to say, that
these trees were above 300 years old. At the Priory near Stanmore,
Middlesex, (the seat of the Marquis of Abercorn) there are also some
ancient Mulberry trees. The Priory was formerly a religious house.”
Gerard in his description of the mulberry tree has the following curious
paragraph: “Hexander in Athenæus affirmeth, that the mulberry trees in
his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty years together; and that so
great a plague of the gout reigned and raged so generally, as not only
men, but boys, and women were troubled with that disease.”
Tusser, in his list of fruits cultivated in England in 1573 enumerates
the Mulberry.—Gerard, who published his history of plants in 1597, says
in that book, that Mulberry Trees then grew in sundry gardens in
England.]
NUTS.—The Romans had Hazel Nuts and Filberds. They roasted these Nuts.
PEARS.—Of these the Romans had many sorts, both Summer and Winter Fruit,
melting and hard; they had more than thirty six kinds, some were called
_Libralia_. We have our Pound Pear.
[Pliny mentions twenty kinds of this fruit, and Virgil five or six.
Ælian describing the most ancient food of several nations, reports that
at Argos they fed chiefly upon Pears.
Tusser, states that “Pears of all sorts” were cultivated here in his
time.
The Arms of Wardon Abbey, in Bedfordshire, as given by Tanner, are
Argent, Three Pears, Or.—Quere, if these are the species called Wardons,
or if they are peculiar to that part of England.
The Wardon Pear is common in Yorkshire.]
PLUMS.—The Romans had a multiplicity of sorts (_ingens turba prunorum_)
black, white, and variegated; one sort was called _asinia_, from its
cheapness; another _damascena_; this had much stone and little flesh:
from Martial’s Epigram, xiii. 29, we may conclude that it was what we
now call prunes.
[The Plum is generally supposed to be a native of Asia, and the
Damascene (Damson) to take its name from Damascus, a city of Syria.
Tusser enumerates in his list of fruits “Grene or Grass Plums, and Peer
Plums, black and yellow.”
Lord Cromwell introduced the Perdrigon Plum in the Reign of Henry the
seventh.]
QUINCES.—The Romans had three sorts, one was called _Chrysomela_, from
its yellow flesh. They boiled them with honey as we make marmalade. See
Martial, xiii. 24.
[The Quince is called Cydonia, from Cydon, a town of Crete, famous for
this fruit.—Tusser mentions it among his fruit-trees, and Gerard says it
was cultivated here in his time.]
SERVICES.—They had the Apple-shaped, the Pear-shaped, and a small kind,
probably the same that we gather wild, the Azarole.
[There are three sorts of the Service Tree cultivated in England, namely
the cultivated Service; the Wild Service or Mountain Ash; and the Maple
leaved Service. The first is a native of the warmer climes of Europe;
and the other two grow wild in different parts of England.]
STRAWBERRIES.—The Romans had Strawberries, but do not appear to have
prized them. The climate is too warm to produce this fruit in perfection
unless in the hills.
[Tusser enumerates Strawberries, red and white, as being cultivated when
he wrote.]
VINES.—The Romans had a multiplicity of Vines, both thick-skinned,
(_duracina_,) and thin-skinned: one Vine growing at Rome produced 12
Amphoræ of juice, equal to 84 gallons. They had round-berried, and
long-berried sorts, one so long that it was called _dactilydes_, the
grapes being like the fingers on the hand. Martial (xiii. 22.) speaks
favourably of the hard-skinned grape for eating.
[In Domesday Book, (1. p. 8. col 1.) there are said to be in the Bishop
of Bayeux’s Manor of _Chert_, in the county of Kent, three arpents of
_Vineyard_, and in the Manor of Leeds (1. p. 7. col. 4.) belonging to
the same Bishop, two Arpents of _Vineyard_.
In several Charters in the “Registrum Roffensis” mention is made of _the
Vineyard_ belonging to the Monks of Rochester, wherein grew great
quantities of grapes; and which is also, in much later days, said by
Worlidge, to have produced excellent wines. Bishop Hamon presented some
of the wine and grapes of his own growth, at Halling, near Rochester, to
Edward the second, when at Bockinfold; and in some old leases of the
bishoprick, mention has been found made, of considerable quantities of
_Blackberries_ being delivered to the Bishop of Rochester, by sundry of
his Tenants, for the purpose of _colouring the wine_ growing in his
Vineyard. This gives us some idea of what sort the wine was, and also
deserves well to be compared with that ancient usage of making wines in
this country, the remembrance whereof is preserved by means of some
records of the reign of Henry the third; amongst which are two precepts,
the one (Claus. An. 34. Hen. III.) to the keepers of the king’s wines at
York, to deliver out to one Robert (de Monte Pessulano) such wines, and
as much as he pleased to make _for the king’s use, against the feast of
Christmas, (Claret) such drink, as he used to make in preceding years_.
The first record says, _ad potus regis pretiosos delicatos inde
faciendos_. The second says, _ad Claretum inde faciend.—Ad opus regis
sicut annis preteritis facere consuevit._ And both may be seen at length
in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 11. Perhaps it may not be
undeserving notice, that even to the beginning of the eighteenth
Century, almost all red wine was, in this country, called Claret.
Honey and Mead, constituted a part of the mixture of the royal Norman
Claret, and for several ages Claret was considered as belonging to the
Materia Medica; and formed a part of the old English Apothecaries store
of Medicines, preserved in white glazed earthern pitchers, with labelled
inscriptions burnt in large blue letters in the ware; several of which
are still preserved.
Several other Monasteries and Abbeys, had remarkable Vineyards, as well
as Rochester; particularly that of St. Edmund’s Bury; that at Ely; that
at Peterborough; and even that at Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire; And
indeed most of the original Vineyards mentioned are found to have
belonged to Abbeys. It is a curious circumstance, and elucidating the
_prices_ of the age, that in the time of Henry the third, a _Dolium_. or
cask of the best wine, sold for forty shillings, and sometimes even for
twenty.
For an enlarged account of Vineyards in England see Archæologia, vol. i.
p. 821.; and vol. iii. p. 53. and 67.]
WALNUTS.—The Romans had soft shelled, and hard shelled, as we have. In
the golden age, when men lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon Walnuts,
hence the name _Juglans_, that is _Jovis glans_.[1]
* * * * *
As a matter of curiosity, it has been deemed expedient, to add a list of
the fruits cultivated in our English Gardens in the year 1573. This list
is taken from Tusser’s _Five hundred points of good Husbandry_.
Thomas Tusser, who had received a liberal education at Eton school, and
at Trinity hall, Cambridge, lived many years as a farmer in Suffolk and
Norfolk. He afterwards removed to London, where he published in 1557,
the first edition of his work, under the title of “One hundred points of
good husbandry.”
In his fourth edition, from which this list is taken, he first
introduced the subject of Gardening, and has given us not only a list of
the fruits, but also of all the plants then cultivated in our gardens,
either for pleasure or profit, under the following heads:—
“Seedes and herbes for the kychen, herbes and roots for sallets and
sauce, herbes and rootes to boyle or to butter, strewing herbes of all
sorts, herbes, branches, and flowers for windowes and pots, herbs to
still in summer, necessarie herbes to grow in the gardens for physick
not reherst before.”
This list consists of more than 150 species besides the following
fruits:—
Apple Trees of all sorts—Apricots
Barberries—Bullass, black and white
Cherries, red and black—Chesnuts—Cornet Plums[2]
Damsons, white and black
Filberds, red and white
Gooseberries—Grapes, white and red—Green or Grass Plums.
Hurtle Berries.[3]
Medlars or Merles—Mulberries.
Peaches, white and red[4]—Pears of all sorts. Pear Plums, black and
yellow.
Quince Trees.
Rasps—Raisins.[5]
Small Nuts—Strawberries, red and white—Service Trees.
Wardons, white and red—Walnuts—Wheat Plums.
Footnote 1:
This article is taken from the first volume of the Transactions of the
Horticultural Society, and was communicated by the Right Hon. Sir
Joseph Banks, Bart.—The additions, within brackets, are by the Editor.
Footnote 2:
Probably the fruit of _Cornus Mascula_, commonly called Cornelian
Cherry.
Footnote 3:
_Hurtleberries_, the fruit of _Vaccinium vitis idea_, though no longer
cultivated in our gardens, are still esteemed and served up at the
tables of opulent people in the counties that produce them naturally.
They are every year brought to London from the rocky country, near
Leath Tower in Surrey, where they meet with so ready a sale among the
middle classes of the people, that the richer classes scarcely know
that they are to be bought.—They also grow very plentifully on some of
the hills and heaths in the counties of Somerset and Devon.
Footnote 4:
The _Yellow fleshed Peach_, now uncommon in our gardens, but which was
frequent 40 years ago, under the name of the Orange Peach, was called
by our ancestors _Melicoton_.
Footnote 5:
By _Raisins_ it is probable that Currants are meant; the imported
fruit of that name of which we make puddings and pies was called by
our ancestors _Raisin de Corance_.—In the Percy Household Book it is
said that 200 pounds _of Raisins de Corance_ should be purchased for
the use of the Earl of Northumberland’s family, which were to serve
one year.
PEACOCKS.
India, says Mr. Pennant, gave us Peacocks, and we are assured by Knox,
in his History of Ceylon, that they are still found in the wild state,
in vast flocks, in that island and in Java. So beautiful a bird could
not be permitted to be a stranger in the more distant parts; for so
early as the days of Solomon (1 Kings, x. 22.) we find among the
articles imported in his Tarshish navies, Apes and Peacocks. A monarch
so conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not
neglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every
curiosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him a
knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time. Ælian
relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country,
and that they were held in such high estimation, that a male and female
were valued at Athens at 1000 _drachmæ_, or £32. 5_s._ 10_d._ Their next
step might be to Samos; where they were preserved about the temple of
Juno, being the birds sacred to that goddess; and Gellius in his _Noctes
Allicæ_ commends the excellency of the Samian Peacocks. It is therefore
probable that they were brought there originally for the purposes of
superstition, and afterwards cultivated for the uses of luxury. We are
also told, when Alexander was in India, he found vast numbers of wild
ones on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck with their beauty,
as to appoint a severe punishment on any person that killed them.
Peacocks’ crests, in ancient times were among the ornaments of the kings
of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) paid a fine to king John in a
hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, _lorains_, gilt spurs and
peacock’s crests, such as would be for his credit.—Some of our regiments
of cavalry bear on their helmets, at present, the figure of a peacock.
ANCIENT LIBRARIES.
Many events have contributed to deprive us of a great part of the
literary treasures of antiquity. A very fatal blow was given to
literature by the destruction of the Phœnician temples and the Egyptian
colleges, when those kingdoms and the countries adjacent, were conquered
by the Persians, about 350 years before Christ. The Persians had a great
dislike to the religion of the Phœnicians and the Egyptians, and this
was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius says they
had a great number.
The first celebrated library of antiquity was at Alexandria, and called
from thence the Alexandrian library; it owed its foundation to Ptolemy
Soter, king of Egypt, though his Son Ptolemy Philadelphus enjoys the
reputation of being its founder. This was about 284 years before the
Christian æra.
The palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus was the asylum of learned men whom he
admired and patronized. He paid particular attention to Euclid,
Theocritus, Callimachus, and Lycophron, and by increasing the library,
of which his father had laid the foundation, he shewed his taste for
learning and wish to encourage genius. This celebrated library at his
death contained 200,000 volumes of the best and choicest books, and it
was afterwards increased to 700,000 volumes. The method adopted for
making this collection was the seizing of all the books that were
brought by the Greeks or other foreigners into Egypt, and sending them
to Ptolemy, who had them transcribed by persons employed for that
purpose. The transcripts were then delivered to the proprietors, and the
originals laid up in the library. Ptolemy Euergetes, for instance,
borrowed of the Athenians the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and
Æschylus, and only returned them the copies, which he caused to be
transcribed in as beautiful a manner as possible; the originals he
retained for his own library, presenting the Athenians with fifteen
talents for the exchange, that is, with upwards of £3,000 sterling. As
the Alexandrian academy was at first in the quarter of the city called
_Bruchion_, the library was placed there, but when the number of books
amounted to 400,000 volumes, another library within the _Serapeum_ was
erected, by way of supplement to it, and on that account called the
daughter of the former. The books lodged in the Serapeum increased to
the number of 300,000, and these two made up the number of 700,000
volumes, of which the royal libraries of the Ptolemys were said to
consist.
In the war which Julius Cæsar waged with the inhabitants of Alexandria,
the library of Bruchion was accidentally, but unfortunately, burned; but
the library in the Serapeum still remained. The whole was magnificently
repaired by Cleopatra, who deposited there the 200,000 volumes, forming
the library of the kings of Pergamus, with which she had been presented
by Antony. These, and others added to them from time to time, rendered
the new library of Alexandria more numerous and considerable than the
former, and though it was plundered more than once during the
revolutions which happened in the Roman empire, yet it was as frequently
supplied with the same number of books, and continued for many ages to
be of great fame and use, until it was burnt by the Saracens, in the
year 642 of the Christian æra.
There was a building adjoining to this library, called the Museum, for
the accommodation of a college or society of learned men, who were
supported there at the public expense, and where there were covered
walks and seats where they might carry on disputations.
The next library of antiquity was that founded at Pergamus, by Eumenes,
and considerably increased by the literary taste of his wealthy and
learned successors, at whose court merit and virtue were always sure of
finding an honorable patronage. This library which consisted of 200,000
volumes, was given by Antony to Cleopatra, as has been already
mentioned.—Parchment was first invented and made use of at Pergamus to
transcribe books upon, as Ptolemy had forbidden the exportation of
Papyrus from Egypt, in order to prevent Eumenes from making a library as
valuable and choice as that of Alexandria.
The first public library at Rome, and in the world, as Pliny observes,
was erected by Asinius Pollio, in the Atrium of the Temple of Liberty on
Mount Aventine. Augustus founded a Greek and Latin library in the Temple
of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and another in the name of his sister
Octavia, adjoining to the Theatre of Marcellus.
Among the ancient libraries that of Lucullus is mentioned by Plutarch in
terms of the highest praise. The number of volumes was immense, and they
were written in elegant hands. The use he made of them was still more
honorable to him than the possession of so much literary treasure. The
library of Lucullus was open to all; the Greeks who were at Rome
repaired with pleasure to his galleries and porticos, as to the retreat
of the muses, and there spent whole days in conversation upon subjects
of literature, delighted to retire to such a scene from other pursuits.
Lucullus himself, who was a perfect master of the Greek language often
joined and conferred with these learned men in their walks.
There were several other libraries at Rome, the chief of which was the
Ulpian library, instituted by Trajan, which Dioclesian annexed as an
ornament to his baths. One of the most elegant was that of Serenus
Samonicus, preceptor of the Emperor Gordian. It is said to have
contained not less than 60,000 volumes, and that the room in which they
were deposited was paved with gilded marble. The walls were ornamented
with glass and ivory; and the shelves, cases, presses, and desks, made
of ebony and silver. There were libraries in the capital, in the Temple
of Peace, and in the house of Tiberius. Many private persons had good
libraries particularly in their country villas. The Roman libraries were
in general adorned with statues and pictures, particularly of ingenious
and learned men.
Learning and the arts received a fatal blow by the destruction of the
heathen temples, in the reign of Constantine. The devastations then
committed, are depicted in the strongest and most lively colours by Mr.
Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Many valuable libraries perished by the Barbarians of the north, who
invaded Italy in the fourth and fifth centuries. By these rude hands
perished the library of Perseus, king of Macedon, which Paulus Æmilius
brought to Rome with its captive owner; as did also that noble library,
just mentioned, established for the use of the public by Asinius Pollio,
which was collected from the spoils of all the enemies he had subdued,
and was much enriched by him at a great expense. The libraries of Cicero
and Lucullus met with the same fate, and those of Julius Cæsar, of
Augustus, Vespasian, and Trajan also perished, together with that of the
Emperor Gordian.
KING CHARLES THE FIRST.
The Journey of Prince Charles (afterwards Charles the First) and the
Duke of Buckingham to Spain, was considered at the time to be such a
piece of knight-errantry as scarcely any age could parallel. Spanheim in
his history of Louisa-Juliana, Electress Palatine, mother of the king of
Bohemia, says “that never Prince was more obliged to a sister, than king
Charles I. was to the queen of Bohemia; since it was only the
consideration of _her_ and _her children_, who were then the _next
heirs_ after _him_ to the Crown of England, that prevailed with the
Court of Spain _to permit him ever to see England again_.”
Charles the First, though of abstemious habits kept a splendid and
hospitable table, at the beginning of his reign. Of this trait in his
character, hitherto unnoticed, the following account affords a
sufficient proof.
There were daily in his court eighty six tables, well furnished each
meal, whereof the king’s table had twenty-eight dishes; the queen’s
twenty-four; four other tables sixteen dishes each; three other ten
dishes each; twelve other had seven dishes each; seventeen other tables
had each of them five dishes; three other had four each; thirty-two
other tables had each three dishes; and thirteen other had each two
dishes; in all about five hundred dishes each meal, with bread, beer,
wine, and all other things necessary. All which was provided, mostly by
the several purveyors, who, by commission, legally and regularly
authorized, did receive those provisions at a moderate price, such as
had been formerly agreed upon in the several counties of England, which
price, (by reason of the value of money much altered) was become low,
yet a very inconsiderable burthen to the kingdom in general, but thereby
was greatly supported the royal dignity in the eyes of strangers as well
as subjects.
The English nobility and gentry, according to the king’s example, were
excited to keep a proportionable hospitality in their several country
mansions, the husbandmen encouraged to breed cattle, all tradesmen to a
cheerful industry; and there was then a free circulation of money
throughout the whole body of the kingdom. There was spent yearly in the
king’s house of gross meat fifteen hundred oxen, seven thousand sheep,
twelve hundred veals, three hundred porkers, four hundred storks or
young beefs, six thousand eight hundred lambs, three hundred flitches of
bacon, and twenty-six hams; also one hundred and forty dozen of geese,
two hundred and fifty dozen of capons, four hundred and seventy dozen of
hens, seven hundred and fifty dozen of pullets, one thousand four
hundred and seventy dozen of chickens; for bread three thousand six
hundred bushels of wheat: and for drink six hundred tuns of wine, and
one thousand seven hundred tuns of beer; moreover of butter forty six
thousand six hundred and forty pounds, together with fish and fowl,
venison, fruit and spice proportionably.
THE FAIR GERALDINE AND THE EARL OF SURREY.
The “Fair Geraldine” the general object of Lord Surrey’s empassioned
sonnets, is commonly said to have lived at Florence, and to have been of
the family of the _Geraldi_, of that city. This is however, a
misapprehension of an expression in one of our poet’s Odes, and of a
passage in Drayton’s Heroic Epistles. This lady was Elizabeth, third
daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth Earl of Kildare. She appears to
have received her education at Hunsdon House, with the Princesses Mary
and Elizabeth. It was here she was first seen by the Earl of Surrey, and
she immediately became the object of his fervent but fruitless devotion.
She was married first to Sir Anthony Browne, Lord Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, and secondly to Edward Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, surviving
by many years her noble and unfortunate admirer. There is a Portrait of
the “Fair Geraldine” in the Woburn collection.
It is not precisely known at what period the Earl of Surrey began his
travels. They have the air of a romance. He made the tour of Europe in
the true spirit of chivalry, and with the ideas of an Amadis; he
proclaimed the unparalleled charms of his Mistress, and prepared to
defend the cause of her beauty with the weapons of Knight-errantry; nor
was this adventurous journey performed without the intervention of an
enchanter. The first city in Italy which he proposed to visit was
Florence, the capital of Tuscany, and the original seat of the ancestors
of his Geraldine.
In his way thither he passed a few days at the Emperor’s court; where he
became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa, a celebrated adept in natural
magic. This visionary Philosopher shewed our hero in a mirror of glass,
a representation of Geraldine, reclining on a couch, sick, and reading
one of his most tender sonnets by a waxen taper. His imagination, which
wanted not the flattering representations and artificial incentives of
illusion, was heated anew by this interesting and affecting spectacle.
Inflamed with every enthusiasm of the most romantic passion, he hastened
to Florence; and on his arrival, immediately published a defiance
against any person who could handle a lance and was in love, whether
Christian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or Cannibal, who should presume to
dispute the superiority of Geraldine’s beauty. As the lady was pretended
to be of Tuscan extraction, the pride of the Florentines was flattered
on this occasion; and the Grand Duke of Tuscany permitted a general and
unmolested ingress into his dominions of the combatants of all
countries, until this important trial should be decided. The challenge
was accepted, and the Earl proved victorious. The shield which was
presented to him by the Duke of Tuscany before the tournament began, is
exhibited in Vertue’s valuable print of the Arundel family, and was
actually in the possession of one of the late Dukes of Norfolk.
These heroic vanities did not, however, so totally engross the time
which the Earl of Surrey spent in Italy, as to alienate his mind from
letters; he studied with the greatest success a critical knowledge of
the Italian tongue; and that he might give new lustre to the name of
Geraldine, attained a just taste for the peculiar graces of the Italian
poetry.
He was recalled to England for some idle reason by the king, much sooner
than he expected; and he returned home the most elegant traveller, the
most polite lover, the most learned nobleman, and the most accomplished
gentleman of his age. Dexterity in tilting and gracefulness in managing
a horse under arms, were excellencies now viewed with a critical eye,
and practised with a high degree of emulation. In 1540 at a tournament
held in the presence of the Court at Westminster, and in which some of
the principal nobility were engaged, Surrey was distinguished above the
rest for his address in the use and exercise of arms.
But all these accomplishments, and the popularity that attended them,
laid the foundation of a fatal death for this illustrious nobleman. They
excited the jealousy of his capricious monarch Henry VIII. Lord Orford
says “The unwieldy king growing distempered and froward, and
apprehensive for the tranquillity of his boy-successor, easily conceived
or admitted jealousies infused into him by the Earl of Hertford and the
Protestant party, though one of the last acts of his fickle life was to
found a convent.” Treason was therefore objected to the Earl of Surrey
upon the most frivolous pretences; of which the principal was, his
quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor with those of Howard, though
even this insignificant fact had been justified by the practice of his
family, and the sanction of the heralds. He was arraigned in the
Guildhall, London, found guilty by a jury, and judgment of death being
given, he was beheaded on Tower Hill, in January, 1547.
The Earl of Surrey was professedly a man of gallantry and pleasure,
possessing a highly cultivated mind, and excelling in all the polite and
elegant accomplishments of the age in which he lived. The flattery which
has been bestowed upon his character by Poets, Heralds, and
Genealogists, has not ceased to flow from his death to the present hour.
A recent genealogical writer has been superlatively lavish of his
panegyrics upon the excellencies and even upon the morals of the gallant
Earl. There is, however, one extraordinary circumstance in the life of
this nobleman which has been entirely overlooked by all his encomiasts.
This is, that while his father urged him to connect himself in marriage
with one lady; while the king was jealous of his designs upon a second;
and while he himself as may be collected from his poem “To a Lady who
refused to dance with him,” made proposals of marriage to a third, he
was during all this time married to the lady Frances,[6] daughter of
John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, by whom he had five children, namely, two
sons and three daughters. The sons were Thomas, afterwards fourth Duke
of Norfolk, and Henry, created Earl of Northampton, by king James the
First. To this lady the Earl of Surrey was united at the age of fifteen,
and several years after his premature death, we find her bearing the
title of Countess of Surrey, and possessing the guardianship of his
children, therefore it is apparent they were never divorced. Can it be
supposed that the example of a lustful king had instructed his
courtiers, among their other accomplishments, to find pretexts for the
dissolution of the marriage tie, whenever interest or their guilty
passions prompted them to such baseness? Yet this is the man whose
moral, as well as poetical and literary character, we are told “it is
delightful to contemplate.”
The Earl of Surrey had one sister, Mary, who was married to Henry
Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, natural son of Henry VIII. who
died in 1536 at the age of seventeen without issue. There is a most
beautiful portrait of this lady in Chamberlaine’s collection of the
Holbein Heads. Mr. Lodge exclaims pathetically “Would that her story had
died with her; and that we might have been at liberty to fancy the
character of so fair a creature as fair as her countenance. But the
truth must be told. At the iniquitous trial of her brother in 1547, this
lady was called on as a witness and brought forward a body of evidence
against him so keenly pointed, and so full of secrets, which from their
nature must have been voluntarily disclosed by her, that we cannot but
suspect her conduct of a degree of rancour, unpardonable in any case,
but in this unnatural.”
Footnote 6:
There is a portrait of this lady among the Holbein Heads, published by
Mr. Chamberlaine.
JEWS IN ENGLAND.
William the Conqueror permitted great numbers of Jews to come over from
Rouen, and to settle in England in the last year of his reign. Their
number soon increased, and they spread themselves throughout most of the
cities and capital towns in England where they built synagogues. There
were fifteen hundred at York about the year 1189. At Bury, in Suffolk,
is a very complete remain of a Jewish synagogue of stone in the Norman
style, large and magnificent. Hence it was that many of the learned
English Ecclesiastics of those times became acquainted with their books
and language. In the reign of William Rufus, the Jews were remarkably
numerous at Oxford, and had acquired considerable property; and some of
their Rabbis were permitted to open a school in the university, where
they instructed not only their own people, but many Christian students,
in Hebrew literature, about the year 1094. Within 200 years after their
admission or establishment by the Conqueror, they were banished the
kingdom. This circumstance was highly favourable to the circulation of
their learning in England. The suddenness of their dismission obliged
them for present subsistence, and other reasons, to sell their moveable
goods of all kinds, among which were large quantities of of Rabbinical
books. The monks in various parts availed themselves of the distribution
of these treasures. At Huntingdon and Stamford there was a prodigious
sale of their effects, containing immense stores of Hebrew manuscripts,
which were immediately purchased by Gregory of Huntingdon, prior of the
abbey of Ramsey. Gregory speedily became an adept in the Hebrew, by
means of these valuable acquisitions, which he bequeathed to his
monastery about the year 1250. Other members of the same convent, in
consequence of these advantages, are said to have been equal proficients
in the same language, soon after the death of Prior Gregory, among whom
were Robert Dodford, Librarian of Ramsey, and Laurence Holbech, who
compiled a Hebrew Lexicon. At Oxford a great number of their books fell
into the hands of Roger Bacon, or were bought by his brethren the
Franciscan friars of that university.
THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
The first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English
that was committed to the press, was _The New Testament_, translated
from the Greek, by William Tyndale, with the assistance of John Foye and
William Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo.
Tyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of the _Five Books
of Moses_, and of _Jonah_, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of
the _Psalter_, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published
at Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, octavo. And the same book
together with _Jeremiah_, and the _Song of Moses_, were likewise
published in 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime fellow of
Peter-House in Cambridge.
The first time _the whole Bible_ appeared in English, was in the year
1535 in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale,
afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale’s version, compared it
with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated by
Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry the
Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell’s injunction of September,
1536, _was ordered to be laid in Churches_.
LUXURY OF ANCIENT ROME.
The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply
the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some
valuable furs. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic
to the Danube; and the Barbarians were astonished at the price which
they received in exchange for so useless a commodity. Pliny has observed
with some humour that even fashion had not found out the use of amber.
Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where
it was produced. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets
and other manufactures of the East; but the most important and unpopular
branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year
about the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty
vessels sailed from Myoshormos, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the
periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about
forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual
limit of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the
merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival.
The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or
January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the
backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that
river as far as Alexandria, it was poured without delay, into the
capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and
trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to a
pound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl claimed the first
rank after the diamond: and a variety of aromatics, that were consumed
in religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labour and risk of
the voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit; but the profit
was made upon Roman subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the
expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
with the productions and manufactures of their own country, silver, on
the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the only instrument of
commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that
in the pursuit of female ornaments, the wealth of the state was
irrecoverably given away to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss
is computed by a writer of an inquisitive, but censorious temper, at
upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.[7]
Footnote 7:
Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 18.
RHYME.
Every language has powers, and graces, and music peculiar to itself; and
what is becoming in one, would be ridiculous in another. Rhyme was
barbarous in Latin and Greek verse, because these languages by the
sonorousness of their words, by their liberty of transposition and
inversion, by their fixed quantities and musical pronunciation, could
carry on the melody of verse without its aid; and an attempt to
construct English verses after the form of hexameters, and pentameters,
and sapphics, is as barbarous among us. It is not true that rhyme is
merely a monkish invention. On the contrary, it has obtained under
different forms in the versification of most known nations. It is found
in the ancient poetry of the northern nations of Europe; it is said to
be found among the Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, and the Americans.
This shews that there is something in the return of similar sounds,
which is grateful to the ears of most part of mankind.
The present form of our English heroic rhyme in couplets, is a modern
species of versification. The measure generally used in the days of
queen Elizabeth, king James, and king Charles I. was the stanza of eight
lines, such as Spenser employs, borrowed from the Italian, a measure
very constrained and artificial. Waller was the first who brought
couplets into vogue;[8] and Dryden afterwards established the usage.
Waller first smoothed our verse; Dryden perfected it. Pope’s
versification has a peculiar character. It is flowing and smooth in the
highest degree; far more laboured and correct than that of any who went
before him. He introduced one considerable change into heroic verse, by
almost throwing aside the triplets, or three lines rhyming together, in
which Dryden abounded. Dryden’s versification, however, has very great
merit; and like all his productions, has much spirit, mixed with
carelessness. If not so smooth and correct as Pope’s, it is however more
varied and easy. He subjects himself less to the rule of closing the
sense with the couplet; and frequently takes the liberty of making his
couplets run into one another, with somewhat of the freedom of blank
verse.
Footnote 8:
Shakespeare, occasionally, in his plays, uses couplets.
M. COQUEBERT DE MONTBRET.
This gentleman was one of the commercial commissioners from France to
England during the short peace which took place after the treaty of
Amiens. In March, 1803, I was in company with M. de Montbret, who
expressed his dissatisfaction in very angry terms, because he was not
able to procure specimens of the different clays made use of by Mr.
Wedgwood in his manufacture of earthen ware in Staffordshire. He urged
with much vehemence the politeness and attention that were shewn to Mr.
Thomas Wedgwood in France the preceding summer, when on a visit to that
country, and who it appeared had made something like a promise that he
would send to France specimens of the various clays made use of in the
potteries. In answer to Monsieur de Montbret it was observed, that Mr.
Thomas Wedgwood had no concern whatever in the potteries, and that his
brother, Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, who was the proprietor, would never give
his consent that specimens of the clays should be sent to France, but on
the contrary always strongly resisted every application for that
purpose. M. de Montbret replied, that as clay was a natural production,
if there was not that particular sort in France, it would be impossible
to form it by any artificial means—besides, he only wished to have those
things as specimens of English earths, merely with a view of forming a
collection of the earths and minerals of this country.
DR. THOMAS PIERCE.
Dr. Pierce, Dean of Sarum, a perpetual controversialist, and to whom it
was dangerous to refuse a request, lest it might raise a controversy,
asked Dr. Ward, bishop of Salisbury, for a Prebend for his son. He was
refused; and studying revenge, he opened a controversy with the bishop,
maintaining that the king had the right of bestowing every dignity in
all the Cathedral Churches of the kingdom, and not the bishops. This
required a reply from the bishop, who had formerly been an active
controversialist himself. Dean Pierce renewed his attack with a folio
volume, entitled “A vindication of the king’s sovereign right, &c.” Thus
it proceeded, and the web thickened round the bishop in replies and
rejoinders. It cost him many tedious journeys to London, through bad
roads, fretting at “the king’s sovereign right” all the way; and in the
words of a witness, “in unseasonable times and weather, that by degrees
his spirits were exhausted, his memory quite gone, and he was totally
unfitted for business.” Such was the fatal disturbance occasioned by
Dean Pierce’s folio of “The king’s sovereign right.”
WRITING AMONG THE GREEKS.
As a proof of the simplicity of the times described by Homer, it is a
great doubt if his kings and heroes could write or read; at least when
the Grecian leaders cast lots who should engage Hector in single combat,
in the seventh Iliad, they only made their marks, for when the lot
signed by Ajax fell out of the helmet, and was carried round by the
herald, none of the chiefs knew to whom it belonged till it was brought
to Ajax himself.
The learned Mr. Wood in his Essay on the original genius and writings of
Homer, after observing that neither in the Iliad nor Odyssey is there
any thing that conveys the idea of letters or reading, nor any allusion
to literal writing, adds, “As to symbolical, hieroglyphical, or
picture-like description, something of that kind was, no doubt, known to
Homer, of which the letter (as it is called) which Bellerophon carried
to the king of Lycia is a proof.” This letter was sent from Prœtus;
(_Iliad_, vi. line, 168, &c.)
“To Lycia the devoted youth he sent,
With _marks_, expressive of his dire intent
GRAV’D on a tablet, that the Prince should die.”
The probability that Homer lived much nearer the times he described than
is usually supposed, has been shewn by Mr. Mitford (_Hist. of Greece,
Appx. to ch. 4._) with all the clearness of which so distant an event is
capable.
To this account of the ignorance of the Greeks in literal writing may be
added that the Mexicans, though a civilized people, had no alphabet; the
art of writing was no farther advanced among them than the using of
figures composed of painted feathers, by which they made a shift to
communicate some simple thoughts; and in that manner was the Emperor
Montezuma informed of the landing of the Spaniards in his territories.
ACCOUNT OF THE SCRIPTORIA, OR WRITING ROOMS IN THE MONASTERIES OF
ENGLAND.
It would be in vain to attempt to trace the state of learning among the
Anglo-Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, sometime after
which event, schools and seminaries of learning were established in the
kingdom of Kent, and soon after the year 635, in that of the East
Angles. Previously to this period of our history, the two principal
scholars of the Britons were Gildas and Nennius, the first of whom
flourished towards the latter end of the sixth century, and the latter
in the beginning of the seventh. To Gildas we owe the first lights which
are cast upon the troublesome times of the Britons, and of the miseries
those wretched people suffered by the invasion and conquests of the
Saxons. He has left a short history of Britain and an epistle, in which
he heavily accuses the British princes and clergy who were contemporary
with him.[9]
To Nennius we owe also a short history of the Britons, and their wars
with the Saxons, but the whole is so concise, and so many miracles are
crowded into it, that it is no easy matter to separate truth from
fiction.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who came into Britain at the latter
end of the seventh century, contributed greatly to the improvement of
learning. About the same time flourished Aldhelm, a near relation of
Ina, king of the West Saxons; he was Abbot of Malmesbury, which
monastery himself had founded, and he was afterwards Bishop of
Sherborne, where he died in the year 709. Besides other works he left a
book on the prosody of the Latin tongue in which he was very expert,
being the first Anglo-Saxon that ever wrote in that language both in
prose and verse.
On the establishment of Monasteries and Religious Houses in this
kingdom, there was a room called the _Scriptorium_, allotted in all the
greater Abbeys, or else some portion of the cloister was appropriately
fitted up for the same purpose, where their music and missals, the works
of the fathers and other religious books, the latin classics, and such
literary works as the monks could obtain, were copied. In the old
library in Worcester Cathedral, and in the remaining libraries of some
other Cathedral churches, may still be seen the manner of writing music,
before the invention of the present notes, and some of the old copies of
books.
By means of these _Scriptoria_, or writing rooms, the monks compiled and
preserved, the first annals of Saxon History; without which, however
strange the composition of some of them may appear at this time, this
would now have been a land of darkness, as to any account of what passed
therein, during former ages.
The custom of making this one good use of monasteries and of christian
societies, was derived from very early days. About the year 220,
Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, built a library there, for preserving
the epistles of learned ecclesiastical persons, written one to another;
and their commentaries on the holy scriptures. And in what manner Origen
was aided to write his admirable works, we learn from Eusebius, who
tells us that he had more than seven notaries appointed for him, who,
every one in his turn, wrote that which he uttered; and as many more
scriveners, together with _maidens_, well exercised and practised in
penmanship, who were to write copies. (_Eccl. Hist. of Eusebius
Pamphilus, lib. 6. cap. 20 and 21._)
The preservation and progress of science by means of monasteries, is a
very curious fact, and the precious estimation in which books were held,
when few could read them, is still more so. Some few learned men existed
in different parts of Europe throughout those times of darkness and
ignorance. Our countryman the Venerable Bede was well versed both in
sacred and profane history, as his numerous works testify.
St. Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a disciple of Venerable Bede; he was
a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York about 735,
which was casually burnt in the reign of king Stephen, with the
cathedral, the monastery of St. Mary, and several other religious
houses.
Alcuin, called also Albinus Flaccus, was born in Northumberland; he was
the disciple of Archbishop Egbert, whom he succeeded in the charge of
the famous school, which that prelate had opened at York. Alcuin was in
all respects the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was
an orator, historian, poet, mathematician, and divine. The fame of his
learning induced Charlemagne to invite him to his court; and by his
assistance that Emperor, founded, enriched, and instructed, the
universities of Tours and Paris. In 794 Alcuin was one of the fathers of
the synod of Frankfort, and died at his abbey at Tours, in 804. In his
epistle to Charlemagne he mentions with great respect his master Egbert,
and the noble library which he had founded at York. Towards the latter
end of the same century flourished our great king Alfred, who engaged
the learned Grimbald, and other foreigners of distinguished abilities in
his service.
Eadfrid, who was bishop of Lindisfarne in the year 698, was one of the
most learned men of his time. He translated the gospels into latin,
which work after his death was highly decorated by his successor with
gold and jewels. Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it with various
paintings and rich devices; and Adred a priest, interlined it with a
Saxon version. Before each gospel is prefixed a painting of the
evangelist who wrote it, and the opposite page is full of beautiful
ornaments, enriched with various colours; then follows the commencement
of the gospel, the first page of which is most elaborately ornamented
with letters of a peculiar form, and very large, which displays at once
the zeal of the writer, and the taste of the age in which the book was
written.[10] This curious work is now among the Cottonian manuscripts in
the British Museum. It was lost in the sea during the removal of the
body of St. Cuthbert in those troublesome times, about the year 876,
when the Danes were laying waste the whole country, but it was
afterwards found washed up on the shore without suffering any injury.
(_Hutchinson’s History of Durham_, 1. p. 57.) It was under the patronage
of the same learned prelate Eadfrid, that the Venerable Bede[11] wrote
the life of St. Cuthbert.
The books which Fergus the second, king of Scotland, who assisted Alaric
the Goth, had brought with him as a part of the plunder from Rome, had
been deposited in the monastery in the island of Iona. From thence they
were, by degrees, copied for the use of other monasteries; and besides
these, other books were obtained afterwards by means of various journeys
to Rome. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monastery of Weremouth, and
the friend of Archbishop Wilfrid, made no fewer than five journeys to
Rome to purchase copies of books. These books became deposited in
various monasteries. Some such were at Canterbury, where also were books
that had been brought from Rome, both by Augustine and Theodore. And the
letter of Aldhelm, the very person who founded the monastery of
Malmesbury, containing an account of his studies, and progress at
Canterbury by the help of such books, is one of the most curious
fragments of antiquity. (_Angl. Sacra. tom. 2. p. 6._)
The price of these books was at various times enormous. Aldfred, king of
Northumberland, gave _eight hides of land_, that is, as much as eight
ploughs could till, for one volume of cosmography; and on this occasion
it perhaps ought not to be forgotten, that there is still preserved in
the library of Hereford cathedral, an ancient map on parchment, for the
illustration of cosmography as known at the period of its being drawn.
In the reign of William the Conqueror books were extremely scarce.
Grace, Countess of Anjou, paid for a collection of homilies, two hundred
sheep, a quarter of wheat, another of rye, and a third of millet,
besides a number of martin skins. (_Kaimes’s Sketches_, 1. 136.)
In these conventual _Scriptoria_ were copied the writings of the fathers
and the abstruse works of the first schoolmen; here also were copied
little works of genius, sometimes the effusion of fancy and imagination.
The fables of Æsop were so much in repute, that we are told king Alfred
himself made a translation of them from the Greek. The fanciful devices
on the friezes and mouldings of some of our ecclesiastical structures,
which have an allusion to Æsop’s Fables, had their first origin amongst
pious and ingenious persons, in the peaceful retirement of their
conventual retreats. This remark is much confirmed by a curious
observation which has been lately made, that even many of the fables
themselves that now pass for Æsop’s, seem to have had their real
invention and origin in the abodes of the religious. In a very curious
memoir concerning the works of Mary, an Anglo-Norman poetess, born in
France, who wrote in the French language in the reign of king Henry the
third of England, and who among other things translated the fables of
Æsop, it is made to appear that there were indeed but few of Æsop’s
original fables in her collection, and even those she had borrowed
entirely from England, and the greater part, from several allusions in
them, evidently shew, that they must have been composed in monasteries,
before her time. (_See Hume’s Hist. of Eng. vol. 1. 4to. p. 68.—King’s
Munimenta Ant. vol. 4. p. 113.—and Archæologia, vol. 13. p. 36-67._)
It is an interesting circumstance, deserving to be mentioned on this
occasion, that before the time of Venerable Bede, there lived an
Anglo-Saxon poet, of the name of _Cædman_, or _Kedman_, of the wondrous
powers of whose mind Bede speaks in the highest terms, (_Bede’s Eccles.
Hist. book 4. ch. 24._) and says he sung of the creation of the world,
of the origin of mankind, and of the whole history of the book of
Genesis. He died about the year 680, and therefore must have been
contemporary with Etheldreda, who founded the monastery of Ely. And it
is a very curious fact, little known, that Lye, the author of the
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, translated this poem, and that therein it was
found had been introduced, almost exactly, the same idea of the fallen
angels, and even the peculiarity of the nine days falling, and of
Satan’s assembling his _Thanes_, on their rousing themselves, which was
afterwards introduced by Milton into his Paradise Lost. This account,
Mr. King says, he received from Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, who had
several manuscripts of Lye’s bequeathed to him; and who was well
qualified to investigate such curious matters of ancient literature.
It should not be forgotten with regard to manuscripts, the productions
of these industrious penmen in their _Scriptoria_, that king Alfred is
said by the Saxon writers, to have first received his eagerness for
erudition, in an age when he himself complained of the general ignorance
even of the clergy, from his mother’s shewing him a book of Saxon poems,
beautifully written, and illuminated, and promising to give it to which
ever of her sons should soonest learn to read it.
Until the eleventh century, musical notes were expressed only by letters
of the alphabet; and till the fourteenth century they were expressed
only by large lozenge-shaped black dots or points, placed on different
lines, one above another, and then first named _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_,
_sol_, _la_, to which _si_ was afterwards added; and they were all
expressed without any distinction as to length of time; and without any
such things as breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets, or quavers, &c.
The old psalters in many cathedral churches are found thus written; and
in consequence of this it was, that the _Scriptoria_ in some other
places, as well as at Gloucester, are found so contrived, as to have
long ranges of seats, or benches, one beyond another, for the copyists;
so that a master or person standing at one end, and naming each note, it
might quickly be copied out by all, naming it in succession from one end
to the other. Hence the psalters were more easily copied than any other
books, and it is not a little remarkable that in the library at
Worcester, there is a copy of St. Matthew’s gospel, set to music
throughout, with these sort of notes.
In foreign monasteries, the boys and novices were chiefly occupied in
these labours, but the missals and bibles were ordered to be written by
monks of mature age and discretion. The _Scriptorium_ of St. Albans’s
abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to
be written there, about the year 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the
copies. Estates were often granted for the support of the _Scriptorium_;
that at St. Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills, and in the year
1171, the tithes of a rectory were appropriated to the cathedral convent
of St. Swithin at Winchester, _ad Libros transcribendos_. Many instances
of this species of benefaction occur from the tenth century. Nigel, in
the year 1160, gave the monks of Ely two churches, _ad libros
faciendos_.
This employment of copying manuscripts appears to have been diligently
practised at Croyland; for Ingulphus relates, that when the library of
that convent was burned in the year 1091, seven hundred volumes were
consumed. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury, during
the government of one abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of
this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four
hundred volumes in the year 1248. More than eighty books were thus
transcribed for St. Alban’s abbey, by Abbot Whethamstede, who died about
1400. At the foundation of Winchester college, by William of Wykeham,
about 1393, one or more transcribers were hired and employed by the
founder to _make books_ for the library. They transcribed and took their
commons within the college, as appears by computations of expenses on
their account now remaining.
In the monastery of Ely, the Precentor, or Chantor, was the chief
librarian, and had within his Office, the _Scriptorium_, where writers
were employed in transcribing books for the library, and missals and
other books used in divine service. This officer furnished the vellum,
parchment, paper, ink, colours, gums, and other necessaries for limners,
used in illuminating their books; and leather, and other implements for
binding, and keeping them in repair.
Some of the Roman classics were copied in the English monasteries at a
very early period. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde abbey, near
Winchester, transcribed in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
and Claudian. Of these he formed one volume, illuminating the initials,
and forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands; but this
abbot had more devotion than taste, for he exchanged this manuscript a
few years afterwards for four missals, the legend of St. Christopher,
and St. Gregory’s PASTORAL CARE, with the Prior of the neighbouring
cathedral convent. Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, author of the latin
chronicle of king Henry the second, amongst a great variety of
scholastic and theological treatises, transcribed Seneca’s epistles and
tragedies, Terence, Martial, and Claudian, to which may be added GESTA
ALEXANDRI, about the year 1180.
In a catalogue of the books of the library of Glastonbury, we find Livy,
Sallust, Seneca, Tully de SENECTUTE and AMICITIA, Virgil, Persius, and
Claudian, in the year 1248. Among the royal manuscripts of the British
Museum, is one of the twelve books of Statius’s Thebaid, supposed to
have been written in the tenth century, which once belonged to the
cathedral convent of Rochester. And another of Virgil’s Æneid, written
in the thirteenth, which came from the library of St. Austin’s,
Canterbury. Wallingford, abbot of St. Alban’s, gave or sold from the
library of that monastery to Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author
of the “PHILOBIBLION,” and a great collector of books, Terence, Virgil,
Quintilian, and Jerome against Rufinus, together with thirty-two other
volumes, valued at fifty pounds of silver. The scarcity of parchment
undoubtedly prevented the transcription of many other books in these
societies. About the year 1120, one Master Hugh, being appointed by the
convent of St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, to write and illuminate a grand
copy of the bible for their library, could procure no parchment for this
purpose in England. It is to this scarcity of parchment that we owe the
loss and destruction of many valuable manuscripts of the ancients, which
otherwise might have been preserved to us. The venerable fathers who
employed themselves in erasing the writing of some of the best works of
the most eminent Greek or Latin authors for the purpose of transcribing
upon the obliterated parchment or vellum the lives of saints, or
legendary tales, possibly mistook these lamentable depredations for
works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy,
discovered by Mr. Burns in the Vatican, in 1772, was found to be much
defaced in this respect by the pious labours of some well-intentioned
monk.
The monks of Durham having begun to build a college for their novices at
Oxford, about the year 1290, Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, not only
assisted, but also partly endowed it. At his decease, in 1345, he left
to this college, then called Durham, and since Trinity, college, all his
books, which were more in number than all the bishops in England then
possessed, in order that the students of that college, and of the
University, might, under certain conditions make use of them. After the
college came into possession of these books, they were, for many years,
kept in chests, under the custody of several scholars deputed for that
purpose, and a library being built in the reign of king Henry the
fourth, these books were put into pews or studies, and chained to them.
They continued in this manner till the college was dissolved by king
Henry the eighth, when they were conveyed away, some to Duke Humphrey’s
library, where they remained till the reign of king Edward the sixth,
and others to the library of Baliol college. Some which remained came
into the hands of Dr. George Owen, a physician of Godstow, who purchased
Trinity college of Edward the sixth.
The bishop of Durham wrote a treatise containing rules for the
management of the library above-mentioned, describing how the books were
to be preserved, and upon what conditions they were to be lent out to
scholars, and appointed five keepers, to whom he granted yearly
salaries. This treatise he called “_Philobiblion_,” from whence he
himself came to be called by the same name, “a lover of books,” and this
very justly, if, as he says himself in the preface to it, his love of
them was so violent that it put him into a kind of rapture, and made him
neglect all his other affairs. He finished it at Auckland, the 24th of
January, 1345, being then just 63 years of age. It was printed at Spires
in 1483; at Paris, by Badius Ascensius, in 1500; by the learned Thomas
James, at Oxford, in 1599, in quarto; and at Leipsic, in 1674, at the
end of _Philologicarum Epistolarum Centuria una, ex Bibliotheca Melch.
Hamingfeldii_. It appears also in manuscript in the Cottonian library,
in the royal library, and in other libraries in Oxford and Cambridge.
The “_Philobiblion_,” is written in very indifferent Latin, and in a
declamatory style. It is divided into twenty chapters. In chapter 1. the
author praises wisdom, and books in which it is contained. 2. That books
are to be preferred to riches and pleasure. 3. That they ought to be
always bought. 4. How much good arises from books, and that they are
misused only by ignorant people. 5. That good monks write books, but the
bad ones are otherwise employed. 6. The praise of the ancient begging
friars, with a reproof of the modern ones. 7. He bewails the loss of
books by fire and wars. 8. He shews what fine opportunities he had had
of collecting books, whilst he was chancellor and treasurer, as well as
during his embassies. 9. That the ancients outdid the moderns in hard
studying. 10. That learning is by degrees arrived at perfection, and
that he had procured a Greek and Hebrew grammar. 11. That the law and
law books are not properly learning. 12. The usefulness and necessity of
grammar. 13. An apology for poetry, and the usefulness of it. 14. Who
ought to love books. 15. The manifold advantages of learning. 16. Of
writing new books and mending the old. 17. Of using books well, and how
to place them. 18. An answer to his calumniators. 19. Upon what
conditions books are to be lent to strangers. 20. Conclusion.
In the “_Philobiblion_” the bishop apologizes for admitting the poets
into his collection; _quare non negleximus Fabulas Poetarum_. But he is
more complaisant to the prejudices of his age, where he says, that the
laity are unworthy to be admitted to any commerce with books: _Laici
omnium librorum communione sunt indigni_. He prefers books of the
liberal arts to treatises of the law. He laments that good literature
had entirely ceased in the university of Paris. He admits _Panfletos
exiguos_ into his library. He employed _Stationarios_ and _Librarios_,
not only in England, but in France, Italy, and Germany. He regrets the
total ignorance of the greek language; but adds that he has provided for
the students of his library both Greek and Hebrew grammars. He calls
Paris the “paradise of the world,” and says that he purchased there a
variety of invaluable volumes in all sciences, which yet were neglected
and perishing. While he was Chancellor and Treasurer of England, instead
of the usual presents and new year’s gifts appendant to his office, he
chose to receive those perquisites in books. By the favour of king
Edward the third, he gained access to the libraries of the principal
monasteries, where he shook off the dust from various volumes preserved
in chests and presses, which had not been opened for many ages.
There were several collections of manuscripts in England before the
general restoration of science in Europe, which had at different times
been brought hither by those who had travelled into foreign countries;
these were chiefly preserved in the two Universities, in the cathedral
churches, and in religious houses, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth
century several valuable libraries were formed in England.
In the reign of king Henry the sixth, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
fourth and youngest son of king Henry the fourth, was a singular
promoter of literature, just at the dawning of science and learning.
However unqualified this eminent personage was for political intrigue,
and to contend with his malicious and powerful enemies, among whom the
Cardinal Beaufort was the principal, he was nevertheless the common
friend and patron of all the scholars of his time. A sketch of his
character and pursuits, as being closely connected with the progress of
English literature, cannot fail of proving interesting, more especially
as they are peculiarly associated with the subject of the present
inquiry.
About the year 1440, the Duke gave to the University of Oxford a
library, containing six hundred volumes, one hundred and twenty only of
which were valued at more than one thousand pounds of the money of that
day. These books, it need not be observed, were all in manuscript, the
art of printing not having then been discovered; they are called _Novi
Tractatus_, or New Treatises, in the University Register, and are said
to be _admirandi apparatus_. They were the most splendid and costly
copies that could be procured, finely written on vellum, and elegantly
embellished with miniatures and illuminations. Among the rest was a
translation into French of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Only a single specimen
of these valuable volumes was suffered to remain; it is a beautiful
manuscript, in folio, of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most
elegant decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey’s age, evidently with
a design of being placed in this sumptuous collection. All the rest of
the books, which, like this, being highly ornamented, looked like
missals, were destroyed or removed by the pious visitors of the
University, in the reign of king Edward the sixth, whose zeal was
equalled only by their ignorance, or perhaps by their avarice. A great
number of classics, in this grand work of reformation, were condemned as
anti-christian, and some of the books, in this library, had even been
before this, either stolen or mutilated. In the library of Oriel
College, at Oxford, we find a manuscript _Commentary on Genesis_,
written by John Capgrave, a monk, belonging to the monastery of St.
Austin, at Canterbury, a learned theologist of the fifteenth century. In
it is the author’s autograph, and the work is dedicated to Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester. In the superb initial letter of the dedicatory
epistle, is a curious illumination of the author Capgrave, humbly
presenting his book to his patron, the Duke, who is seated, and covered
with a sort of hat. At the end of the volume is this entry, in the
hand-writing of Duke Humphrey “C’est Livre est a moy Humfrey, Duc de
Gloucestre, du don de Frere Jehan Capgrave, quy le me fist presenter a
mon manoyr de Pensherst le jour ... de l’an MCCCCXXXVIII.” This is one
of the books which Humphrey gave to his new library at Oxford, destroyed
or dispersed by the active reformers of the young Edward. He also gave
to the same library Capgrave _Super Exodum et Regum Libros_.
John Whethamstede, a learned abbot of St. Alban’s, and a lover of
scholars, but accused by his monks of neglecting their affairs, while he
was too deeply engaged in studious employments, and in procuring
transcripts of useful books, notwithstanding his unwearied assiduity in
beautifying and enriching their monastery, was in high favour with this
munificent prince. The Duke was fond of visiting this monastery, and
employed Abbot Whethamstede to collect valuable books for him. Some of
Whethamstede’s tracts, manuscript copies of which often occur in our
libraries, are dedicated to the Duke, who presented many of them,
particularly a fine copy of Whethamstede’s _Granarium_, an immense work,
which Leland calls _ingens volumen_ to the new library. The copy of
Valerius Maximus, mentioned before, has a curious table or index, made
by Whethamstede. Many other Abbots paid their court to the Duke, by
sending him presents of books, the margins of which were adorned with
the most exquisite paintings.
Gilbert Kymer, physician to king Henry the sixth, and holding, among
other ecclesiastical preferments, the Deanery of Salisbury and
Chancellorship of the University of Oxford; the latter dignity by the
recommendatory letters of the Duke, inscribed to the Duke of Gloucester
his famous medical system—_Diætarium de Sanitatis Custodia_—in the year
1424.
Lydgate,[12] one of the early English poets, translated Boccacio’s book,
_De Casibus Virorum illustrium_, at the recommendation and command, and
under the protection and superintendance, of Duke Humphrey, whose
condescension in conversing with learned ecclesiastics, and diligence in
study, the translator displays at large, and in the strongest
expressions of panegyric. He compares the Duke to Julius Cæsar, who,
amidst the weightier cares of state, was not ashamed to enter the
rhetorical school of Cicero at Rome. Nor was his patronage confined only
to English scholars. His favour was solicited by the most celebrated
writers of France and Italy, many of whom he bountifully rewarded.
Leonard Aretin,[13] one of the first restorers of the Greek tongue in
Italy, (which language he learned of Emanuel Chrysoloras,[14]) and of
polite literature in general, dedicates to this universal patron his
elegant Latin translation of Aristotle’s _Politics_. The copy presented
to the Duke by the translator, most elegantly illuminated, is now in the
Bodleian library.
To the same noble encourager of learning, Petrus Candidus, the friend of
Laurentius Valla,[15] and secretary to the great Cosmo, Duke of Milan,
inscribed by the advice of the Archbishop of Milan, a Latin version of
Plato’s _Republic_. An illuminated manuscript of this translation is in
the British Museum, perhaps the copy presented, with two epistles from
the Duke to Petrus Candidus.
Petrus de Monte, another learned Italian of Venice, in the dedication of
his treatise—_De Virtutum et Vitiorum differentia_—to the Duke of
Gloucester, mentions the latter’s ardent attachment to books of all
kinds, and the singular avidity with which he pursued every species of
literature.
A tract entitled _Comparatio Studiorum et Rei Militaris_, written by
Lopus de Castellione, a Florentine civilian, and a great translator into
Latin of the Greek classics, is also inscribed to the Duke at the desire
of Zeno, archbishop of Bayeux. It must not be forgotten that our
illustrious Duke invited into England the learned Tito Livio of
Foro-Juli, whom he naturalized and constituted his poet and orator. He
also retained learned foreigners in his service, for the purpose of
transcribing, and of translating from Greek into Latin. One of these was
Antonio de Beccaria, a Veronese, who translated into Latin prose the
Greek poem of _Dionysius Afer de Situ Orbis_; whom the Duke also
employed to translate into Latin six tracts of Athanasius. This
translation, inscribed to the Duke, is now among the royal manuscripts
in the British Museum, and at the end, in his own hand-writing, is the
following insertion:—“C’est Livre est a moi Homphrey Duc le Gloucestre:
le quel je fis translater de grec en latin par un de mes secretaires
Antoyne de Beccara ne de Verone.”
An astronomical tract, entitled, by Leland, _Fabulæ Directionum_, is
erroneously supposed to have been written by Duke Humphrey. But it was
compiled at the Duke’s instance, and according to tables which he had
himself constructed, called by the anonymous author in his preface,
_Tabulas illustrissimi principis et nobilissimi Domini mei, Humfredi,
&c._ In the library of Gresham College, however, there is a scheme of
calculations in astronomy, which bears his name. Astronomy was then a
favourite science; nor is it to be doubted that he was intimately
acquainted with the politer branches of knowledge which now began to
acquire estimation, and which his liberal and judicious attention
greatly contributed to restore.
* * * * *
King Edward the fourth and Henry the seventh greatly assisted the cause
of learning, by the encouragement they gave to the art of printing in
England, and by purchasing such books as were printed in other
countries. William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, purchased many
valuable Greek manuscripts which had been brought hither by the prelates
and others after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.
King Henry the eighth may justly be called the founder of the royal
library, which was enriched with the manuscripts selected from the
_scriptoria_ and libraries of the principal monasteries, by that
indefatigable antiquary John Leland.
Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, enriched the library of the
college of Corpus Christi, with a great number of ancient and curious
manuscripts.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Bodley greatly increased the
public library at Oxford, which is now called by his name. This great
benefactor to the literature of his country, quitted the court, and
applied himself wholly to the purchasing of books and manuscripts both
at home and abroad. By these means he had the satisfaction of furnishing
that library with 1294 manuscripts, which by the subsequent liberality
of many great and illustrious persons, has been since increased to more
than eight thousand volumes, including the manuscripts given by Tanner,
Bishop of Norwich, and the valuable library bequeathed by the will of
Dr. Richard Rawlinson.
Considerable augmentations were made to the libraries of the several
colleges in the two universities, as also to those of our cathedral
churches, the palace at Lambeth, the Inns of Court, the College of Arms,
and others; catalogues of which were published at Oxford in 1697 under
the title of _Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ_.
Bodley’s great contemporary, Sir Robert Cotton, is also entitled to the
gratitude of posterity for his diligence in collecting the Cottonian
library; he was engaged in the pursuit of manuscripts and records
upwards of forty years, during which time he spared neither trouble nor
expense.
The noble manuscript library founded by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford,
and greatly enriched by his son Edward, who inherited his father’s love
of science, claims a distinguished place in every account which may be
given of the literary treasures of antiquity in general, and of this
country in particular. Posterity will ever be indebted to her grace the
Duchess Dowager of Portland, for securing this inestimable treasure of
learning to the public, by authority of Parliament, under the
guardianship of the most distinguished persons of the realm, both for
rank and abilities, whose excellent regulations have made this library,
as also the Royal, Cottonian, Sloanian, and others, now deposited in the
British Museum, easy of access, and consequently of real use to the
philosopher, the statesman, the historian, the scholar, and the
artist.[16]
Footnote 9:
Gildas, called _Badonicus_, because said to be born at Bath, was, for
his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed the
WISE; he was a monk of Bangor, and his “Description of the state of
Britain,” above alluded to, is the only one of his writings extant, as
we are assured by Archbishop Usher. Gildas wrote this work in Latin,
in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough. The
first printed edition of it was published by Polydore Virgil, in
octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of
Durham, which, however, was from an incorrect copy. It was reprinted
at Basil, in 12mo, in 1541; and at London, 1548, though Bishop
Nicolson says 1568. It was again printed at London, in 12mo, in 1638,
translated by Thomas Habingdon, of Henlip, in Worcestershire. John
Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, reprinted Gildas more
correctly from two new manuscripts, Basil, 1568, 12mo; and Paris 1576;
but these are little more perfect than the first.—The latest and best
copy of Gildas is in Dr. Gale’s collection of Ancient English
Historians, 2 vols. folio, Oxford, 1687 and 1691; who had the
advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicolson
observes. Besides Habingdons’s translation above mentioned, there was
another printed during the Cromwell rebellion, in 1652, for the mere
purpose, it has been said, of retailing Gildas’s sharp reproofs of
Kings and Priests.—For an account of this edition, see Oldys’s British
Librarian, and Savage’s Librarian, vol. 1. p. 117.
Footnote 10:
Strutt, in his “Chronicle of England” has given a plate representing a
page of this manuscript, and in Astle’s “History of Writing,” there is
a plate of the same page, coloured, in imitation of the original.
Footnote 11:
Bede, commonly called the Venerable Bede, was the most learned man of
the age in which he lived; he was born at Weremouth, in
Northumberland, in the year 672. Both ancient and modern authors have
bestowed the highest encomiums upon the learning of this extraordinary
man. His works are many, making eight large volumes, in folio, the
principal of which is his Ecclesiastical History of the Anglo-Saxons,
consisting of five books, from whence the more perfect part of our
early history is formed; his other works are the Lives of Saints,
Treatises on the Holy Scriptures, and Philosophical Tracts. This great
man died at his cell at Jarrow, in the year 735, aged 63.
Footnote 12:
Lydgate was commonly called the Monk of Bury, because born at that
place, about the year 1380. After some time spent in the English
Universities, he travelled through France and Italy, in which
countries he greatly improved himself. In addition to his poetical
talents, he is described as being an eloquent rhetorician, an expert
mathematician, an acute philosopher, and no mean divine. He is said to
have been so much admired by his contemporaries, that they said of
him, that his wit was fashioned by the Muses themselves. After his
return from France and Italy, he became tutor to the sons of several
of the nobility, and for his excellent endowments, was much esteemed
and reverenced by them. He wrote a poem, called _The Life and Death of
Hector_, some satires, eulogies, and odes, and other learned works in
prose. He died in 1440, aged sixty, and was buried in his own convent
at Bury. Lydgate is said to have been a disciple of Chaucer.
Footnote 13:
Leonard Aretin, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an
orator, and an historian; the secretary of four successive Popes; and
Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, where he died in 1444, aged
seventy-five. He added a Supplement to Livy on the Punic War, and
wrote the History of Italy, with other valuable works.
Footnote 14:
Emanuel Chrysoloras was one of the envoys sent by the Greek Emperor
Manuel, at the end of the fourteenth century, to implore the
compassion of the Western Princes. He was not only conspicuous for the
nobleness of his birth but also for the extent of his learning. After
visiting the courts of France and England, in furtherance of his
mission, he was invited to assume the office of a Professor, and
Florence had the honour of this invitation, as it had had a few years
previously that of the first Greek Professor Leo Pilatus, whose mind
was stored with a treasure of Greek learning, with whom history and
fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike familiar, and who first read
the Poems of Homer in the Schools of Florence. Chrysoloras may be
considered as the founder of the Greek language in Italy, and his
knowledge not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue, surpassed
the expectation of the Florentine republic. At the same time and
place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the
domestic pupil of the celebrated Petrarch. The Italians, who
illustrated their age and country, were formed in this double school,
and Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman
erudition. Chrysoloras was recalled by the Emperor from the college to
the court, but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal
industry and applause. He died at Constance on a public mission from
the Emperor to the council. _Gibbon’s Hist._ vol. 12. p. 126.
Footnote 15:
Laurentius Valla, was a native of Placenza, where he was born in 1415;
he revived the Latin language from gothic barbarity, but he was a
rigorous critic. He fell under the displeasure of the Church of Rome,
for the freedom with which he hazarded his opinions respecting some of
its doctrines, and he was condemned to be burnt, but was saved by
Alphonsus, king of Naples. Pope Nicholas the fifth, who was himself
one of the greatest encouragers of learning of his time, and who
highly respected the talents of Valla, invited him to Rome, and gave
him a pension.—This Pope, whose pursuits were in direct association
with our present subject, from a plebeian origin, raised himself by
his virtue and his learning to the highest honours of the Church. The
character of the man prevailed over the interest of the Pontiff, and
he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the
religion of Rome. He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars
of the age, and after his elevation to the chair of St. Peter, he
became their patron. Under Pope Nicholas, the influence of the Holy
See pervaded Christendom, and he exerted that influence in the search,
not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine
libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he
collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and
whenever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy was
transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican was daily
replenished with precious furniture, and such was his industry, that
in a reign of eight years, he formed a library of five thousand
volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the
versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and
Appian; of Strabo’s Geography, of the Iliad, of the more valuable
works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and Theophrastus, and of the
Fathers of the Greek Church.
Footnote 16:
For an account of the following Manuscript Libraries in England, see
Savage’s Librarian, 3 vols. London, 1808-1810—namely, that of the
British Museum, in vol. 1. p. 26; of the Royal Society, p. 71; of the
Heralds Office, p. 73; of the Society of Antiquaries, p. 129; of the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s at Lambeth Palace, p. 133; of Lincoln’s
Inn, p. 183, 225; of the Middle Temple, p. 273; of the Inner Temple,
vol. 2. p. 131; of the Lansdown Collection of Manuscripts, vol. 1. p.
34, and vol. 3. p. 27, and of the Cottonian Manuscripts, vol. 3. p.
31.
The curious reader who is interested in the history of the public
records of his country, will find in the same volumes, the Report of
the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of the Records, in
vol. 1. p. 17, &c.—an account of the Records in the Tower of London,
vol. 2. p. 34, &c. of those in the Rolls Chapel, ibid. p. 185, &c. and
of those in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, vol. 3. p. 41, &c.
TORTURE IN ENGLAND.[17]
In the reign of King Henry the Sixth, the RACK or BRAKE, was placed in
the Tower of London, by the Duke of Exeter, when he and the Earl of
Suffolk had formed the design of introducing the Civil Law into England.
It was called “Exeter’s daughter,” and remained afterwards in the Tower,
“where it was occasionally used as an _Engine of State_, more than once
in the _reign of Elizabeth_.”
Though the use of the Rack does not appear to have been known in this
country until the 26th year of Henry the Sixth, and though it was never
authorized by the law, yet to borrow the expression of Mr. Justice
Blackstone, it was occasionally used as an “Engine of State,” to extort
confession from State Prisoners confined in the Tower, from the time of
its introduction, until finally laid aside in consequence of the
decision of the judges in Felton’s case. One Hawkins was tortured[18] in
the reign of Henry the Sixth; and the case of Anne Askew,[19] in that of
Henry the Eighth,[20] cannot escape the recollection of every reader of
English history. The Lord Chancellor Wriothesely (I blush for the honour
and humanity of an English Judge while I write his name) went to the
Tower to take her examination, and upon the Lieutenant’s refusing to
draw the cords tighter, _drew them himself_ till every limb was
dislocated, and her body nearly torn asunder. In Mary’s reign several
persons were racked in order to extort confessions, which was upon
account of Sir Thomas Wyat’s rebellion. And Barrington mentions that in
Oldmixon’s History of England (p. 284,) one Simpson is said to have been
tortured in 1558, and a confession extorted.
In the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth,[21] the Rack was used upon
offenders against the State, and among others, upon Francis Throgmorton;
in 1571, upon Charles Baillie an attendant upon the Bishop of Ross,
Mary’s ambassador, and upon Banastre, one of the Duke of Norfolk’s
servants; and Barker, another of his servants was brought to confess by
extreme fear of it. In 1581, Campion, the Jesuit, was put upon the
rack,[22] and in 1585, Thomas Morgan writes to the Queen of Scots, that
he has heard D. Atslow was racked in the Tower, twice about the Earl of
Arundel. This is the last instance of the actual application of torture
to extort confession.
For the greater part of this reign the application of torture in the
examination of State offenders seems to have been in common use, and its
legality not disputed. Mr. Daines Barrington says,[23] that among the
manuscript papers of Lord Ellesmere, is a copy of instructions to him,
as Lord President of the Marches, to use the torture on the taking of
some examinations at Ludlow; and Sir Edward Coke himself,[24] in the
year 1600, (the 43d of Elizabeth’s reign) then being Attorney General,
at the trials of the Earls of Essex and Southampton, boasted of the
clemency of the Queen, because, though the rebellious attempts were so
exceedingly heinous, yet out of her princely mercy “no person was
racked, tortured, or pressed to speak any thing further than of their
own accord.” And in the Countess of Shrewsbury’s case (10 James 1st)
when Sir Edward was Chief Justice, in enumerating the privileges of the
nobility, he mentions as one, that their bodies were not subject to
torture _in causa criminis læsæ majestatis_. Barrington justly
observes[25] there was a regular establishment for torture, for at his
trial,[26] in the first year of James the first, Sir Walter Raleigh
stated that Kemish had been threatened with the rack, and the keeper of
the instrument sent for. Sir William Wade, who, with the Solicitor
General had taken his examination, denied it, but admitted they had told
him he deserved it, and Lord Howard declared, “Kemish was never on the
rack, _the king gave charge that no rigour should be used_.”
Barrington mentions[27] that Sir John Hayward, the historian, was
threatened with the rack, which Dr. Granger confirms; and the former
also remarks that it is stated in King James’s works, that the rack was
shewn to Guy Faukes when under examination.
Down to this period we do not find the legality of the practice
questioned, though it has been said by high authority, as will be stated
presently, that some doubts had been suggested to Queen Elizabeth. State
Prisoners were confined usually in the Tower, and commissioners,
attended by the law officers of the crown, were sent to examine them,
who applied the rack at their own discretion, or according to the order
of the privy council, or the king’s, without any objection being made to
their authority.
In the third year of King Charles the first, Felton was threatened with
the rack by the Earl of Dorset in the Tower, and Laud, then bishop of
London, repeated the threats in council, but the king insisted upon the
judges being consulted as to the legality of the application, and they
being unanimously of opinion that it was illegal, it was never attempted
afterwards. The answer which Felton made to Laud’s threats, is well
worthy of attention; when Laud told him “if he would not confess he must
go to the rack,” he replied “if it must be so, he could not tell whom he
might nominate in the extremity of torture, and if what he should say
then was to go for truth, he could not tell whether his Lordship
(meaning the bishop of London) or which of their Lordships he might
name, for torture might draw unexpected things from him.”
In the year 1680 (32 Charles 2d) Elizabeth Collier was tried at the Old
Bailey,[28] before Mr. Baron Weston, for the publication of a libel, in
which many circumstances were related for the purpose of inducing a
belief that Prance, when a prisoner in Newgate, had been tortured there,
and he was produced to prove the falsehood of the publication. The
learned judge in summing up the evidence to the jury said, “But you must
first know the laws of the land do not admit a torture, and since Queen
Elizabeth’s time there hath been nothing of that kind ever done. The
truth is indeed, in the twentieth year of her reign, Campion was just
stretched upon the rack, but yet not so but he could walk; but when she
was told it was against the law of the land to have any of her subjects
racked (though that was an extraordinary case, a world of seminaries
being sent over to contrive her death, and she lived in continual
danger) yet it was never done after to any one, neither in her reign,
who reigned twenty-five years, nor in king James’s reign, who reigned
twenty-two years after, nor in king Charles the first’s reign, who
reigned twenty-four years after; and GOD in Heaven knows there hath been
no such thing offered in this king’s reign; for I think we may say we
have lived under as lawful and merciful a government as any people
whatsoever, and have as little blood shed, and sanguinary executions as
any nation under heaven.”
The learned judge may have been mistaken when stating Campion to be the
last person racked, for in Murden’s state papers, one Atslow, as before
observed, is mentioned to have been tortured four years afterwards. Mr.
Baron Weston states that upon a suggestion made to Queen Elizabeth of
the illegality of the practice, it was discontinued in her reign, and
thus we may account for Campion being racked with so little severity, as
to be able to walk afterwards, and to manage the conferences with
protestant doctors during his confinement in prison.
In the Jurisprudence of the Romans the deceitful and dangerous
experiment of the criminal _quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was
admitted, rather than approved. The Roman government applied this
sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose sufferings
were seldom weighed by those haughty Republicans in the scale of justice
or humanity; but they would never consent to violate the sacred person
of a citizen, till they possessed the clearest evidence of his
guilt.[29] The annals of tyranny, from the reign of Tiberius to that of
Domitian, circumstantially relate the executions of many innocent
victims; but as long as the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the
national freedom and honour, the last hours of a Roman were secure from
the danger of ignominious torture. The conduct of the provincial
magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the city, or
the strict maxims of the Civilians. They found the use of torture
established not only among the slaves of oriental despotism, but among
the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who
flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among the sage
Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human nature.[30]
The acquiescence of the people in the provinces encouraged their
governors to acquire or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of
employing the Rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the
confession of their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound
the distinctions of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman
citizens. The apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and
the interest of the Sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of special
exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized, the general use
of torture. They protected all persons of illustrious or honourable
rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts,
soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to
the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a
fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the Empire,
that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the
subtlety of lawyers could derive from an _hostile intention_ towards the
prince or republic, all privileges were suspended and all conditions
were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the Emperor
was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity,
the dignity of age, and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to
the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious information,
which might select them as the accomplices, or even as the witnesses,
perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the
principal citizens of the Roman world.[31]
Footnote 17:
_Vide_ Serjeant Heywood’s Vindication of Mr. Fox’s History of James
the Second, p. 397.
Footnote 18:
Fuller’s Worthies, p. 317.
Footnote 19:
There is a small book, printed in black letter, containing an account
of the treatment and trial of Anne Askew, which contains many curious
particulars.—She was the daughter of Sir William Askew, of Kelsay, in
the county of Lincoln, where she was born about 1520. She had a
learned education, and while young was married to a person of the name
of Kyme, much against her inclination. On account of some harsh
treatment from her husband, she went to the Court of Henry the Eighth
to sue for a separation, where she was greatly taken notice of by
those ladies who were attached to the Reformation; in consequence of
which, she was arrested, and having confessed her religious
principles, was committed to Newgate. She was first racked with savage
cruelty in the Tower, and then burnt in Smithfield, in 1546, in
company with her tutor, and two other persons of the same faith. From
her letters and other pieces in Fox and Strype, it appears she was an
accomplished, as well as a pious, woman.
Footnote 20:
Burnet’s Reformation, vol. 1. p. 325; vol. 2. p. 382.
Footnote 21:
Collier’s Eccl. Hist. vol. 2. p. 591.—Murden’s State Papers, p. 9,
101.
Footnote 22:
Collier’s Eccl. Hist. vol. 2. p. 139.—Murden’s State Papers, p. 452.
Footnote 23:
Observations on Ancient Statutes, p. 496, _note_.
Footnote 24:
State Trials, vol. 1. p. 199.
Footnote 25:
Observations on Statutes, p. 495.
Footnote 26:
State Trials, vol. 1. p. 221.
Footnote 27:
Observations on Statutes, p. 92.
Footnote 28:
State Trials, vol. 3. p. 99.
Footnote 29:
The Pandects (1. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the sentiments of the
most celebrated civilians on the subject of torture. They strictly
confine it to slaves.
Footnote 30:
The Citizens of Athens could not be put to the rack, unless it was for
high treason. The torture was used within thirty days after
condemnation. There was no preparatory torture. In regard to the
Romans, the third and fourth law _de Majestate_, by Julius Cæsar,
shews that birth, dignity, and the military profession exempted people
from the rack, except in cases of high treason.—_Montesquieu’s Spirit
of Laws_, vol. 1. p. 132.
Footnote 31:
Archadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted in the Pandects to
justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of treason; but
this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus with the most
respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of the successors of
Constantine.—_Gibbon’s Rom. Hist._ vol. 3. p. 81.
DR. JOHNSON’S CONVERSATION WITH THE LATE KING.
In February, 1767, there happened one of the most remarkable incidents
of Johnson’s life, which gratified his monarchical enthusiasm, and which
he loved to relate with all its circumstances, when requested by his
friends. This was his being honoured by a private conversation with his
late Majesty, in the Library at the Queen’s house. He had frequently
visited those splendid rooms, and noble collection of books, which he
used to say was more numerous and curious than he supposed any person
could have made in the time which the king had employed. Mr. Barnard the
Librarian, took care that he should have every accommodation that could
contribute to his ease and convenience, while indulging his literary
taste in that place, so that he had here a very agreeable resource at
leisure hours.
His Majesty having been informed of his occasional visits, was pleased
to signify a desire that he should be told when Dr. Johnson came next to
the library. Accordingly the next time that Johnson did come, as soon as
he was fairly engaged with a book, on which, while he sat by the fire he
seemed quite intent, Mr. Barnard stole round to the apartment where the
king was, and, in obedience to his Majesty’s commands, mentioned that
Dr. Johnson was then in the library. His Majesty said he was at leisure
and would go to him; upon which Mr. Barnard took one of the candles that
stood on the king’s table, and lighted his Majesty through a suite of
rooms till they came to a private door into the library, of which his
Majesty had the key. Being entered, Mr. Barnard stepped forward hastily
to Dr. Johnson, who was still in a profound study, and whispered him,
“Sir, here is the king.” Johnson started up, and stood still. His
Majesty approached him, and at once was courteously easy.
His Majesty began by observing, that he understood he came sometimes to
the library; and then mentioned his having heard that the Doctor had
been lately at Oxford, asked him if he was not fond of going thither. To
which Johnson answered, that he was indeed fond of going to Oxford
sometimes, but was likewise glad to come back again. The king then asked
him what they were doing at Oxford. Johnson answered he could not much
commend their diligence, but that in some respects they were mended, for
they had put their press under better regulations, and were at that time
printing Polybius. He was then asked whether there were better libraries
at Oxford or Cambridge; he answered, he believed the Bodleian was larger
than any they had at Cambridge; at the same time adding, “I hope whether
we have more books or not than they have at Cambridge, we shall make as
good use of them as they do.” Being asked whether All-Souls or Christ
Church library was the largest, he answered, “All-Souls library is the
largest we have except the Bodleian.” “Aye, (said the king) that is the
public library.”
His Majesty enquired if he was then writing any thing, he answered, he
was not, for he had pretty well told the world what he knew, and must
now read to acquire more knowledge. The king as it should seem with a
view to urge him to rely on his own stores as an original writer, and to
continue his labours, then said, “I do not think you borrow much from
any body.” Johnson said he thought he had already done his part as a
writer. “I should have thought so too,” said the king, “if you had not
written so well.”—Johnson observed to me, says Boswell, that “No man
could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to
pay. It was decisive.” When asked by another friend at Sir Joshua
Reynolds’s, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he
answered, “No, Sir. When the king had said it, it was to be so. It was
not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign.” Perhaps no man who
had spent his whole life in courts could have shewn a more nice and
dignified sense of true politeness than Johnson did in this instance.
“His Majesty having observed to him, that he supposed he must have read
a great deal, Johnson answered, that he thought more than he read; that
he had read a great deal in the early part of his life, but having
fallen into ill health, he had not been able to read much compared with
others; for instance he said he had not read much, compared with Dr.
Warburton. Upon which the king said, that he heard Dr. Warburton was a
man of such general knowledge, that you could scarce talk with him on
any subject on which he was not qualified to speak, and that his
learning resembled Garrick’s acting in its universality. The king
observed that Pope made Warburton a bishop; ‘True, Sir,’ said Johnson,
‘but Warburton did more for Pope, he made him a Christian;’ alluding no
doubt, to his ingenious comments on the ‘Essay on Man.’ His Majesty then
talked of the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, which he seemed
to have read, and asked Johnson what he thought of it. Johnson answered,
‘Warburton has most general, most scholastic learning; Lowth is the more
correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names best.’ The king
was pleased to say he was of the same opinion; adding, ‘You do not think
then, Dr. Johnson, that there was much argument in the case.’ Johnson
said he did not think there was. ‘Why, truly,’ said the king, ‘when once
it comes to calling names, argument is pretty well at an end.’“
His Majesty then asked him what he thought of Lord Lyttelton’s history,
which was just then published. Johnson said, he thought his style pretty
good, but that he had blamed Henry the Second rather too much. “Why,
said the king, they seldom do these things by halves.” “No, Sir,
answered Johnson, not to kings.” But fearing to be misunderstood, he
proceeded to explain himself, and immediately subjoined, “That for those
who spoke worse of kings than they deserved, he could find no excuse;
but that he could more easily conceive how some might speak better of
them than they deserved, without any ill intention; for, as kings had
much in their power to give, those who were favoured by them would
frequently, from gratitude, exaggerate their praises; and as this
proceeded from a good motive, it was certainty excusable, as far as
error could be excusable.”
The king then asked him what he thought of Dr. Hill. Johnson answered,
that he was an ingenious man, but had no veracity; and immediately
mentioned, as an instance of it, an assertion of that writer, that he
had seen objects magnified to a much greater degree by using three or
four microscopes at a time than by using one. “Now,” added Johnson,
“every one acquainted with microscopes knows, that the more of them he
looks through, the less the object will appear.” “Why,” replied the
king, “this is not only telling an untruth, but telling it clumsily;
for, if that be the case, every one who can look through a microscope
will be able to detect him.”
I now, (said Johnson to his friends, when relating what had passed)
began to consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation of
his Sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that
might be more favourable. He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was,
notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been
contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a
very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean
expedients to raise his reputation.
The king then talked of Literary Journals, mentioned particularly the
_Journal des Savans_, and asked Johnson if it was well done. Johnson
said it was formerly very well done, and gave some account of the
persons who began it, and carried it on for some years; enlarging at the
same time, on the nature and use of such works. The king asked him if it
was well done now. Johnson answered, he had no reason to think that it
was. The king then asked him if there were any other Literary Journals
published in this kingdom, except the Monthly and Critical Reviews; and
on being answered there were no other, his Majesty asked which of them
was the best; Johnson answered, that the Monthly Review was done with
most care, the Critical upon the best principles; adding that the
authors of the Monthly Review were enemies to the church. This the king
said he was sorry to hear.
The conversation next turned on the Philosophical Transactions, when
Johnson observed that they had now a better method of arranging their
materials than formerly. “Aye, said the king, they are obliged to Dr.
Johnson for that”; for his Majesty had heard and remembered the
circumstance, which Johnson himself had forgot.
His Majesty expressed a desire to have the literary biography of this
country ably executed, and proposed to Dr. Johnson to undertake it.
Johnson signified his readiness to comply with his Majesty’s wishes.
During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with
profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous
voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the
levee and in the drawing-room. After the king withdrew, Johnson shewed
himself highly pleased with his Majesty’s conversation, and gracious
behaviour. He said to Mr. Barnard, “Sir, they may talk of the king as
they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.” And he
afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, “Sir, his manners are those of as
fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the fourteenth, or Charles the
second.”
DR. BEATTIE’S CONVERSATION WITH THE LATE KING AND QUEEN.
Dr. Beattie had been informed by Dr. Majendie, who lived at Kew, and was
often at the palace, that the king having asked some questions of the
doctor respecting him, and being told that he sometimes visited Dr.
Majendie there, his Majesty had desired to be informed the next time Dr.
Beattie was to be at Kew. What his Majesty’s intentions were, Dr.
Majendie said he did not know; but supposed the king intended to admit
him to a private audience. A day was therefore fixed, on which Dr.
Beattie was to be at Dr. Majendie’s house early in the morning, of which
the Doctor was to give notice to his Majesty. Of this interesting event,
so honourable to Dr. Beattie, I shall transcribe in his own words, says
Sir William Forbes, the account he has given in his diary:—
“Tuesday, 24th August, (1773) set out for Dr. Majendie’s at Kew Green.
The Doctor told me that he had not seen the king yesterday, but had left
a note in writing, to intimate, that I was to be at his house to-day;
and that one of the king’s pages had come to him this morning, to say,
‘that his Majesty would see me a little after twelve.’ At twelve, the
Doctor and I went to the king’s house at Kew. We had been only a few
minutes in the hall, when the king and queen came in from an airing; and
as they passed through the hall, the king called to me by name, and
asked how long it was since I came from town? I answered about an hour.
‘I shall see you,’ says he, ‘in a little.’ The Doctor and I waited a
considerable time, for the king was busy, and then we were called into a
large room, furnished as a library, where the king was walking about,
and the queen sitting in a chair. We were received in the most gracious
manner possible, by both their Majesties. I had the honour of a
conversation with them, nobody else being present but Dr. Majendie, for
upwards of an hour on a great variety of topics; in which both the king
and queen joined, with a degree of cheerfulness, affability, and ease,
that was to me surprising, and soon dissipated the embarrassment which I
felt at the beginning of the conference. They both complimented me in
the highest terms on my ‘Essay,’ which they said was a book they always
kept by them; and the king said he had one copy of it at Kew, and
another in town, and immediately went and took it down from a shelf. I
found it was the second edition. ‘I never stole a book, but one,’ said
his Majesty, ‘and that was your’s (speaking to me) I stole it from the
queen, to give it to Lord Hertford to read.’ He had heard that the sale
of Hume’s ‘Essays’ had failed, since my book was published; and I told
him what Mr. Strahan had told me, in regard to that matter. He had even
heard of my being in Edinburgh last summer, and how Mr. Hume was
offended on the score of my book. He asked many questions about the
second part of the ‘Essay,’ and when it would be ready for the press. I
gave him, in a short speech, an account of the plan of it; and said my
health was so precarious, I could not tell when it might be ready, as I
had many books to consult before I could finish it; but, that if my
health were good, I thought I might bring it to a conclusion in two or
three years. He asked how long I had been in composing my Essay? praised
the caution with which it was written; and said he did not wonder that
it had employed me five or six years. He asked, about my Poems. I said
there was only one poem of my own, on which I set any value (meaning the
‘Minstrel’) and that it was first published about the same time with the
‘Essay.’ My other poems, I said were incorrect, being but juvenile
pieces, and of little consequence, even in my own opinion. We had much
conversation on moral subjects; from which both their Majesties let it
appear, that they were warm friends to Christianity; and so little
inclined to infidelity, that they could hardly believe that any thinking
man could really be an Atheist, unless he could bring himself to
believe, that he made himself; a thought which pleased the king
exceedingly; and he repeated it several times to the queen. He asked
whether any thing had been written against me. I spoke of the late
pamphlet, of which I gave an account, telling him, that I had never met
with any man who had read it, except one quaker. This brought on some
discourse about the quakers, whose moderation, and mild behaviour the
king and queen commended. I was asked many questions about the Scots
Universities: the revenues of the Scots Clergy; their mode of praying
and preaching; the medical college of Edinburgh; Dr. Gregory, of whom I
gave a particular character, and Dr. Cullen; the length of our vacation
at Aberdeen, and the closeness of our attendance during the winter; the
number of students that attend my lectures; my mode of lecturing,
whether from notes, or completely written lectures; about Mr. Hume, and
Dr. Robertson, and Lord Kinnoul, and the Archbishop of York, &c. &c.
His Majesty asked what I thought of my new acquaintance, Lord Dartmouth?
I said there was something in his air and manner, which I thought not
only agreeable, but enchanting, and that he seemed to me to be one of
the best of men; a sentiment in which both their Majesties heartily
joined. “They say that Lord Dartmouth is an enthusiast,” said the king,
“but surely he says nothing on the subject of religion, but what every
Christian may, and ought to say.” He asked whether I did not think the
English language on the decline at present; I answered in the
affirmative; and the king agreed, and named the “Spectator” as one of
the best standards of the language. When I told him that the Scots
clergy sometimes prayed a quarter, or even half an hour at a time, he
asked, whether that did not lead them into repetitions? I said it often
did. “That” said he, “I don’t like in prayers; and excellent as our
liturgy is, I think it somewhat faulty in that respect.” “Your Majesty
knows,” said I, “that three services are joined in one, in the ordinary
church service, which is one cause of those repetitions.” “True,” he
replied, “and that circumstance also makes the service too long.” From
this he took occasion to speak of the composition of the church liturgy;
on which he very justly bestowed the highest commendation. “Observe,”
his Majesty said, “how flat those occasional prayers are, that are now
composed, in comparison with the old ones.” When I mentioned the
smallness of the church livings in Scotland, he said, “he wondered how
men of liberal education would chuse to become clergymen there,” and
asked, “whether in the remote parts of the country, the clergy, in
general were not very ignorant?” I answered, no, for that education was
very cheap in Scotland, and that the clergy, in general, were men of
good sense, and competent learning. He asked whether we had any good
preachers at Aberdeen? I said, yes, and named Campbell and Gerard, with
whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted. Dr.
Majendie mentioned Dr. Oswald’s “Appeal,” with commendation; I praised
it too and the queen took down the name, with a view to send for it. I
was asked, whether I knew Dr. Oswald? I answered, I did not; and said
that my book was published before I read his; that Dr. Oswald was well
known to Lord Kinnoul, who had often proposed to make us acquainted. We
discussed a great many other topics; for the conversation, as before
observed, lasted for upwards of an hour, without any intermission. The
queen bore a large share in it. Both the king and her Majesty showed a
great deal of good sense, acuteness, and knowledge, as well as of good
nature and affability. At last, the king took out his watch (for it was
now almost three o’clock, his hour of dinner) which Dr. Majendie and I
took as a signal to withdraw. We accordingly bowed to their Majesties,
and I addressed the king in these words: “I hope, Sir, your Majesty will
pardon me, if I take this opportunity to return you my humble and most
grateful acknowledgments for the honour you have been pleased to confer
upon me.” He immediately answered, “I think I could do no less for a
man, who has done so much service to the cause of Christianity. I shall
always be glad of an opportunity to show the good opinion I have of
you.” The queen sate all the while, and the king stood, sometimes
walking about a little. Her Majesty speaks the English language with
surprising elegance, and little or nothing of a foreign accent. There is
something wonderfully captivating in her manner; so that if she were
only of the rank of a private gentlewoman, one could not help taking
notice of her as one of the most agreeable women in the world. Her face
is much more pleasing than any of her pictures; and in the expression of
her eyes, and in her smile, there is something peculiarly engaging.
When the Doctor and I came out, “Pray,” said I, “how did I behave? Tell
me honestly, for I am not accustomed to conversations of this kind.”
“Why perfectly well,” answered he, “and just as you ought to do.”—“Are
you sure of that?” said I.—“As sure,” he replied, “as of my own
existence; and you may be assured of it too, when I tell you, that if
there had been any thing in your manner or conversation, which was not
perfectly agreeable, your conference would have been at an end in eight
or ten minutes at most.” The Doctor afterwards told me that it was a
most uncommon thing for a private man, and a commoner, to be honoured
with so long an audience. I dined with Dr. and Mrs. Majendie and their
family, and returned to town in the evening, very much pleased with the
occurrences of the day.
SACRED GARDENS.
The origin of sacred gardens among the heathen nations may be traced up
to the garden of Eden. The gardens of the Hesperides, of Adonis, of
Flora, were famous among the Greeks and Romans. “The garden of Flora,”
says Mr. Spence, (Polymetis, p. 251) “I take to have been the Paradise
in the Roman Mythology. The traditions and traces of Paradise among the
ancients must be expected to have grown fainter and fainter in every
transfusion from one people to another. The Romans probably derived
their notions of it from the Greeks, among whom this idea seems to have
been shadowed out under the stories of the gardens of Alcinous. In
Africa they had the gardens of the Hesperides, and in the East those of
Adonis, or the _Horti Adonis_, as Pliny calls them. The term _Horti
Adonides_ was used by the ancients to signify _gardens of pleasure_,
which answers to the very name of Paradise, or the garden of Eden, as
_Horti Adonis_ does to the _garden of the LORD_.”
SIR THOMAS WYAT.
[DIED 1541.]
The story of this eminent person, probably one of the principal
ornaments of an age unable to discern his merits, or unwilling to record
them, has been very imperfectly related. He was born at Allington
Castle, in Kent, the ancient seat of his family, in 1503, and was the
son of Sir Henry Wyat. He may be said to have finished his education in
the society of that eminent character Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, with
whom he travelled abroad, and with whom he “tasted in Italy,” says Wood,
“the sweet and stately measures of the Italian poesy.” These, as far as
the rude state of our language, and the still ruder taste of the times,
would allow, he applied to English verse. His poems were printed at
London in 1565, and have since been frequently republished, in
conjunction with those of his noble friend; but here, as in other points
of view, we have but glimpses of him; for through the ignorance or
carelessness of the original editor, his pieces are so confusedly
blended with the Earl’s, that not many of them can be positively
ascertained.[32]
Having been introduced at Court, where his endowments both of body and
mind, recommended him to the favour of king Henry the Eighth, he was
employed in several foreign embassies, which he discharged with great
ability. His influence with the king was proverbial. Lloyd tells us that
“when a man was newly preferred, they said he had been in Sir Thomas
Wyat’s closet.”
We are informed by Wood (_Athen. Oxon._) that Sir Thomas was sent by the
king to Falmouth, for the purpose of conducting a Spanish Minister from
thence to London. Being desirous of making great expedition, he fatigued
himself so much that he was thrown into a fever, and was obliged to stop
at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he died a few days after, in the
38th year of his age, “to the great reluctancy,” says Wood, “of the
king, kingdom, his friends, and all that knew the great worth and
virtues of the person.” He was buried in Sherborne Church.[33]
He left behind him a son of the same name, who lost his head for
exciting a rebellion in the reign of queen Mary, from whom our poet is
commonly distinguished by the appellation of Sir Thomas Wyat the elder.
Footnote 32:
There is an engraving of Sir Thomas in the collection of Holbein
Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine.
An original picture of him, which has been frequently copied, is in
the collection of the Earl of Romney. It is nearly a profile, and
bears a strong resemblance to Holbein’s drawing.
There is a print of Sir Thomas Wyat, from an engraving on wood, after
a painting by Holbein; it is the frontispiece to the book of verses,
written on his death, by Leland, entitled “Næniæ in Mortem Thomæ Viati
Equitis incomparabilis,” an Elegy on the death of Sir Thomas Wyat,
Knt. London, 1542, _quarto_. This book was reprinted by Hearne, at the
beginning of the second volume of Leland’s Itinerary. Under the head
is the following inscription:—
“Holbenus nitida pingendi maximus arte,
”Effigiem expressit graphice, sed nullus Apelles
“Exprimet ingenium felix, animumque Viati.”
This print has been copied by Michael Burghers and Mr. Tyson.
_Granger_ i. 110.
Footnote 33:
The first printed Poetical Miscellany, in the English language, is the
Collection of Poems, edited and published by Tottel, entitled “Songes
and Sonnettes of Surrey, Wyat, and of uncertain Auctors, London,
1557.”—Another edition, 1565—others in 1574, 1585, 1587. The last
edition was edited by Dr. George Sewell, in 1717.—This Dr. Sewell was
a physician in London; he received his early education at Eton, which
he afterwards completed at Cambridge, where he took the degree of
Bachelor of Physic in 1709. From thence he went to Leyden, where he
studied under the celebrated Boerhaave. Not being successful in the
metropolis, he removed to Hampstead, where he died on the 8th of
February, 1726. As an author he possessed a considerable share of
genius, and wrote in concert with several of his contemporaries,
particularly in the Spectator and Tatler; he was principally concerned
in the ninth volume of the former, and in the fifth of the latter, as
he was also in a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and an edition
of Shakespeare’s Poems. He was the author of a Tragedy, entitled “Sir
Walter Raleigh,” published at London in 1719, and also of another,
which he left unfinished, entitled “King Richard the First,” the
fragments of which were printed in 1728.
THE HAND A SYMBOL OF POWER.
In Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon we have the following remarks on the Hand
as an emblem of strength and power. “The hand was used by the Jews, as a
trophy or monument of victory, and placed on the top of a pillar. Thus
Saul, after smiting the Amalekites, in the pride of his heart erected to
or for himself (not for Jehovah) a hand, 1 Samuel xv. 12. And David
smote Hadadezer, king of Zobah, when he was going to erect his hand or
trophy, by the river Euphrates, 2 Sam. viii. 3, and 1 Chronicles, xviii.
3.—And this appears to be the most ancient use of these memorial hands;
whence Absalom seems to have taken the hint of erecting one, merely to
keep his name in remembrance, 2 Sam. xviii. 18, where it may be observed
that this monument is expressly called not only a _hand_, but _a
pillar_, which shews that the hand was wont to be put on a pillar.
“Neibuhr (Voyage in Arabia, tom. 2. p. 211. French edition) speaking of
Ali’s mosque at Mesched Ali, says, that ‘at the top of the dome’ where
one generally sees on the Turkish mosques a crescent, or only a pole,
there is here _a hand stretched out_, to represent that of Ali.” And
another writer informs us, that at the Alhambra, or red palace of the
Moorish kings in Granada, “on the key-stone of the outward arch [of the
present principal entrance] is sculptured the figure of an _arm_, the
symbol of strength and dominion.”
“It may not be amiss to observe, that to this day in the East Indies the
picture of a _hand_ is the emblem of power or authority. Thus I am
assured, says Parkhurst, by a gentleman of undoubted veracity, who
resided many years on the coast of Coromandel, that when the Nabob of
Arcot, who in his time was governor of _five provinces_, appeared on
public occasions, several small flags, with each _a hand_ painted upon
them, and one of a large size with _five hands_, were solemnly carried
before him.”
The hand was used as an ensign of royalty by the kings of France and
England. In Sandford’s Genealogical History, there is the following note
on the counter-seal of king Edward the third: “In the margin of this
counter-seal, near the point of the king’s sword, is represented the
_hand of justice_, being an ensign of royalty peculiar only to the kings
of France, for though they in common with other princes carry in their
right hand a sceptre of gold, yet in the other they bear the _hand of
justice_, being a short rod, and having on the top of it a _left hand_,
wide open, made of ivory, on account of the elephant being the only
quadruped observable for his devotion, love of his governors, and for
his equity. The left hand it is said, is preferred to the right for this
purpose, because not being employed in working so many wicked actions as
the right, it became more proper than the other to represent the symbol
of justice. This hand is also placed in the counter-seals of his
successors Richard the second, and Henry the fourth; king Henry the
fifth omitted it in his seal, and conquering France both placed that
crown on the head, and the French sceptre and _hand of justice_ in the
hands of his son, king Henry the sixth.”
Queen Elizabeth used the hand as one of her mint marks.
HENRIETTA MARIA,
QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
“Our royal martyr,” says Dr. Kennet, “by taking a consort from the
Bourbon family, did apparently bring over some evils and mischiefs that
disturbed his whole reign. For within less than one year, the French
servants of that queen grew so imperious and insolent, that the king was
forced to discharge them, and to humble them by a return into their own
country.”
“A very sad doom it was certainly to the French,” says L’Estrange in his
annals of king Charles, “but as the animadversion was extremely severe,
so their offences were in like degree heinous. The bishop of Mende, the
queen’s almoner, stood charged for putting intolerable scorn upon, and
making religion itself do penance, by enjoining her Majesty, under the
notion of penance, to go barefoot, to spin, and to wait upon her family
servants at their ordinary repasts, to walk on foot in the mire on a
rainy morning, from Somerset House to St. James’s; her confessor, mean
while, like Lucifer himself, riding by her in his coach; but, which is
worst of all, to make a progress to Tyburn, there to present her
devotions for the departed souls of the Papists, who had been executed
at that place, on account of the Gunpowder Treason, and other enormous
crimes. A most impious piaculary, whereof the king said acutely, that
the action can have no greater invective than the relation. The other
sex were accused of crimes of another nature, whereof Madam St. George
was, as in dignity of office, so in guilt, the principal; culpable she
was in many particulars, but her most notorious and unpardonable fault
was, her being an accursed instrument of some unkindness between the
king and queen. These incendiaries were cashiered, the queen, who
formerly shewed so much waspish protervity, soon fell into a mode of
loving compliance. But though this renvoy of her Majesty’s servants,
imported domestic peace, yet was it attended with an ill aspect from
France, though our king, studying to preserve fair correspondence with
his brother, sent the Lord Carleton with instructions to represent a
true account of the action, with all the motives to it; but his
reception was very coarse, being never admitted to audience. Louis
despatched Monsieur the Marshal de Bassompierre, as Extraordinary
Ambassador to our king, to demand the restitution of the queen’s
domesticks: which he at last obtained for most of them.”
“It was this match,” adds Dr. Kennet, “that began to corrupt our nation
with French modes and vanities; which gave occasion to Mr. Prynne to
write that severe invective, called Histriomastix, against stage plays;
to betray our councils to the French court; to weaken the poor
Protestants in France, by rendering ineffectual the relief of Rochelle;
nay, and to lessen our own trade and navigation. These ill effects,
beyond the king’s intention, raised such a jealousy, and spread such a
damp upon the English subjects, that it was unhappily turned into one of
the unjust occasions of civil war, which indeed began more out of hatred
to that party, than out of any disaffection to the king. The people
thought themselves too much under French counsels, and a French
ministry, or else, they could never have been drawn aside into that
great rebellion. This interest when suspected to prevail, brought the
king into urgent difficulties; and in the midst of them the aid and
assistance, which that interest offered him, did but the more
effectually weaken him. On this side the water the French services
betrayed him; and on the other side, the French policies were at work to
betray him.”
And, indeed, as queen Henrietta had a mighty, if not a supreme sway over
King Charles’s councils, so did her mother, Mary de Medicis, who came
over by her invitation, administer great cause of jealousy to this
nation. “The people,” says L’Estrange, “were generally malecontent at
her coming, and wished her farther off. For they did not like her train
and followers, which had often been observed to be the sword of
pestilence, so that she was beheld as some meteor of evil signification.
Nor was one of these calamities thought more the effect of her fortune
than inclination; for her restless and unconstant spirit was prone to
embroil all wheresoever she came. And besides, as queen Henrietta was
extraordinary active in raising money among the Roman Catholics of this
kingdom, to enable King Charles to make war against his subjects of
Scotland, so was she extreme busy in fomenting the unhappy differences
between his Majesty and his English Parliament.”
Sir John Reresby, in his Memoirs, asserts that queen Henrietta Maria was
married after the king’s death to Lord St. Alban’s. “The abbess of an
English college in Paris, whither the queen used to retire, would tell
me,” says Sir John, “that Lord Jermyn, since St. Alban’s, had the queen
greatly in awe of him, and indeed it was obvious that he had great
interest with her concerns; but that he was married to her, or _had
children by her, as some have reported_, I did not then believe, _though
the thing was certainly so_.”
Madame Baviere, in her letters, says, “Charles the First’s widow made a
clandestine marriage, with her _Chevalier d’ Honneur_, Lord St. Alban’s,
who treated her extremely ill, so that whilst she had not a faggot to
warm herself, he had in his apartment a good fire, and a sumptuous
table. He never gave the queen a kind word, and when she spoke to him,
he used to say, _Que me veut cette femme?_”
To what a miserable state the queen was reduced may be seen in the
following extract from De Retz’s Memoirs, (vol. 1. p. 261.) “Four or
five days before the king removed from Paris, I went to visit the queen
of England, whom I found in her daughter’s chamber, who hath been since
Duchess of Orleans. At my coming in she said, ‘You see I am come to keep
Henrietta company. The poor child could not rise to-day for want of a
fire.’ The truth is, that the cardinal for six months together had not
ordered her any money towards her pension; that no trades-people would
trust her for any thing; and that there was not at her lodgings in the
Louvre one single billet. You will do me the justice to suppose that the
princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a
faggot; but it was not this which the Princess of Conde meant in her
letter. What she spoke about was, that some days after my visiting the
queen of England, I remembered the condition I had found her in, and had
strongly represented the shame of abandoning her in that manner, which
caused the Parliament to send 40,000 livres to her Majesty. Posterity
will hardly believe that a Princess of England, grand-daughter of Henry
the Great, hath wanted a faggot in the month of January, to get out of
bed in the Louvre, and in the eyes of a French court. We read in
histories, with horror, of baseness less monstrous than this; and the
little concern I have met with about it in most people’s minds, has
obliged me to make, I believe, a thousand times this reflection—that
examples of times past move men beyond comparison more than those of
their own times. We accustom ourselves to what we see; and I have
sometimes told you, that I doubted whether Caligula’s horse being made a
consul would have surprized us so much as we imagine.”
As for the relative situations of the king (Charles II.) and Lord
Jermyn, (afterwards St. Alban’s) Lord Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion,
vol. 3. p. 2) says that the “Marquis of Ormond was compelled to put
himself in prison, with other gentlemen, at a pistole a week for his
diet, and to walk the streets a-foot, which was no honourable custom in
Paris, whilst the Lord Jermyn kept an excellent table for those who
courted him, and had a coach of his own, and all other accommodations
incident to the most full fortune; and if the king had the most urgent
occasion for the use but of twenty pistoles, as sometimes he had, he
could not find credit to borrow it, which he often had experiment of.”
The Lord St. Alban’s above mentioned was Henry Jermyn, second son of
Thomas Jermyn, of Rushbrooke, near Bury St. Edmund’s, in Suffolk. In
1644 he was created Lord Jermyn, with limitation of the honour to the
heirs male of his elder brother Thomas. In 1660 he was further advanced
to the dignity of Earl of St. Alban’s, and Baron of St. Edmund’s Bury,
but on his death in 1683, the earldom became extinct. The barony of
Jermyn devolved on Thomas (son of his elder brother Thomas) who became
second Lord Jermyn: he died unmarried in 1703.—Lord St. Alban’s was
master of the horse to Queen Henrietta Maria, and one of the privy
council to Charles the second. In July 1660 he was sent ambassador to
the court of France, and in 1671 was made Lord Chamberlain of his
majesty’s household.—“He was a man of no great genius,” says Grammont,
“he raised himself a considerable fortune from nothing, and by losing at
play, and keeping a great table, made it appear greater than it was.”
“It is well known what a table the good man kept at Paris, while the
king his master was starving at Brussels, and the queen dowager his
mistress, lived not over well in France.”
This earl lived in London at _Jermyn house_, which stood at the head of
St. Alban’s-street, Pallmall, which street and Jermyn-street had their
names from him.
LAST MOMENTS OF PHILIP MELANCTHON.[34]
The nineteenth of April, 1560, was the last day of the mortal existence
of this great reformer and pious christian. After the usual medical
inquiries of the morning, he adverted to the calamitous state of the
church of Christ, but intimated his hope that the genuine doctrine of
the gospel would ultimately prevail, exclaiming, “If GOD be for us who
can be against us.” After this he presented fervent supplications to
heaven for the welfare of the church, and in the intervals of sleep
conversed principally upon this subject with several of his visiting
friends.
Soon after eight in the morning awaking from a tranquil sleep, he
distinctly, though with a feeble voice, repeated a form of prayer which
he had written for his own daily use. An interval of repose having
elapsed after repeating this prayer, he lifted up his eyes to heaven,
and turning to his son-in-law, he said, “I have been in the power of
death, but the LORD has graciously delivered me.” This was supposed to
refer to some deep conflicts of mind, as he repeated the expression to
others. When one of the persons who visited him said, “There is now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” he soon added, “Christ
is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”
“Let him that glorieth glory in the LORD.”
The coldness of death was now creeping over him, but his mental
faculties continued unimpaired to the very last breath of mortal
existence. Having expressed a wish to hear some passages from the Old
and New Testaments, his ministerial attendants read the 24th, 25th and
26th Psalms: the 53d chapter of Isaiah; the 7th chapter of John, the 5th
of the Romans, and many other passages. The saying of John respecting
the son of God, he said was perpetually in his mind, “the world knew him
not ... but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of GOD, even to them that believe on his name.”
Upon being asked by his son-in-law if he would have any thing else, he
replied in these emphatic Words, “NOTHING ELSE—BUT HEAVEN!” and
requested that he might not be any further interrupted. Soon afterwards
he made a similar request, begging those around him, who were
endeavouring with officious kindness to adjust his clothes, “not to
disturb his delightful repose.” After some time his friends united with
the Minister present in solemn prayer, and several passages of
scripture, in which he was known always to have expressed peculiar
pleasure were read, such as “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe
in GOD, believe also in me.”—“In my Father’s house are many
mansions.”—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me;” particularly the fifth chapter of Romans, and the triumphant close
of the eighth chapter, commencing “If GOD be for us, who can be against
us?” Many other parts of scripture were recited, and the last word he
uttered was the German particle of affirmation, _Ia_, in reply to one of
his friends, who had inquired if he understood him while reading. The
last motion which his friends who surrounded him to the number of at
least twenty, could discern, was a slight motion of the countenance
which was peculiar to him when deeply affected with religious joy!—“Mark
the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is
peace!”
At length, “in the midst of solemn vows and supplications,” at a quarter
before seven, in the evening, at the age of sixty-three, he gently
breathed his last. No distractions of mind, no foreboding terrors of
conscience agitated this attractive scene. His chamber was “privileged
beyond the common walks of virtuous life—quite in the verge of
heaven”—and he expired, like a wave scarcely undulating to the evening
zephyr of an unclouded summer sky. It was a “DEPARTURE”—a “SLEEP”—“the
earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved.”
Footnote 34:
Melancthon was born at Brette, a village of the Palatinate, on the
16th of February, 1497. In his childhood he made an astonishing
progress in the acquisition of languages. Luther, and his doctrines,
appeared about this time, and Melancthon stood forward as one of their
most strenuous supporters; indeed the Lutheran system was in a great
measure planned by him, and the famous instrument by which it was
publicly declared, called the Confession of Augsburg, was the
production of his pen. Melancthon was the intimate friend of Erasmus,
and Erasmus the patron of Holbein. This connection will account for
his appearance in a Collection of Portraits, drawn by Holbein, of the
principal personages in the Court of Henry the Eighth, though
Melancthon never was in this country. An engraving of him is among the
Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine, and there is a
full-length portrait of this great Reformer, with a fac-simile of his
writing, in his Life, published by the Rev. F. A. Cox, London, 1815,
8vo.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
A considerable number of treatises were written in the middle and latter
end of the seventeenth century, and a few in the beginning of the
eighteenth, respecting the period at which the House of Commons asserted
that independence which it is so material to the security and happiness
of the country it should possess, and obtained that share in the
legislature it now enjoys; but the writers on both sides,[35] eager in
the maintenance of the cause they espoused, and taking advantage of the
scanty means the public had of knowing what was contained in the early
Rolls of Parliament[36] and other ancient records, suppressed from
partiality and interested zeal, much of the information themselves
possessed, which rendered of little use to the public an inquiry that
might otherwise have been attended with considerable advantage.
It might be supposed indeed, that when men so remarkable for diligence
and learning, as Prynne and Petyt, (who were both keepers of the records
in the Tower, among which are most of the Rolls of Parliament, and all
the Claus Rolls) took opposite sides of the controversy, about the time
when the Commons first formed a part of the legislature, whatever could
have made for or against either side of the question would have been
produced. And yet with all their opportunities and their eagerness for
research, those who have attentively looked through the Rolls of
Parliament, will find amongst them much matter of importance respecting
the questions those writers discussed at different periods, to which
neither of them referred, either in support of his own, or in
contradiction to his opponent’s argument. Rymer was equally zealous in
supporting the side he took, in the beginning of the last century. Any
thing therefore having been brought to light by the publication of the
Rolls of Parliament, which appears to have escaped the industry and
research of such men, is a strong proof of the utility of printing those
valuable documents.
As early as the 46th of Edward the third, a statute was made, ordaining
that all persons should be entitled to search for, and have
exemplifications of records, as well such as proved contrary to the
interest of the king, as such as were favourable to it.
Great and eminent men, however, not more distinguished by their high
stations, than for their talents and research, stated opinions, some on
points of magnitude, in the pursuit of mere legal investigations,
different from those which are probably entertained by such as have
carefully perused the Parliamentary Records, which were printed during
the reign of his late Majesty.
In corroboration of this assertion, it may be sufficient to mention two
opinions of Lord Coke’s.
The first that the Lords and Commons sat together late in the reign of
king Edward the third[37] and until the Commons had a perpetual Speaker.
The direct contrary of this opinion it is thought is evident from the
Rolls of Parliament. It does not appear from any Records that the two
Houses ever sat for deliberation in the same assembly, from the time the
Commons were regularly summoned in their representative capacity to
Parliament.
On the contrary, so early as the 18th of Edward the first,[38] (Rolls of
Par. vol. 1. p. 25, a. the earliest Roll extant) there is a Grant[39] to
the king for the marriage of his eldest daughter, by several Peers
named, “et cæteri Magnates et Proceres tunc in Parliamento existentes,
pro se et Communitate totius Regni Angliæ quantum in ipsis est;” that
is, “and other Lords and Nobles for themselves and the Community of the
whole kingdom of England, as much as they were able.” In the 19th of
Edward the second (p. 351. a.) there is a grant to the king for carrying
on the war with Scotland, by the Citizens, Burgesses, and Knights for
counties, of a fifteenth of the moveables of the Citizens, Burgesses,
and men of the counties, cities, and towns.
In the 14th of Edward the second (p. 371.) complaint was made by the
Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of felonies for which they besought a
remedy: and the Record concludes “Et Concordatum est per Dominum Regem
de Consilio Prelatorum, Comitum, Baronum, et aliorum Peritorum, in dicto
Parliamento existentium quod,” &c. that is, “and it was agreed between
our Lord the king and the council of Prelates, Earls, Barons, and other
great men in the said Parliament assembled, &c.”
The Entries in the sixth of Edward the third, 1331, (to the Parliament
Rolls of which year Lord Coke particularly refers for proof of the Lords
and Commons then sitting together) which appear to bear on the point in
question, are in vol. ii. p. 66. At the first meeting at Westminster,
the Prelates by themselves, and the Knights for counties by themselves,
deliberated on the business opened to them at the beginning of the
Parliament, and answered by advising the king not to go in person to
Ireland to quell the rebellion there. And in the third meeting in that
year at York, when a statement was made by Geoffrey le Scroop, in the
presence of the king, and “de touz les Grantz en plein Parlement,” of
all the Lords in full Parliament; and afterwards it was agreed by the
king and the whole in full Parliament, that certain Bishops and Peers
named, should meet on the business in discussion by themselves, the
other Prelates, Earls and Barons, and the Proxies by themselves; and the
Knights of the shire and Commons by themselves. The business was
discussed accordingly during some days; after which the Commons had
leave to return to their counties, and the Prelates, Earls, and Barons,
were to remain till the day following.
In the 13th of Edward the third (vol. 2. p. 104.) a grant was made to
the king, “par les Grantz,” of a tenth of the grain of their demesne
lands, and of their fleeces, with certain reservations. The Commons,
however, after representing their having heard the statement of the
king’s necessities, the extent of which they were aware of, and were
willing to relieve as they had always done; said, that as the aid must
be a great one they dared not assent to it without consulting with “les
Communes de leur Pais,” the Commons of their counties. And they desired
another Parliament to be summoned. At which subsequent meeting, in the
same year, (p. 107. b.) the occasion of summoning the Parliament was
explained to the Commons, on which they said they would deliberate. They
afterwards proposed to grant 30,000 sacks of wool on certain conditions,
which if not agreed to by the king, the aid was to be withheld. The
Earls and Barons the same day granted for themselves and the Peers of
the land who held by Barony, the tenth sheaf, the tenth fleece, and the
tenth lamb.
In the 14th of Edward the third, (p. 112, a.) grants were made by the
Prelates, Earls, and Barons, for themselves and all their tenants, and
by the Knights of shires for themselves, and for the commons of the
land, of the ninth sheaf, the ninth fleece, and the ninth lamb; and by
the Citizens and Burgesses of a real ninth of their property; and
merchants not inhabiting cities and towns, and other people who reside
in forests and wastes, and who do not live by their gains or their
flocks, a fifteenth of all their property according to the true value.
In the 15th of Edward the third (p. 127, a.) on occasion of a Grant made
to the king in a former Parliament, to enable him to purchase friends
and allies for the recovery of his rights, having not been as available
as it ought to have been, it was proposed that consideration should be
had, “par touz les Grantz et Communes,” “by all the Lords and Commons,”
how the grant should be made most profitable to the king, and least
burthensome to the people, “les Grantz de par eux, et les Chivalers des
Counteez, Citeyens, et Burgeys de par eux,” that is, “the Lords by
themselves, and the Knights for counties, Citizens and Burgesses by
themselves.”
In the 17th of Edward the third, (p. 136, a.) “les ditz Prelatz et
Grantz assemblez en la Chambre Blanche (the court of requests)
responderent,” &c. (p. 136, 6.) “Et pour vindrent les Chivalers des
Counteez et les Communes et responderent par Monsieur William Trussell
en la dite Chambre Blanche qi’ en Presence de nostre Signeur le Roi et
les ditz Prelates,” &c. that is, “on which day the said Prelates and
Lords assembled in the _Chambre Blanche_, answered,” &c. “And then came
the Knights for counties, and the Commons, and answered by Monsieur
William Trussell in the said _Chambre Blanche_, and in the presence of
our Lord the king, and the said Prelates,” &c.
There can be little doubt but that this William Trussell was Speaker of
the House of Commons. He is styled by Higden, who wrote in the reign of
Edward the third, in his “Polychronicon,” “Procurator of the
Parliament,” when he, in the name of all the men in the land of England,
renounced allegiance to king Edward the second, in the last year of that
king’s reign.
The Speaker of the Commons was indeed styled “Parlour and Procurator,”
so late as the first of Henry the fourth. (Rolls of Parl. vol. 3. p.
424, b.)
In the 18th of Edward the third, when the king was going-to France for
the recovery of his rights, the grants by the Lords and Commons were
quite distinct; the former to accompany him in the war, “les ditz grantz
granterent de passer et lour aventurer ovesque lui;” the Commons
granted, for the same cause, two fifteenths of the commonalty, and two
tenths of the cities and boroughs. (Rolls of Parl. vol. 2. p. 150, b.)
There are other grants in this reign by the Commons; 20th of Edward the
third, (p. 159, b.) and 21st of Edward the third, (p. 166.) In the 22d
of Edward the third, (p. 200.) the Commons grant an aid, after several
days consideration, but under certain conditions. In the 29th of Edward
the third, (p. 265, b.) there is a separate grant by the Commons.
In the 40th of Edward the third, after the occasion of summoning the
Parliament had been explained, the Lords and Commons were directed to
depart, and to meet again on the day following, the Lords “en la Chambre
Blanche,” and the Commons in the painted Chamber. (Vol. 2. p. 289.)
In the 42d of Edward the third (p. 227, a.) a Petition of the Commons,
and the answers thereto, were read in the Court of Requests, in the
presence of the King, Lords, and Commons; and a statement was made to
the king in this Parliament “par les Grantz et Communes,” by the Lords
and Commons, all the former and many of the latter having dined with the
king; after which John de la Lee was put on his defence before them in
the said place.
In the 50th of Edward the third, (p. 283.) the Commons profess the
utmost loyalty and goodwill to the king; but add, that if he had
faithful ministers about him, he must be rich enough to do without
subsidies, especially considering the sums of money brought into the
kingdom by the ransoms of the king of France, the king of Scotland, &c.
They then proceed to the impeachment of a considerable number of
persons.
And in the 51st of Edward the third, (p. 363.) on the opening of the
Parliament, the Commons were directed by the king to retire to their
ancient place of meeting, in the Chapter House of the abbey of
Westminster. To this record Lord Coke himself refers.
It will be seen in the note p. 146, that Sir Thomas Hungerford is
mentioned as Speaker of the House of Commons; and in the first of
Richard the second, that Peter de la Mare was Speaker of the Commons.
The second opinion of Lord Coke’s to which allusion has already been
made, is, that if an act mentions only that the king enacts, and the
Lords assent, without naming the Commons, the omission cannot be
supplied by any intendment. Lord Coke expressly says, if an act be
penned, that “the king with the assent of the Lords,” or “with the
assent of the Commons,” it is no act of Parliament, for three ought to
assent to it, the King, the Lords, and the Commons; or otherwise it is
not an act of Parliament; and by the record of the act it is expressed
which of them gave their assent; and that excludes all other intendments
that any other gave their assent. (Lord Coke, 8th Report, p. 20, b.)
How dangerous it would be to decide on the validity of our statutes, on
such ground, will be seen by a single instance.
The act of the first of Edward the sixth against exporting horses
without a licence, after the recital in the preamble, runs thus; “For
remedy whereof, be it therefore enacted by our sovereign lord the king,
and by the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same,”—the Lords being not once mentioned in the
statute, which is accurately printed from the original act.
Now it appears by the Lords’ Journals, (vol. 1. p. 303, a,) that this
act had not only the assent of the House of Lords, but that it had its
origin in that House, where it passed unanimously, (p. 306, a.) was
returned from the Commons with a proviso, which was agreed to by the
Lords, (p. 312, a.) and is in the Journals among the acts passed that
session. (p. 313, a.)
There has not been found in the Records, the slightest foundation for an
opinion, that there was any election of representatives of the Commons
earlier than the 49th of Henry the third, 1265, except in the entry
respecting the borough of St. Alban’s, so often referred to by different
writers. It is, however, certain that those who held _in capite_ of the
king, were a necessary part of the great council, as early as king
John’s time, when aids and escuage were to be granted to the sovereign.
In the 52d of Henry the third, 1268, a parliament, or more properly a
great council, of Barons only, was held at Marlborough, where the great
charter was confirmed. The members of this parliament or council were
such of the great Barons and Tenants _in capite_, as the king pleased to
summon thereto.
King Edward the first, at Easter, 1276, held a parliament at
Westminster, of Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and
_Commons_, wherein many excellent laws were made, called the Statutes of
Westminster the first. It is proper to mention that the _Commons_ here
spoken of, were not Knights of shires, or Burgesses, but the smaller
Tenants who held in chief of the king, or Tenants _in capite_.
It is generally said by our Historians, that the first time that any
Citizens, or Burgesses were summoned to parliament by the king’s
authority, was in the 23d year of king Edward the first, 1294, but the
editors of the Parliamentary History (vol. 1. p. 87,) have shewn that
the same king, in the eleventh year of his reign, 1283, called a
parliament to be holden at Shrewsbury, on occasion of taking prisoner,
David, brother of Llewellyn, prince of Wales, the latter having lately
been killed in battle.
The king in summoning this Parliament was more explicit than he had ever
been before. The writs of summons are still extant. The first is
directed to the Barons to meet the king at Shrewsbury, on the 30th of
September. The second writ is directed to the sheriffs of every county
in England, to cause to be chosen two Knights for the commonalty of the
county, as also a third directed to the several cities and boroughs
mentioned, and a fourth writ to the Judges.
Mr. Tyrrell observes, that “neither Prynne nor Dr. Brady, with all their
diligence, have taken any notice of these writs to summon this
Parliament.
“The writs were directed to all the Earls and Barons by name, to the
number of 110; but the writs to the cities and boroughs are more
remarkable, especially as they are the first upon record, requiring the
attendance of the Knights of the shire, Citizens, and Burgesses, except
those issued in the name of the late king Henry the third.”
The cities and boroughs to which these writs were directed were the
following:—Bristol, Canterbury, Carlisle, Colchester, Chester, Exeter,
Grimsby, Hereford, Lynn, Lincoln, Newcastle (Tyne,) Norwich,
Northampton, Nottingham, Scarborough, Shrewsbury, Winchester, Worcester,
Yarmouth, (Norfolk) and York.
In the 23d of Edward the third, 1294, a Parliament was summoned to meet
at Westminster, and writs were sent to the several sheriffs of England
to cause to be elected two Knights for each county, two Citizens for
each city, and two Burgesses for each borough, to be at the said
Parliament, to consent and agree to such things, as the Earls, Barons,
and Peers of the Realm should ordain; and from this year is to be dated
the first regular general summons of Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses to
Parliament. It is proper to observe that in this Parliament, the Earls,
Barons, and Knights of the several counties, sat, treated, and consulted
altogether, and gave the king an eleventh part of all their moveable
goods; the Citizens and Burgesses acted separately, and granted a
seventh part of all their moveables.
In the more early period of the history of the House of Commons, when
the Parliament frequently sat only for a single day, the whole business
being to grant the king a subsidy, it is probable that the Speaker might
with more propriety be called the chairman, for sometimes one of the
members was appointed to the chair, and sometimes another; some
resolutions were ordered to be made by one member, and others to be
reported by another.
In the 19th of Edward the second, 1325, William Trussell was in the
chair, when Hugh Spenser the younger was accused of Treason, in
Parliament.
In the 6th of Edward the First, the Commons made answer to the king by
Sir Geoffrey le Scroop, and it was agreed by the king, and the whole in
full Parliament, that certain Bishops and Peers named, should meet on
the business in discussion by themselves; the other Prelates, Earls, and
Barons, and the Proxies[40] by themselves; and the Knights of the shires
and Commons by themselves. In the fifty first of the same king Sir
Thomas Hungerfore was Speaker of the Commons.
In the first of Richard the Second, 1377, Sir Peter de la Mare, knight
of the shire for the county of Hereford, was Speaker of the Commons, as
he had been in the last Parliament but one of Edward the Third. In the
fifth of the former king, 1382, Sir Richard Waldegrave was chosen by the
Commons to be their Speaker, who made an excuse, and desired to be
discharged. He is the first Speaker that appears upon record to have
made an excuse, but the king commanded him, upon his allegiance, to
accept the office, seeing he had been chosen by the Commons.
In the fifth of Henry the fourth, 1404, Sir Arnold Savage being chosen
Speaker, after making an excuse, requested the king, in the name of the
Commons, that they might freely make complaint of any thing amiss in the
government, and that the king would not by the sinister information of
any person take offence at that of which they should complain, which
petition was granted by the king.
In the seventh year of the same king, 1406, Sir John Tiptoft being
chosen Speaker, made an excuse on account of his youth, which not being
accepted, he requested that if any writing was delivered by the Commons,
and they should desire to have it again, to amend or alter any thing
therein, it might be restored to them, which was granted. Whilst he was
Speaker, he signed and sealed in the name of the Commons the deed which
entailed the crown upon Henry the fourth. This _young_ Speaker is said
to have taken more upon him, and to have spoken more boldly and freely
to the King and the Lords, than any before him, insomuch that his
example being followed, the king gave a check to it, when Thomas
Chaucer, Esq. was chosen Speaker in his room.
In the 20th of Henry the sixth, 1450, the Commons presented Sir John
Popham to the king as their Speaker, who making an excuse, it was
received, and he was discharged, on which the Commons presented William
Tresham, who had twice before been Speaker, who was accepted.
In the 31st of the same king, 1453, Thomas Thorpe, Esq. Speaker of the
House of Commons was arrested in execution at the suit of the Duke of
York during the vacation between two sessions, and the opinion of the
judges being demanded by the Lords, they refused to judge of the
liberties of Parliament as not belonging to their jurisdiction,
whereupon the Lords without their advice adjudged that the Speaker was
not entitled to any privilege, which, on being-signified to the Commons,
and also the king’s pleasure being made known to them that they should
choose another Speaker, they chose Sir Thomas Charleton.
In the 15th of Henry the eighth, 1523, Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster, was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. He
made the usual protestation for himself, and prayed that if any member
should in debate speak more largely than he ought, that he might be
pardoned by the king, which was granted.
In the first year of queen Elizabeth, 1559, Sir Thomas Gargrave was
chosen Speaker; in his speech to the queen he made four requests, namely
first, free access to her majesty; secondly, for liberty of speech;
thirdly, privilege from arrests; and fourthly, that his mistakes might
not prejudice the house.
In Scotland the system of representation was not adopted till the reign
of James the first, of that kingdom, in 1427. By an act of that year it
was enacted, that “the king with consent of the whole council generally
has statute and ordained that the small Barons and free Tenants need not
to come to Parliaments nor general councils, so that of each sheriffdom
there be sent, chosen at the head court of the sheriffdom, two or more
wise men after the largeness of the sheriffdom, &c.”—Scottish Acts
printed in 1682, p. 30.
In Scotland the Lords and Commons unquestionably sat in the same House
till the Union of the two kingdoms, and the Commissioner who represented
the sovereign, debated with them from the throne, although he had the
power, which he sometimes used, of adjourning the assembly when he
pleased.
Footnote 35:
Several of these were men remarkable for their talents and learning:
among whom were Petyt, Tyrrel, Sir Robert Filmer, Dr. Brady, Prynne,
Rymer, &c. &c.
Petyt and Prynne were keepers of the Records in the Tower; and Rymer,
who was the king’s Historiographer, had a warrant not only to search
the Records in every office in the kingdom, but to make copies of such
as he should select for publication. How diligent he was in using this
authority is evident from the invaluable collection of Records, &c.
published by him, and from a large collection of others in manuscript,
now in the Museum.
Petyt makes a direct charge, and not unfounded, against Prynne, for an
intended omission of a reference to the Rolls of Parliament (2d Hen.
V. p. 2. No. 10.) in the Abridgment of the Rolls made by Sir Robert
Cotton, and printed by Prynne.
Even Sir Robert Atkyns, a man eminently distinguished for his
integrity and learning, as well as for his deep research into the
ancient History of Parliament, who had been a Judge of the Common
Pleas, and was afterwards Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of
the House of Lords, in his learned and elaborate argument in the year
1680, in the case of an information by the Attorney General against
Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons, in asserting the antiquity
of that House, fell into some mistakes, from not having resorted to
the original records. He states, and insists much on it, that the
Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Thomas Hungerford, 51 Edward III.
was Speaker _of the Parliament_; whereas the words in the Record are,
“Monsieur Thomas de Hungerford, Chivaler, q’i avoit les Paroles pur
les Communes d’ Engleterre.” Rolls of Parl. vol. ii. p. 374, a. In the
first of Richard the Second, the Speaker, Sir Robert says again, was
termed the Speaker _of the Parliament_; the words in the Record are,
“Mons. Pere de la Mare Chivaler q’avoit les Paroles de Par la
Commune.”—Vol. iii. p. 5, 6.
The same with respect to Sir John Bussey, 20 Richard II. The words in
the Record are, “les Communes presenterent Mons. John Bussey pour leur
Parlour.”—Page 338, a.—339, b.
Footnote 36:
In 1766, the late Thomas Astle, Esq. was consulted by the
Sub-Committee of the House of Lords, concerning the printing of the
Rolls of Parliament, and in 1768, on the death of Mr. Blyke, Mr. Astle
introduced his father-in-law, the Rev. Philip Morant, author of the
History of Essex, to succeed that gentleman in preparing the Rolls for
the press. Mr. Morant died in November, 1770, after proceeding in them
as far as the 16th of Henry the fourth, when Mr. Astle was appointed
by the House of Lords to carry on the work, which he completed in
1775. They are printed in six volumes, _folio_.
Footnote 37:
Some reliance was placed by his Lordship on the Treatise “de Modo
tenendi Parliamentum;” the authority of which, if not entirely
destroyed by Prynne, will not at least in future have much
weight.—Prynne’s Animadversions on 4 Inst. p. 1. to p. 8. and p. 331.
Footnote 38:
In the Parliament of the 18th of Edward the first there were no
Citizens or Burgesses. There is a bundle of writs yet extant, by which
this Parliament was summoned. They are directed to the sheriffs of
several or most of the counties of England, by which two or three
Knights were directed to be chosen for each county, and accordingly
the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and
Cumberland returned each of them _three_ Knights, and the other
counties two each. This Parliament gave the King a fifteenth of all
their moveables as appears by the account of the same which is entered
upon the Great Roll of the 23d of that king, in which account we have
the style of this Parliament, namely, “The account of the fifteenth,
granted to the king in his 18th year, by the Archbishops, Bishops,
Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and _all others of the kingdom_,
assessed, collected, and levied,” &c.
We may here observe that the two or three Knights, chosen by the
several counties, did represent those counties, and according to the
form of the writ, consulted upon and consented to this grant of a
fifteenth.
So also in the 22d Edward the First there were neither Citizens nor
Burgesses summoned to the Parliament of that year. On the 8th of
October the king issued writs directed to every sheriff in England to
cause two discreet Knights to be chosen for each county, with full
powers, “so that for defect of such powers, the business might not
remain undone.” And on the following day the king issued other writs
to the sheriffs to cause to be elected two knights more, to be added
to the former two, making four for each county, and these four Knights
for each county, and the Earls, Barons, and Great Men, on the day of
their meeting gave the king a tenth part of all their goods.
Footnote 39:
This was only a grant of forty shillings for every Knight’s fee.—See
Rolls of Parliament, vol. 2, p. 112, a. hereinafter referred to in 14
of Edward III.
Footnote 40:
Proxies in Parliament is a privilege appropriated to the Lords only;
the first instance of a Proxy that occurs in the History of the
English Parliament, is in the reign of Edward the first.
In a Parliament at Westminster in the reign of Edward the second, the
bishops of Durham and Carlisle were allowed to send their Proxies to
Parliament.
In the early period of the History of Parliament, the Lords were not
obliged to make Barons only their Proxies as the custom now is; the
Bishops and Parliamentary Abbots usually gave their letters of proxy
to Prebendaries, Parsons, and Canons; but since the first year of king
Henry the eighth, there appear in the journals no Proxies but such as
were Lords of Parliament.
In the 35th of king Edward the third, 1360, the following Peeres were
summoned by writ to Parliament, to appear there by their Proxies,
namely, Mary, Countess of Norfolk; Eleanor, Countess of Ormond; Anna,
Baroness Despenser; Philippa, Countess of March; Joanna, Baroness
Fitzwalter; Agneta, Countess of Pembroke; Mary de St. Paul, Countess
of Pembroke; Margaret, Baroness de Roos; Matilda, Countess of Oxford;
Catherine, Countess of Athol. These ladies were called _ad colloquium
et tractatum_ by their Proxies.
MOSAIC PAINTING.
Mosaic is a representation of painting by means of small pebbles, or
shells of sundry colours, and, of late years, with pieces of glass
coloured at pleasure; it is an ornament of much beauty, and lasts for
ages, and is mostly used in pavements and floors.
The term _Mosaic_ is derived from the latin _musivum_, and ought to be
pronounced _musaic_. It is odd enough that many persons have really
fancied they could trace the etymology of this word to the name of the
great Jewish legislator. It is well observed by Wotton that Mosaic has
“long life;” and we have much to lament that, the art was not practised
in ancient Rome with the perfection it has attained in modern Rome. Had
Mosaic been applied to exact imitations of the pictures of Apelles,
Zeuxis, and the great artists of ancient times, we should still have
been the contemporaries of every fine genius, and a new polish had
renewed their fading beauties, and restored them to immortal youth.
Pliny has proved that the Greeks first practised Mosaic, and notices a
curious work of the kind which was called “the unswept piece.” This
singular performance exhibited to the eye, crumbs of bread and other
things which fall from a table, so naturally imitated, that the eye was
perfectly deceived, and it looked as if the pavement had never been
swept; it was formed of small shells, painted of different colours.
There were several pieces of Mosaic found in Herculaneum; one much
resembled a Turkey carpet. The ancients probably gave in Mosaic some
historical subjects, for there was also discovered the Rape of Europa,
composed of small flints.
Mosaic has been practised in Italy two thousand years; the manner of
working it in that country is by copying in very small pieces of marble
of different colours, every thing which a picture can be expected to
imitate. Instead of common stones, too difficult to collect for so great
a work, or which would require too much time to prepare and polish, the
Italian artists sometimes have recourse to paste, that is to a
composition of glass and enamel, which after passing through a crucible
takes a brilliant colour. All these pieces are inlaid, and very thin,
and their length is proportioned to their slenderness. They sometimes
inlay a piece not thicker than a hair, and the artist afterwards
arranges these pieces according to the colours and design of the picture
before him. They are easily fixed in the stucco or plaster of Paris
placed to receive them which soon hardens and dries. Such works are so
solid that they are capable of resisting the assaults of time through
ages. The Mosaic of St. Mark at Venice has existed above 900 years in
perfect splendour and beauty.
Several fine pieces of Roman Mosaic work have been discovered in England
in the last and preceding centuries, particularly at Woodchester in
Gloucestershire, and at Horkstow, in Lincolnshire, both of which have
been elaborately described and engraved by the late Samuel Lysons, Esq.
Others have been found at Winterton, Roxby, Scampton, and Denton, in the
county of Lincoln; in Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire,
Northamptonshire, &c. &c.
Sir Christopher Wren intended to have beautified the inside of the
Cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral, instead of painting it in the manner in
which it now appears, with the more durable ornament of Mosaic work, as
is nobly executed in the Cupola of St. Peter’s at Rome. For this purpose
he intended to have procured from Italy four of the most eminent artists
in that profession; but as this art was a great novelty in England, and
not generally understood, the plan did not receive the encouragement it
deserved. It was thought also that the expense would prove too great,
and the time very long in the execution; but though these and all other
objections were fully answered, yet this excellent design was no further
pursued.
KING EGBERT.
It is a generally received opinion, sanctioned by nearly every modern
historian, that Egbert king of the West Saxons, having dissolved the
Heptarchy, about the year 828, became the first sole monarch of England.
This is, however, one of those historical points which it is more easy
to assert than to confirm. There were undoubtedly many chief monarchs of
the heptarchy, both before and after the time of Egbert, that sovereign
himself having been one of those chief monarchs, but some of those petty
kingdoms subsisted for nearly one hundred and twenty years after
Egbert’s death. That this was the fact is proved both by their coins and
their laws. Several of their coins are still to be found in the cabinets
of the curious. Thus we find that in the kingdom of the East Angles,
king Edmund, called the Saint, and Ethelstan, (Guthrun the Danish
general being so named by Alfred at his baptism,) coined money, the
first in 857, and the latter in 878. The kings of Mercia coined money
until A. D. 874, and the kings of Northumberland till A. D. 950. In the
last mentioned year, the kingdom of Northumberland, which included all
the country north of the Humber, terminated, and England became one
kingdom. It was again divided by Edwy, who began to reign in 959, so
that Edgar may more justly be regarded as commencing the series of kings
of all England. It may be proper here to remark that two kingdoms of the
Heptarchy never coined any money; these were the kingdoms of the East
Saxons and the South Saxons.
Alfred was the first king that made a code of laws which was common to
the whole kingdom. There were very few legislators among the Saxon
Monarchs. The laws of Ethelbert, who died in 617, are the most ancient
that we have. The next are those of Lothaire, 673; Edric, 684; and
Wightred, 694; all of them kings of Kent. Ina, king of the West Saxons,
688, and Offa king of the Mercians, 757, were the only other kings of
the Heptarchy who formed any laws which have been preserved by
historians. If it be objected that the people of the other kingdoms
could not subsist without laws suited to the situation of their affairs,
we may observe that the monarchs of those kingdoms received into their
states and adopted the laws of the kings already mentioned. The laws of
Ina were received by the other kings of the Heptarchy, and in one of the
great councils held by Offa, king of Mercia, there were present the king
of the East Saxons, the king of the West Saxons, the king of Kent, the
king of Northumberland, and three kings of Wales.
Alfred having conquered the Danes at Edington, and Guthrun their general
and his principal officers having been baptized in the church of Aller,
near Langport, in Somersetshire, Alfred concluded a treaty of peace with
Guthrun, and gave him the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumberland for
himself and his Danes, appointing the boundaries of his dominions and
giving him laws which were agreed to and confirmed by Alfred’s and
Guthrun’s nobles. In all cases which were not provided for by this
treaty, Guthrun consented that the Danes should observe the general laws
of Alfred. This treaty was afterwards confirmed and enlarged by Edward
the Elder, Alfred’s son, with the consent and approbation of his and
Guthrun’s nobles.
THE LATIN LANGUAGE.
So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national
manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the
progress of their arms, the use of the latin tongue. The ancient
dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the Venetian, sunk into
oblivion; but the eastern were less docile than the western provinces to
the voice of its victorious preceptors. This obvious difference marked
the two portions of the empire with a distinction of character, which,
though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian splendour of
prosperity, became gradually more visible, as the shades of night
descended upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by
the same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were
reconciled to obedience, their minds were opened to any new impressions
of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil and Cicero, though
with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so universally adopted
in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain and Pannonia, that the faint traces of
the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in the mountains or among
the peasants. The Celtic was indeed preserved in the mountains of Wales,
Cornwall, and Armorica; and it may here be observed that Apuleius
reproaches an African youth, who lived among the populace, with the use
of the Punic, whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could nor
would speak Latin. The greater part of St. Austin’s congregations were
strangers to the Punic. Education and study insensibly inspired the
natives of the countries just mentioned with the sentiments of Romans;
and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her latin provincials. They
solicited with more ardour, and obtained with more facility, the freedom
and honours of the state; supported the national dignity in letters and
in arms; and at length in the person of Trajan, produced an Emperor whom
the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. Spain alone
produced Columella, the Senecas, Lucan, Martial, and Quinctilian.
The situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the
barbarians. The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. They
had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to
adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after
they had lost the virtues of their ancestors, they affected to despise
the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were
compelled to respect their superior wisdom and power. The Greeks seemed
to be entirely ignorant that the Romans had any good writers; and it is
believed that there is not a single Greek critic, from Dionysius to
Libanius, who mentions Virgil or Horace. Nor was the influence of the
Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of that
once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of colonies and
conquests, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the Euphrates and the
Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities, and the long reign of the
Macedonian kings, had introduced a silent revolution into Syria and
Egypt. In their pompous courts, those princes united the elegance of
Athens with the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was
imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects.
Such was the general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and
Greek languages.
To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in
Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by
secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of
those barbarians. The slothful effeminacy of the former, exposed them to
the contempt; the sullen ferociousness of the latter, excited the
aversion of the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman
power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city; and
it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed
after the ruin of the Ptolemys, before an Egyptian was admitted into the
Senate of Rome, the first instance of which happened under the reign of
Septimius Severus.
Dr. HERSCHEL.
In the History of Doncaster, written by Dr. Miller, we find the
following account of the early years of this eminent astronomer:—
“It will ever be a gratifying reflection to me,” says Dr. Miller, “that
I was the first person by whose means this extraordinary genius was
drawn from a state of obscurity. About the year 1760, as I was dining
with the officers of the Durham militia, at Pontefract, one of them
informed me, that they had a young German in their band, as a performer
on the hautboy, who had been only a few months in this country, and yet
spoke English almost as well as a native; that exclusively of the
hautboy, he was an excellent performer on the violin, and if I chose to
repair to another room, he should entertain me with a solo. I did so,
and Mr. Herschel executed a solo of Giordani’s in a manner that
surprised me. Afterwards I took an opportunity to have a little private
conversation with him, and requested to know if he had engaged himself
to the Durham militia for any long period? he answered, ‘No, only from
month to month.’ Leave them then, said I, and come and live with me; I
am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; doubtless your
merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible situation. He consented
to my request, and came to Doncaster. It is true, at that time, my
humble mansion consisted but of two rooms; however, poor as I was, my
cottage contained a small library of well chosen books; and it must
appear singular, that a young German, who had been so short a time in
England, should understand even the peculiarities of our language so
well, as to adopt Dean Swift for his favourite author. I took an early
opportunity of introducing him at Mr. Copley’s concert; and he presently
began
“Untwisting all the charms that tie
”The hidden soul of harmony.”
For never before had we heard the concertos of Corelli, Geminiani, and
Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more chastely, or more
according to the original intention of the composers, than by Mr.
Herschel. I soon lost my companion; his fame was presently spread
abroad, he had the offer of scholars, and was solicited to lead the
public concerts at Wakefield and Halifax.
“About this time a new organ, for the parish church of Halifax, was
built by Snetzler; which was opened with an oratorio, by the late
well-known Joah Bates. Mr. Herschel, and six others, were candidates for
the organist’s place. They drew lots how they were to perform in
rotation. Herschel drew the third lot—the second performer was Mr.
(afterwards Dr.) Wainwright, of Manchester, whose finger was so rapid,
that old Snetzler, the organ builder, ran about the church
exclaiming:—‘Te tevil, te tevil, he run over te keys like one cat, he
will not give my pipes room for to shpeak!’ During Mr. Wainwright’s
performance, I was standing in the middle aile with Herschel;—What
chance have you, said I, to follow this man? He replied, ‘I do not know,
I am sure fingers will not do.’ On which he ascended the loft, and
produced from the organ such an uncommon fullness, such a volume of
slow, solemn harmony, that I could by no means account for the effect.
After this short extemporary effusion, he finished with the old
hundredth psalm, which he played better than his opponent. ‘Aye, aye,’
cried old Snetzler, ‘tish is very goot, very goot inteet; I will luf
tish man, for he gives my pipes room for to shpeak!’ Having afterwards
asked Herschel by what means, in the beginning of his performance he
produced such an uncommon effect? he replied, ‘I told you fingers would
not do,’ and producing two pieces of lead from his pocket, ‘one of
these,’ said he, ‘I placed on the lowest key of the organ, and the other
upon the octave above; thus by accommodating the harmony, I produced the
effect of four hands instead of two. However, as my leading the concert
on the violin, is their principal object, they will give me the place in
preference to a better performer on the organ; but I shall not stay long
here, for I have the offer of a superior situation at Bath, which offer
I shall accept.’“
PARODIES.
The present use of this word is strictly consonant with that of the
ancients, who applied it to the giving a ridiculous turn to passages in
Homer and the tragic Poets. There are many in Aristophanes. One of the
happiest modern instances is the parody of the speech of Sarpedon to
Glaucus in the Rape of the Lock. The genealogy of Agamemnon’s sceptre is
also parodied in the same poem, canto 5, v. 87.
MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.
In the Mosaic law the Israelites were commanded _not to cut themselves
for the dead_. The original Hebrew has, however a more extensive meaning
than cutting, and includes all assaults on their own persons, arising
from immoderate grief, such as beating the breasts, tearing the hair,
&c. which were commonly practised by the heathen, who had no hope of a
resurrection, particularly by the Egyptians, which might afford a
particular reason for the Mosaic prohibition. We may also observe, that
among the Romans, it was ordained by one of the laws of the twelve
tables, “Let not women tear their faces, or make lamentations at
funerals,” which proves that this was the custom with the Romans,
previously to making this law. No doubt the law itself was immediately
borrowed from the Athenian code, of which it is a literal translation.
The Priests of Baal, (1 Kings, ch. 18, v. 28.) assaulted themselves with
knives and lances, which was indeed equivalent to cutting themselves.
Nor was this frantic custom confined to the Priests of Baal; the
_Galli_, and other devotees of the Syrian goddess, cut their arms, and
scourged each others backs, according to Lucian. “Baal’s Priests”, says
Dr. Leland, “were wont to cut and slash themselves with knives and
lances. The same thing was practised in the worship of Isis, according
to Herodotus, and of Bellona, as Lucan mentions. Many authors take
notice of the solemnities of Cybele, the mother of the gods, whose
priests in their sacred processions, made hideous noises and howlings,
cutting themselves till the blood gushed out, as they went along.”
GARRICK.
The genius of Garrick seems to have been particularly calculated to
introduce Shakespeare on the stage. He knew how to alter him so as to
fit him for the audience of the present day, without divesting him of
any of his excellencies, and the few additions he has ventured are in
the spirit of the original. These Plays, so altered, are likely to keep
possession of the theatre, while every other attempt at change or
improvement are forgotten, except Cibber’s Richard the Third, and Tate’s
Lear, which, with some correction of Garrick’s, are still acted, though
the alteration of the last is directly in opposition to the precepts of
Aristotle and Mr. Addison.
Cibber, though versed in the province of the drama, which is perhaps
essential to make a good dramatic writer, since the knowledge of stage
effect is of great consequence, possessed a genius not above mediocrity;
and Tate was a very indifferent poet. Yet there is a line in Cibber’s
Richard, written by himself, so characteristic of the manner of his
archetype, that it has often been cited as one of Shakespeare’s
beauties. I mean the exclamation of Richard, on Buckingham’s being
taken,
“Off with his head! so much for Buckingham.”
And I heard, says Mr. Pye, (Comment. on Aristotle,) Mr. Pitt, afterwards
Lord Chatham, quote the following verse of Tate’s, in the House of
Commons, undoubtedly taking it for Shakespeare’s,
“Where the gor’d battle bleeds in every vein.”
The tragedy of Hamlet was, by order of Mrs. Garrick, thrown into
Garrick’s grave. Though he was undoubtedly great in that character, he
was equally so in many of Shakespeare’s characters, and superior in
Lear. The comic characters it is presumed were thought too light for so
solemn an occasion. If by burying that tragedy with Garrick it was meant
to infer that it was lost to the stage with him, a complete edition of
Shakespeare might, with the utmost propriety have been interred with
that inimitable actor.
LEMONS.
Theophrastus, who studied under Plato and Aristotle, says of lemons,
that they were cultivated for their fragrance, not for their taste; that
the peel was laid up with garments, to preserve them from moths; and
that the juice was administered by physicians medicinally.
Virgil in his second Georgic, describes agreeably the Lemon-tree. Pliny
mentions the lemon-juice as an antidote; but says that the fruit, from
its austere taste, was not eaten.
Plutarch, who nourished within a generation of Pliny, witnessed the
introduction of lemons at the Roman tables. Juba, king of Mauritania,
was the first who exhibited them at his dinners. And Athenæus introduces
Democritus as not wondering that old people made wry mouths at the taste
of lemons; for, adds he, in my grandfather’s time, they were never set
upon the table. And to this day the Chinese, who grow the fruit, do not
apply it to culinary purposes.
The great use of lemons began with the introduction of sugar, which is
said to have resulted from the conquest of Sicily, by the Arabs, in the
ninth century. Sestini, in his letters from Sicily and Turkey, thinks
that the best sorts of lemons, and the best sorts of sherbet, were
derived from Florence, by the Sicilians. Probably Rome continued, even
in the dark ages, to be the chief seat of luxury and refinement; and had
domesticated the art of making lemonade, before either Messina or
Florence.
In Madagascar slices of lemon are boiled, and eaten with salt.
Pomet, in his History of Drugs, gives the preference over all others to
the lemons of Madeira; but according to Ferrarius, there grows at the
Cape a sweet lemon, to which he gives the name _incomparabilis_.
ORIGIN OF THE POINT OF HONOUR.
We meet with inexplicable enigmas in the codes of the laws of the
barbarians. The law of the Frisians allowed only about the value of a
farthing, by way of compensation, to a person who had been beaten with a
stick; and yet for ever such a small wound it allows more. By the Salic
law, if a freeman gave three blows with a stick to another freeman, he
paid about three halfpence; if he drew blood, he was punished as if he
had wounded him with steel, and he paid about seven-pence halfpenny;
thus the punishment was proportioned to the greatness of the wound. The
law of the Lombards established different compensations for one, two,
three, four blows, and so on. At present a single blow is equivalent to
a hundred thousand.
The constitution of Charlemagne, inserted in the law of the Lombards,
ordains, that those who were allowed the trial by combat, should fight
with clubs. Perhaps this was out of regard to the clergy; or, probably,
as the usage of legal duels gained ground, they wanted to render them
less sanguinary. The capitulary of Louis the Pious, added to the Salic
law in 819, allows the liberty of chusing to fight either with the sword
or club. In process of time none but bondmen or slaves fought with the
club.
Here may be seen the first rise and formation of the particular articles
of our point of honour. The accuser began with declaring, in the
presence of the judge, that such a person had committed such an action,
and the accused made answer that, _he lied_; upon which the judge gave
orders for the duel. It became then an established rule, that whenever a
person had the lie given him, it was incumbent on him to fight.
Upon a man’s declaring he would fight, he could not afterwards depart
from his word; if he did, he was condemned to a penalty. Hence this rule
followed, that whenever a person had engaged his word, honour forbade
him to recal it.
Gentlemen fought one another on horseback, armed at all points; villans
fought on foot, and with clubs.[41] Hence it followed, that the club was
looked upon as the instrument of insults and affronts,[42] because to
strike a man with it, was treating him like a villan.
No one but villans fought with their faces uncovered;[43] so that none
but they could receive a blow on the face. Therefore a box on the ear,
became an injury that must be expiated with blood, because the person
who received it, had been treated as a villan.
The several people of Germany were not less sensible of the point of
honour. The most distant relations took a very considerable share to
themselves in every affront, and on this all their codes are founded.
The law of the Lombards ordains, that whoever goes attended with
servants to beat a man by surprize, in order to load him thereby with
shame, and to render him ridiculous, should pay half the compensation,
which he would owe if he had killed him; and if through the same motive
he tied or bound him, he should pay three fourths of the same
compensation.
Footnote 41:
The club was in use at the Norman Conquest, and in the succeeding
ages. St. Louis had a band of Guards armed with clubs, and was himself
very dextrous in the use of it.
Pennant, in describing the customs of the ancient Bards and Minstrels
of Wales, says, that the lowest of the musical tribe was the
_Datceiniad pen pastwn_, or he that sung to the sound of his club,
being ignorant of every other kind of instrument. When he was
permitted to be introduced, he was obliged to stand in the middle of
the hall, and sing his _cowydd_ or _awdl_, beating time, and playing
the symphony with his _pastwn_ or club; but if there was a professor
of music present, his leave must be first obtained before he presumed
to entertain the company with this species of melody. Wherever he came
he must act as a menial servant to the bard or minstrel.
Footnote 42:
Among the Romans it was not infamous to be beaten with a stick.
Footnote 43:
They had only the club and buckler.
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.
Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first person, after the conquest, who
attempted to write any thing concerning the ancient history of Britain.
Although the century, in which he lived, is known, yet neither his
family, the time of his birth, nor the place of his education has been
ascertained. We are only informed that he was born at Monmouth, and
became archdeacon of that place, and that he was consecrated bishop of
St. Asaph, in 1152, which he resigned to live in the monastery of
Abingdon. By some writers he is called a monk of the Dominican order,
but, according to Leland, without sufficient authority. Warton says that
he was a Benedictine monk.
The history which has made his name celebrated, is entitled _Chronicon
sive Historia Britonum_. This history, written in the British or
Armorican language, was brought into England by Walter Mapes, otherwise
Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, a learned man, and a diligent collector
of histories. Travelling through France, about the year 1100, he
procured in Armorica, this ancient chronicle, and, on his return,
communicated it to Geoffrey, who, according to Warton, (History of
English Poetry,) was an elegant Latin writer, and admirably skilled in
the British tongue. Geoffrey, at the request and recommendation of
Walter, translated this British chronicle into Latin, executing the
translation with some degree of purity, and fidelity, insomuch that
Matthew Paris speaking of him with reference to this history, says that
he approved himself _Interpres verus_. With whatever fidelity the
translation might be made, Geoffrey, however, was guilty of several
interpolations, for he confesses that he took some part of his account
of king Arthur’s achievements, from the mouth of his friend Walter, the
archdeacon. He also owns that the account of Merlin’s prophecies was not
in the Armorican original. The speeches and letters were his own
forgeries, and in the description of battles, he has not scrupled to
make frequent variations and additions.
Geoffrey dedicated his translation to Robert, Earl of Gloucester,
natural son of king Henry the first; this, however, did not protect him
from the lash even of his contemporaries, for his fables, it appears,
were soon discovered, and William Neubrigensis, who lived about the same
time, in the beginning of the history which he wrote, thus speaks of
him; “In these days a certain writer is risen, who has devised many
foolish fictions of the Britons; he is named _Geoffrey_, and with what
little shame, and great confidence does he frame his falsehoods.”
William himself, however, did not escape censure for thus animadverting
upon Geoffrey.
It is difficult to ascertain at what period the original of Geoffrey’s
history was compiled. The subject of it, when divested of its romantic
embellishments, is a deduction of the Welsh princes, from the Trojan
Brutus to Cadwallader, who reigned in the seventh century; and this
notion of their extraction from the Trojans, had so infatuated the
Welsh, that even so late as the year 1284, archbishop Peckham, in his
injunctions to the diocese of St. Asaph, orders the people to abstain
from giving credit to idle dreams and visions, a superstition which they
had contracted from their belief in the dream of their founder Brutus,
in the temple of Diana, concerning his arrival in Britain. The
archbishop very seriously, advises them to boast no more of their
relation to the conquered and fugitive Trojans, but to glory in the
victorious cross of CHRIST.
The Welsh were not singular in being desirous of tracing their descent
from the Trojans, for several European nations were anciently fond of
being considered as the offspring of that people. A French historian of
the sixth century ascribes the origin of his countrymen to Francio, a
son of Priam, and so universal was this humour, and to such an absurd
excess of extravagance was it carried, that under the reign of
Justinian, even the Greeks themselves were ambitious of being thought to
be descended from their ancient enemies the Trojans. The most rational
mode of accounting for this predilection, is to suppose, that the
revival of Virgil’s Æneid, about the sixth or seventh century, which
represents the Trojans as the founders of Rome, the capital of the
supreme Pontiff, and a city on various other accounts in the early ages
of christianity, highly reverenced and distinguished, occasioned an
emulation in many other European nations of claiming an alliance to the
same celebrated original. In the mean time it is not quite improbable,
that as most of the European nations had become provinces of the Roman
empire, those who fancied themselves to be of Trojan extraction might
have imbibed this notion, or at least have acquired a general knowledge
of the Trojan story from their conquerors, more especially the Britons,
who continued so long under the Roman Government.
Geoffrey produces Homer in attestation of a fact asserted in his
history; but in such a manner as shews that he knew little more than
Homer’s name, and was but imperfectly acquainted with Homer’s subject.
Geoffrey says that Brutus having ravaged the province of Aquitaine with
fire and sword, came to a place where the city of Tours now stands, _as
Homer testifies_.
This fable of the descent of the Britons from the Trojans was solemnly
alleged as an authentic and undeniable proof in a controversy of great
national importance by king Edward the first, and his nobility, without
the least objection from the opposite party. It was in the famous
dispute concerning the subjection of the crown of Scotland to that of
England, about the year 1301. The allegations are contained in a letter
to Pope Boniface, signed and sealed by the king and his lords. This is a
curious instance of the implicit faith with which this tradition
continued to be believed, even in a more enlightened age; and an
evidence that it was equally credited in Scotland.
As to the story of Brutus in particular, Geoffrey’s hero, it may be
presumed, that his legend was not contrived, nor the history of his
successors invented, until after the ninth century; for Nennius,[44] who
lived about the middle of that century, not only speaks of Brutus with
great obscurity and inconsistency, but seems totally uninformed as to
every circumstance of the British affairs which preceded Cæsar’s
invasion. There are other proofs that this piece could not have existed
before the ninth century. Alfred’s Saxon translation of the Mercian law
is mentioned; and Charlemagne’s twelve peers, by an anachronism not
uncommon in romance, are said to be present at king Arthur’s magnificent
coronation, in the city of Caerleon. It were easy to produce instances,
that Geoffrey’s chronicle was, undoubtedly, framed after the legend of
St. Ursula, the acts of St. Lucius, and the historical writings of
Venerable Bede, had procured a considerable circulation in the
neighbouring countries. At the same time it contains many passages which
incline us to determine, that some parts of it, at least, were written
after or about the eleventh century.
Warton, (Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Dis. 1.) in order to prove these
positions, says, that he will not insist on that passage, in which the
title of legate of the apostolic see is attributed to Dubricius, in the
character of the primate of Britain, as it appears for obvious reasons,
to have been an artful interpolation of Geoffrey, who, it will be
remembered, was an ecclesiastic. Other arguments present themselves,
possessing more efficiency; Canute’s forest, or Cannock Wood, in
Staffordshire, occurs, and Canute died in the year 1036.
At the ideal coronation of king Arthur, just mentioned, a tournament is
described, as exhibited in its highest splendour. “Many knights,” says
this Armoric chronicler, “famous for feats of chivalry, were present,
with apparel and arms of the same colour and fashion. They formed a
species of diversion, in imitation of a fight on horseback, and the
ladies being placed on the walls of the castles, darted amorous glances
on the combatants. None of these ladies esteemed any knight worthy of
her love, but such as had given proof of his gallantry, in three several
encounters.” Here is the practice of chivalry, under the combined ideas
of love and military prowess, as they seem to have subsisted after the
feudal constitution had acquired greater degrees, not only of stability,
but of splendour and refinement. And, although a species of tournament
was exhibited in France, at the reconciliation of the sons of Lewis the
Feeble, at the close of the ninth century, and at the beginning of the
tenth, the coronation of the emperor Henry, was solemnized with martial
entertainments, in which many parties were introduced fighting on
horseback, yet it was long afterwards that these games were accompanied
with the peculiar formalities, and ceremonious usages here described. In
the mean time, we cannot answer for the innovations of a translator, in
such a description. The burial of Hengist, the Saxon chief, who is said
to have been interred not after the _Pagan_ fashion, as Geoffrey renders
the words of the original, but after the _manner of the Soldans_, is
partly an argument, that our romance was composed about the time of the
Crusades. It was not till those memorable campaigns of mistaken
devotion, had infatuated the western world, that the Soldans, or sultans
of Babylon, of Egypt, of Iconium, and other eastern kingdoms, became
familiar in Europe. Not that the notion of this piece, being written so
late as the crusades, in the least invalidates the doctrine here
delivered. Not even if we suppose that Geoffrey was its original
composer. That notion rather tends to confirm, and establish this
system.
On the whole it may be affirmed, that Geoffrey’s chronicle, which is
supposed to contain the ideas of the Welsh bards, entirely consists of
Arabian inventions. And in this view no difference is made, whether it
was compiled about the tenth century, at which time, if not before, the
Arabians, from their settlements in Spain, must have communicated their
romantic fables to other parts of Europe, especially to the French; or
whether it first appeared in the eleventh century, after the crusades
had multiplied these fables to an excessive degree, and made them
universally popular. And although the general cast of the inventions,
contained in this romance, is alone sufficient to point out the source
from whence they were derived, yet it is thought proper to prove to a
demonstration what is here advanced, by producing and examining some
particular passages.
The books of the Arabians and Persians abound with extravagant
traditions about the giants Gog and Magog. These they call Jagiouge and
Magiouge; and the Caucasian Wall, said to be built by Alexander the
Great from the Caspian to the Black Sea, in order to cover the frontiers
of his dominion, and to prevent the incursions of the Scythians, is
called by the orientals the WALL OF GOG AND MAGOG. One of the most
formidable giants, according to our Armorican Romance, who opposed the
landing of Brutus in Britain, was Goemagot. He was twelve cubits high,
and would uproot an oak as easily as a hazel wand; but after a most
obstinate encounter with Corinæus, he was tumbled into the sea from the
summit of a steep cliff on the rocky shores of Cornwall, and dashed in
pieces against the huge crags of the declivity. The place where he fell,
adds our historian, taking its name from the giants fall, is called SAM
GOEMAGOT, or GOEMAGOT’S LEAP to this day. A no less monstrous giant,
whom king Arthur slew on St. Michael’s mount in Cornwall, is said by
this fabler to have come from Spain. Here the origin of these stories is
evidently betrayed. The Arabians, or Saracens, as has been before
hinted, had conquered Spain, and were settled there. Arthur having
killed this redoubted giant, declares, that he had combated with none of
equal strength and prowess, since he overcame the mighty giant, Rytho,
on the mountain Arabius, who had made himself a robe of the beards of
the kings whom he had killed. A magician brought from Spain is called to
the assistance of Edwin a prince of Northumberland, educated under
Solomon king of the Armoricans. In the prophecy of Merlin, delivered to
Vortigern, after the battle of the Dragons, forged perhaps by the
translator Geoffrey, yet apparently in the spirit and manner of the
rest, we have the Arabians named, and their situations in Spain and
Africa. “From Conan shall come forth a wild boar, whose tusks shall
destroy the oaks of the forests of France. The ARABIANS and AFRICANS
shall dread him; and he shall continue his rapid course into the most
distant parts of Spain.” This is king Arthur. In the same prophecy,
mention is made of the “Woods of Africa.” In another place Gormund, king
of the Africans occurs. In a battle which Arthur fights against the
Romans, some of the principal leaders in the Roman army are Alifantinam,
king of Spain; Pandrasus, king of Egypt; Broccus, king of the Medes;
Evander, king of Syria; Micipsa, king of Babylon; and a Duke of Phrygia.
The old fictions about Stonehenge were derived from the same
inexhaustible source of extravagant imagination. We are told in this
Romance, that the giants conveyed the stones which compose this
miraculous monument from the farthest coasts of Africa. Every one of
these stones is supposed to be mystical, and to maintain a medicinal
virtue; an idea drawn from the medical skill of the Arabians, and more
particularly from the Arabian doctrine of attributing healing qualities,
and other occult properties to stones. Merlin’s transformation of Uther
into Gorlois, and of Ulfin into Bricel, by the power of some medical
preparation is a species of Arabian magic, which professed to work the
most wonderful deceptions of this kind. The attributing of prophetical
language to birds was common among the Orientals, and an eagle is
supposed to speak at building the walls of the city of Paladur, now
Shaftesbury.
The Arabians cultivated the study of Philosophy, particularly Astronomy,
with amazing ardour. Hence arose the tradition, reported by our
historian, that in king Arthur’s reign, there subsisted at Carleon in
Glamorganshire, a college of two hundred philosophers, who studied
astronomy and other sciences; and who were particularly employed in
watching the courses of the stars, and predicting events to the king
from their observations. Edwin’s Spanish magician above mentioned, by
his knowledge of the flight of birds, and the courses of the stars, is
said to fortel future disasters. In the same strain, Merlin
prognosticates Uther’s success in battle by the appearance of a comet.
The same Enchanter’s _wonderful skill in mechanical powers_, by which he
removes the Giant’s Dance, or Stonehenge, from Ireland into England, and
the notion that this stupendous structure was raised by a PROFOUND
PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE MECHANICAL ARTS, are founded on the
Arabian literature. To which we may add king Bladud’s magical
operations. Dragons are a sure mark of orientalism. One of these in our
Romance is a “terrible dragon flying from the west, breathing fire, and
illuminating all the country with the brightness of his eyes.” In
another place we have a giant mounted on a winged dragon; the dragon
erects his scaly tail, and wafts his rider to the clouds with great
rapidity.
Arthur and Charlemagne are the first and original heroes of Romance. And
as Geoffrey’s history is the grand repository of the acts of Arthur, so
a fabulous history ascribed to Turpin is the ground work of all the
chimerical legends which have been related concerning the conquests of
Charlemagne and his twelve Peers. In these two fabulous chronicles the
foundations of romance seem to be laid. The principal characters, the
leading subjects, and the fundamental fictions which have supplied such
ample matter to this singular species of composition, are here first
displayed. And although the long continuance of the Crusades imported
innumerable inventions of a similar complexion, and substituted the
achievements of new champions, and the wonders of other countries, yet
the tales of Arthur and Charlemagne, diversified indeed, or enlarged
with additional embellishments, still continued to prevail, and to be
the favourite topics; and this, partly from their early popularity,
partly from the quantity and the beauty of the fictions with which they
were at first supported, and especially because the design of the
Crusades had made those subjects so fashionable in which Christians
fought with Infidels. In a word these volumes are the first specimens
extant in this mode of writing. No European history before these has
mentioned giants, enchanters, dragons, and the like monstrous and
arbitrary fictions. And the reason is obvious; they were written at a
time when a new and unnatural mode of thinking took place in Europe,
introduced by our communication with the East.
Geoffrey, in his chronicle, gives a genealogy of the kings of Britain,
from the days of Brutus, including a list of seventy monarchs, who
governed this island, previously to the invasion of Julius Cæsar. This
list is very distinct and plain, but bears so many marks of invention,
either of himself, or of the author, from whom he translated his
chronicle, that it has long since been treated as a mere fiction. With
respect to the story of Brutus, the bishop of St. Asaph is of opinion,
that this forgery was intended to pass off the English kings, as being
as nobly descended as the kings of other nations, by drawing their
descent from the Trojans, according to the belief of the age in which
the author lived. Sir William Temple, in his introduction to the History
of England, (p. 19.) accounts the story of Brutus, as a fabulous
invention.
Bishop Nicolson (Hist. Libr. p. 37.) says, that the best defence that
can be made for Geoffrey’s history, is that which was written by Sir
John Price, and published at London, in quarto, in 1573, under the title
of _Historiæ Britannicæ Defensio_. This was dedicated by the author, to
Lord Burleigh. (See Herbert’s Ames, vol. 2. p. 935, 1056.)
The chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth, has occasioned a long
controversy, and divided the learned world as much as any other work
given to the public. By some it has been treated as a forgery imposed
upon the world by Geoffrey himself, whilst by others the ground work is
considered as true, although the history, like most monkish writings, is
mixed with childish fables and legendary tales.
The controversy has now been some time finally decided, and the best
Welsh critics allow that Geoffrey’s work was a vitiated translation of
the history of the British kings, written by Tyssilio, or St. Telian,
bishop of St. Asaph, who flourished in the seventh century. Geoffrey in
his work omitted many parts, made considerable alterations, additions,
and interpolations, latinised many of the British appellations, and in
the opinion of a learned Welshman,[45] (Lewis Morris) metaphorically
murdered Tyssillio. We may therefore conclude that Geoffrey ought not to
be cited as historical authority any more than Amadis de Gaul, or the
Seven Champions of Christendom.
Geoffrey’s historical Romance, however, has not only been versified by
monkish writers, but has supplied some of our best poets with materials
for their sublime compositions. Spenser in the second book of his
“Fairie Queene” has given
“A Chronicle of Briton kings
”From Brute to Arthur’s rayne;“
in which he has adorned the genealogy with poetical images, and
introduces it with a sublime address to queen Elizabeth, who was proud
of tracing her descent from the British line.
In this historical romance is also to be found, the affecting history of
Leir, king of Britain, the eleventh in succession after Brutus, who
divided his kingdom between Goneriller and Regan, his two elder
daughters, and disinherited his younger daughter, Cordeilla. Being
ungratefully treated by his elder daughters, he was restored to the
crown by Cordeilla, who espoused Aganippus, king of the Franks. From
this account Shakespeare selected his incomparable tragedy of king Lear;
but improved the pathos by making the death of Cordeilla, which name he
softened after the example of Spenser into Cordelia, precede that of
Lear, whilst in the original story, the aged father is restored to his
kingdom, and survived by Cordeilla.
Milton seems to have been particularly fond of Geoffrey’s tales,[46] to
which he was indebted for the beautiful fiction of Sabrina in the mask
of Comus. In his youth he even formed the design of making the early
period of the British history, from Brutus to Arthur, the subject of an
Epic Poem. The poetical language of Milton was peculiarly suited to this
species of romance; he would have exalted the legends of Geoffrey, and
enriched with the finest imagery the incantations and prophecies of
Merlin, the heroic deeds of Vortimer, Aurelius, and Uther Pendragon.
The fables of Geoffrey have been clothed in rhyme by Robert of
Gloucester, a monk of the abbey of Gloucester. He has left a poem of
considerable length, which is a history of England in verse, from Brutus
to the reign of Edward the first. His rhyming chronicle is, however,
destitute either of art or imagination, and Geoffrey’s prose, frequently
has a more poetical air than this author’s verses. It was evidently
written after the year 1278, as the poet mentions king Arthur’s
sumptuous tomb, erected in that year, before the high altar of
Glastonbury abbey, and he declares himself a living witness of the
remarkably dismal weather which distinguished the day on which the
battle of Evesham was fought in the year 1265. From these and other
circumstances this piece appears to have been composed about the year
1280. It is full of Saxonisms, which indeed abound more or less, in
every writer before Gower and Chaucer.
Geoffrey was also copied by an old French poet, called Maister Wace, or
Gasse, from which Robert de Brunne in his metrical chronicle of England
translated that part which extends from Æneas to the death of
Cadwallader. Wace’s poem is commonly called Roman de Rois d’Angleterre,
and is esteemed one of the oldest of the French Romances.
With respect to the materials this chronicle has afforded to other
writers, I will here give an instance or two.
Tyrrel, in his history of England, acknowledges that his first book is
an epitome of Geoffrey’s pretended history; but at the same time says
that if it had not been more for the diversion of the younger sort of
readers, and that the work would have been thought to be imperfect
without it, he should have been much better satisfied in wholly omitting
it.
In the preface to Stow’s chronicle, (folio, 1631) the editor observes
that Neubrigensis had written several invectives against Geoffrey, but
more out of spleen than judgment. He charges that writer with
maliciously endeavouring to destroy the credit of Geoffrey, because he
himself having been a supplicant for the bishoprick of St. Asaph, had
been rejected by the Prince of Wales, and had thus become the opponent
of the Welsh history. His observations, Stow says, have been confuted by
Sir John Price, Dr. Powel, and also by Lambard, in his perambulations of
Kent. Stow then mentions John of Whethamsted, Polydore Virgil, and
others, who have written against Geoffrey, and afterwards enumerates a
long list of writers, as having uniformly supported him, or in other
words, who have copied his history into their own chronicles.—Hume
occasionally refers to Geoffrey, as an authority for some matters
respecting the Saxon period of his history.
The History of Geoffrey was printed at Paris, in quarto, in 1508, and
again in the same size, by Ascensius, in 1517. It was also printed with
five other British historians, in folio, at Leyden, in 1587. Ponticus
Virunnius, an Italian author, made an abridgment of it, in six books,
which was printed at London, by Powel, in 1585, and also in the edition
just mentioned.
A translation of Geoffrey’s chronicle was made by Aaron Thompson, and
published at London in 1718, to which was prefixed a long preface,
relating to the authority of the history. Thompson’s vindication of his
author is elaborately written, and he defends him with great skill and
learning; but after refuting the charge of forgery, he has failed in his
attempt to establish Geoffrey’s work as an historical performance, for
he himself invalidates its authority, by acknowledging that it was only
such an irregular account, as the Britons were able to preserve in those
times of destruction and confusion, with the addition of some romantic
tales, which indeed might be traditions among the Welsh, and such as
Geoffrey might think entertaining stories for the credulity of the
times.
Thompson, in his preface, says that in making his translation, he used
two editions of Geoffrey. The first was the Paris edition of Ascensius,
1517, which abounds with abbreviations of words, sometimes rendering
their reading ambiguous. The other was the edition of Commeline, printed
in the year 1587, which is much the most correct. These two were printed
from different manuscripts, and there is a considerable variation
between them, especially in the orthography of persons and places. This
observation extends to the several ancient abridgments of Geoffrey, by
Alfred of Beverley, Ralph Diceto, Matthew of Westminster, Ralph Higden,
and Ponticus Virunnius.
Footnote 44:
Nennius lived in the ninth century, and is said to have left behind
him several treatises, of which all that has been published is the
history, which was printed for the first time in Dr. Gale’s Collection
of British Historians, published at Oxford in 1687 and 1691, in 2
vols. folio. Leland mentions an ancient copy of Nennius’s history,
which he says he borrowed from Thomas Solme, Secretary for the French
language to king Henry the eighth, in the margin of which were the
additions of _Sam. Beaulanius_, or _Britannus_. He has transcribed
several of these marginal annotations, which as it appears, were
afterwards inserted in the body of the history, and were printed in
that manner by Dr. Gale. The Doctor in his notes, mentions Beaulanius
as the Scholiast on the copy which he used, but Leland has a great
many other things, as extracts out of Beaulanius, which Dr. Gale does
not mention to be only in the Scholion. There is also in the Bodleian
Library a manuscript of Nennius apparently nearly 600 years old, in
which the prefaces and all the interpolations, which Leland says are
by Beaulanius, are wanting.
Professor Bertram, of Copenhagen, published in the year 1757,
“Britannicarum gentium Historiæ Antiquæ Scriptores tres; Ricardus
Corinensis, Gildas Badonicus, Nennius Banchorensis: recensuit,
notisque et indice auxit Carolus Bertramus, S. A. Lond. Soc. &c.
Havniæ, 1757.” 8vo. The Professor followed Dr. Gale’s edition of
Gildas and Nennius, but in the latter he has distinguished the
interpolations of Beaulanius from the genuine text. Mr. Gough, (Brit.
Topogr. vol. 1. p. 15.) mentions Mr. Evan Evans having been long
preparing a new edition of Nennius, from the Bodleian and other
manuscripts.
Footnote 45:
Cambrian Register, 1795, p. 947.
Footnote 46:
In 1670, Milton published his History of England, comprising the whole
fable of Geoffrey, and continued to the Norman Invasion. Why he should
have given the first part, which he seems not to have believed, and
which is universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. The
style is harsh, but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps
may often strike, though it cannot please. On this history, the
licenser fixed his claws, and before he would transmit it to the
press, tore out several parts. Some censures of the Saxon Monks were
taken away, lest they should be applied to the modern Clergy; and a
character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines, was
excluded; of which the Author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and
which being afterwards published, has been since inserted in its
proper place.—_Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, Art. Milton._
LIFTING UP THE HAND IN SWEARING.
We find this significant ceremony of lifting up the hand in swearing,
practised by the Greeks and Trojans. Thus Agamemnon swears in Homer,
(Iliad, 7, 412)
“To all the gods his sceptre he uplifts.”
And Dolon requiring an oath of Hector, (Iliad, 10, 321)
“But first exalt thy sceptre to the skies,
”And swear——“
So in Virgil, (Æn. 12, 196) we find Latinus, when swearing, looking up
to heaven, and stretching his right hand to the stars.
And we even meet with traditionary traces of their gods swearing in like
manner. Thus Apollo, in Pindar, orders Lachesis, one of the Fates, to
lift up her hands and not violate the great oath of the gods.
Giving one’s hand _under_, or to another was a token of submission. It
was acknowledging his own power subject to that of the other. In this
manner all the princes submitted to Solomon, (1 Chron. 29, 24) and
Hezekiah commands the children of Israel, (2 Chron. 30, 8) to give the
hand to JEHOVAH, that is to submit themselves and ascribe the power and
the glory to him.
Homage is still performed in many places by the homager’s kneeling down
and putting his hands between those of his lord, then taking an oath of
fealty to him; after which they kiss each other’s cheek, in token of
friendship and fidelity.
Giving the hand, was also a token of promising; it was a kind of staking
their active powers for the performance of some promise or engagement.
(See Ezra, 10, 19.)
The joining or taking of hands, among the ancients, betokened
confederacy, or confirmation of some promise. This is illustrated by
Homer’s expression, (Iliad, 21, 286) where Neptune and Minerva appear to
Achilles, in a human shape, and confirm their promise, by taking his
hand in their’s. So (Iliad, 6, 233) Glaucus and Diomed took hold of each
other’s hands, and plighted their faith. On which line, Eustathius
remarks, they plighted their faith to each other, by the accustomed
ceremony of joining their right hands.[47]
We observe the same mode of joining hands in our marriage ceremony; and
the custom of shaking hands, has also reference to some engagement for
the future, as well as being a token of friendship and amity.
Footnote 47:
Parkhurst’s Heb. Lex. 271.
VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
A treaty of marriage between Charles, prince of Wales, (afterwards
Charles I.) and the Infanta of Spain, having been a long time in
agitation, Buckingham, in 1623, persuaded Prince Charles to make a
journey into Spain, and to fetch home his mistress, the Infanta, by
representing to him, how brave and gallant an action it would be, and
how soon it would put an end to those formalities, which, though all
substantial matters were already agreed upon, might yet retard her
voyage to England many months. It is suggested by Lord Clarendon, that
Buckingham’s motive for this journey, was an unwillingness that the Earl
of Bristol, the ambassador in Spain, should have the sole honour of
concluding the treaty of marriage. However, the king was vehemently
against this journey, and indeed with good reason; but the solicitations
of the prince, and the impetuosity of Buckingham, prevailed.
It appears that Buckingham, during his stay in Spain, behaved with great
insolence to the Earl of Bristol, the English ambassador at that court.
In a letter, written by the Earl to king James, we have the following
particulars:—“Let your Majesty call some certain men unto you, and sift
out of them the opinion of the more moderate parliament-men; and enquire
of those that come out of Spain, who did give the first cause of falling
out? Whether the Duke of Buckingham did not many things against the
authority and reverence due to the Prince? Whether he was not wont to be
sitting, whilst the Prince stood, and was in presence; and also to have
his feet resting upon another seat, after an indecent manner? Whether,
when the Prince was uncovered whilst the Queen and Infanta looked out at
the window, he uncovered his head or not? Whether, sitting; at table
with the prince, he did not behave himself unreverently? Whether he were
not wont to come into the prince’s chamber, with his clothes half on, so
that the doors could not be opened to them that came to visit the prince
from the king of Spain, the door-keepers refusing to go in for modesty
sake? Whether he did not call the prince by ridiculous names? Whether he
did not dishonour and profane the king’s palace with base and
contemptible women? Whether he did not divers obscene things, and used
not immodest gesticulations, and wanton tricks with players in the
presence of the prince? Whether he did not violate his faith to the Duke
d’Olivarez, the Spanish prime minister? Whether he did not presently
communicate his discontents, offences, and complaints, to the
ambassadors of other princes? Whether in doing of his business, he did
not use frequent threatenings unto the catholic king’s ministers, and to
apostolical nuncios? Whether he did not affect to sit at plays presented
in the king’s palace, after the manner and example of the king and
prince, being not contented with the honour that is ordinarily given to
the high steward or major-domo of the king’s house?”
There is sufficient reason for believing, that most of these queries may
be answered in the affirmative.
KING ARTHUR.
In a century (A.D. 400 to A.D. 500) of perpetual, or at least implacable
war, much courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the
defence of Britain, on the departure of the Roman legions, against the
Saxon invaders. Yet if the memory of its champions is almost buried in
oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however destitute of
science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military
renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, was erected on the
margin of the sea-shore, as a landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he
had thrice vanquished in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was
descended from a noble family of Romans, his modesty was equal to his
valour, and his valour, till the last fatal action, was crowned with
splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the illustrious
name of ARTHUR, the hereditary prince of the Silures, who inhabited
South Wales, and the elective king or general of the nation. According
to the most rational accounts, he defeated, in twelve successive
battles, the Angles of the North, and the Saxons of the West; but the
declining age of the hero was embittered by popular ingratitude and
domestic misfortunes. The events of his life are less interesting, than
the singular revolutions of his fame. During a period of five hundred
years the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely
embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were odious
to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind. The pride and
curiosity of the Norman conquerors, prompted them to enquire into the
ancient history of Britain; they listened with fond credulity to the
tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the merit of a prince, who had
triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies. His romance,
transcribed in the latin of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and afterwards
translated into the fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with
the various, though incoherent ornaments, which were familiar to the
experience, the learning, or the fancy of the twelfth century. The
progress of a Phrygian colony from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily
engrafted on the fable of the Æneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur
derived their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the
Cæsars, His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and imperial
titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his
country. The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts
and tournaments, and the memorable institution of his knights of the
_round table_, were faithfully copied from the reigning manners of
chivalry, and the fabulous exploits of Uther’s son, appear less
incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising
valour of the Normans. Pilgrimage and the holy wars, introduced into
Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,
flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more simple
fictions of the west; and the fate of Britain depended on the art, or
the predictions of Merlin. Every nation embraced and adorned the popular
romance of Arthur and the knights of the round table: their names were
celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot
and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who
disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. At length
the light of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken;
the visionary fabric melted into air, and by a natural, though unjust
reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the present age is
inclined to question even the _existence_ of Arthur.
ALCHEMY.
About the year 296, the Emperor Diocletian published a very remarkable
edict which instead of being condemned as the effect of jealous tyranny,
deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and humanity. He caused a
diligent enquiry to be made for all the ancient books which treated of
the art of making gold and silver, and without pity committed them to
the flames; apprehensive, it is remarked, lest the opulence of the
Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against the
empire. But if Diocletian had been convinced of the reality of that
valuable art, far from extinguishing the memoirs, he would have
converted the operation of it to the benefit of the public revenue. It
is much more likely, that his good sense discovered to him the folly of
such magnificent pretensions, and that he was desirous of preserving the
reason and fortunes of his subjects from the mischievous pursuit. It may
be remarked that these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to
Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more
recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the
abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited
the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the
least mention of the transmutation of metals, and the persecution of
Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of Alchemy. The
conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the
globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in
China as in Europe, with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The
darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale
of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and
suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the aid of
experience, has at length banished the study of alchemy; and the present
age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler
means of commerce and industry.
ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL NOBLE FAMILIES IN ENGLAND WHO OWE THEIR ELEVATION TO
THE PEERAGE TO THEIR ANCESTORS HAVING BEEN ENGAGED IN TRADE.
It is a striking and peculiar feature in the constitution of England,
that men who render themselves eminent in the liberal sciences, in the
arts, or in commerce, frequently find their pursuits conduct them to a
high degree of rank and estimation in the state; and the sovereign has,
in numerous instances, conferred the honour of the Peerage on certain
individuals, who have contributed by their abilities to enlarge and
promote the manufactures and commerce of the nation. Among the families
whose ancestors have deserved well of their country, and who owe their
elevation to the Peerage to their forefathers having been engaged in
trade, the following are honourable instances.
The EARLS OF COVENTRY are descended from John Coventry, son of William
Coventry, of the city of that name. The former was an opulent mercer,
and resided in London, of which city he was Lord Mayor in 1425, and one
of the executors of the celebrated Whittington. He was a resolute and
determined magistrate, and was highly commended for his spirited
interference in the dreadful quarrel between Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester, and the insolent Cardinal Beaufort, which he successfully
quelled.
The family of RICH, Earls of Warwick and Holland, arose from Richard
Rich, an opulent mercer, sheriff of London in the year 1441. His
descendant, Richard, was distinguished by his knowledge of the law;
became Solicitor General in the reign of king Henry the eighth, and
treacherously effected the ruin of Sir Thomas More; was created a baron
of the realm in the reign of Edward the sixth, and became Lord
Chancellor by the favour of the same monarch.
The HOLLES’S, Earls of Clare, and afterwards Dukes of Newcastle, sprung
from Sir William Holles, Lord Mayor of London in 1540, son of William
Holles, citizen and baker. His great-grandson was the first who was
called to the House of Peers, in the reign of James the first, by the
title of Lord Haughton, and soon after was advanced to the dignity of
Earl of Clare. The fourth peer of that title was created by king
William, Duke of Newcastle; but the title became extinct in his name in
1711.
Sir THOMAS LEIGH, Lord Mayor of London, in 1558, furnished the Peerage
with the addition of two. He was the son of Roger Leigh, of Wellington,
in Shropshire. Sir Thomas’s grandson, Francis, was created by Charles
the first, Lord Dunsmore, and afterwards Earl of Chichester; and Sir
Thomas’s second son, Sir Thomas Leigh, of Stoneleigh, had the honour of
being called to the House of Peers by the title of Lord Leigh, of
Stoneleigh.
The PLEYDELL-BOUVERIES, Earls of Radnor, descend from Edward De
Bouverie, an opulent Turkey merchant, who died in 1694.
DUCIE, Lord Ducie, is descended from Sir Robert Ducie, who belonged to
the company of merchant tailors, and was sheriff of London in 1621, and
Lord Mayor in 1631. He was immensely rich, and was made banker to king
Charles the first, and on the breaking out of the rebellion, lost
£80,000, owing to him by his Majesty. Nevertheless he is said to have
left at the time of his death, property in land, money, &c. to his four
sons, to the amount of £400,000.
PAUL BAYNING, sheriff of London in 1593, had a son of the same name, who
was first created a baronet, and in the third of Charles the first, a
baron of the realm, by the title of Baron Bayning, and soon after a
viscount, by the title of Viscount Bayning of Sudbury. He was buried in
the paternal tomb, in the church of St. Olave’s. His house was in
Mark-lane. After the fire of London, the business of the custom house
was transacted in that which went under the name of Lord Bayning’s.
The CRANFIELDS, Earls of Middlesex, rose from Lionel Cranfield, a
citizen of London, bred up in the custom house. He became, in 1620, Lord
Treasurer of England. The Duke of Dorset is descended from Frances,
sister and heir of the third Earl of Middlesex, married to Richard, Earl
of Dorset.
The noble family of INGRAM, Viscount Irwin, was raised in the reign of
queen Elizabeth, by Hugh Irwin, citizen, merchant, and tallow-chandler,
who died in 1612. He left a large fortune between two sons; of whom Sir
Arthur, the younger, settled in Yorkshire, and purchased a considerable
estate, the foundation of the good fortune afterwards enjoyed by the
family. The present Marchioness of Hertford is the representative of the
Ingrams, being the daughter and co-heir of the last Viscount Irwin.
Sir STEPHEN BROWN, son of John Brown, of Newcastle, Lord Mayor of
London, in 1438, and again in 1448, was a grocer, and added another
peer, in the person of Sir Anthony Brown, created Viscount Montagu, by
Philip and Mary, in 1554.
The LEGGES rose to be Earls of Dartmouth.—The first who was raised to
the peerage was that loyal and gallant naval officer, George Legge,
created Baron of Dartmouth in 1682. He was descended from an ancestor
who filled the Pretorian Chair of London in the years 1347 and 1354,
having by his industry in the trade of a skinner, attained great wealth.
Sir GEOFFREY BULLEN, Lord Mayor in 1458, was grandfather of Thomas, Earl
of Wiltshire, father of Anna Bullen, and grandfather of queen Elizabeth,
the highest genealogical honour the city of London ever possessed.
Sir BAPTIST HICKS was a great mercer at the accession of James the
first, and made a large fortune, by supplying the court with silks. He
was first knighted, and afterwards created Viscount Campden. It is said
he left his two daughters one hundred thousand pounds each. He built a
large house in St. John’s street, for the justices of Middlesex to hold
their sessions in, which (till its demolition a few years ago, upon the
erection of a new sessions house on Clerkenwell Green,) retained the
name of Hicks’ Hall.
The CAPELS, Earls of Essex, are descended from Sir William Capel,
draper, Lord Mayor in 1503. He first set up a cage in every ward of
London, for the punishment of idle people. It is probable that he had
his mansion on the site of the present Stock Exchange, in Capel Court,
so called after him.
MICHAEL DORMER, mercer, Mayor in 1542, was the ancestor of the Lords
Dormer.
EDWARD OSBORNE, was apprentice to Sir William Hewet, clothworker. About
the year 1536, when his master lived in one of those tremendous houses
on London bridge, a servant maid was playing with his only daughter in
her arms, in a window over the water, and accidentally dropped the
child. Young Osborne, who was witness to the misfortune, instantly
sprung into the river, and beyond all expectations brought her safe to
her terrified family. When she was marriageable, several persons of rank
paid their addresses to her, and among others the Earl of Shrewsbury;
but Sir William gratefully declined in favour of Osborne.—“OSBORNE
_saved her_,” said he, “_and_ OSBORNE _shall enjoy her_.” In her right
he possessed a most ample fortune. He became sheriff of London in 1575,
and Lord Mayor in 1583, and from his loins sprung the Dukes of Leeds.
From Sir WILLIAM CRAVEN, merchant tailor, Mayor in 1611, sprung the
gallant Earl Craven, who was his eldest son, and was greatly
distinguished by his actions in the service of the unfortunate Elector
Palatine, by his attachment to the Dowager, and his marriage with that
illustrious Princess.
Lord Viscount DUDLEY AND WARD is descended from William Ward, a wealthy
goldsmith in London, and jeweller to Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles
the first. His son Humble Ward, married Frances, grand-daughter of
Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley; who, on the death of her grand-father,
became Baroness Dudley; and he himself was created in 1643, Lord Ward of
Birmingham.
LAST MOMENTS OF QUEEN CAROLINE.
A little before the Queen died she asked the physician who was in
attendance, “How long can this last?” And on his answering “Your majesty
will soon be eased of your pains;” she replied “The sooner the better!”
The queen then repeated a prayer of her own composing, in which there
was such a flow of natural eloquence, as demonstrated the vigour of a
great and good mind. When her speech began to falter, and she seemed
expiring, she desired to be raised up in her bed, and fearing that
nature would not hold out long enough without artificial support she
called to have water sprinkled upon her, and a little after desired it
might be repeated. She then with the greatest composure and presence of
mind, requested her weeping relations to kneel down and pray for her.
Whilst they were reading some prayers, she exclaimed “Pray aloud, that I
may hear,” and after the Lord’s prayer was concluded, in which she
joined as well as she was able, said “So,” and waving her hand, lay down
and expired.
THE BRITONS, ACCORDING TO THE GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS.
Strabo observes in his Geography, that “the woods are their towns; for
having fenced round a wide circular space with trees hewn down, they
there place their huts, and fix stalls for their cattle; but not of long
duration. They have dwellings of a round form, constructed of poles and
wattled work, with very high pointed coverings of beams united at a
point.”
Diodorus Siculus asserts, that “they inhabit very wretched dwellings,
composed for the most part of reeds (or straw) and wood.”
Cæsar thus describes, not Londinium, but the capital of Cassivellaunus:
“The Britons call a place, a town, when they have fortified thick
impassable woods, by means of a _vallum_ and fosse, or a high bank and a
ditch; in which sort of a place they are accustomed to assemble
together, to avoid the invasion of enemies.”
Tacitus describing the strong holds, to which Caractacus resorted,
observes: “They then fortified themselves on steep mountains; and,
where-ever there was any possibility of access in any part, he
constructed a great bank of stones, like a _vallum_.”
The curious reader is referred to the first volume of King’s Munimenta
Antiqua, for prints and plans, both of the Welsh houses and fortresses,
_of which some are yet entire_ and others in ruins, in every part of
England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. No book, either in our tongue, or
in any of the European languages, is so complete and satisfactory on
this interesting and domestic subject: the prints are excellent.
Diodorus Siculus also notices that the Britons laid up their corn in
subterranean repositories, whence they used to take a portion every day;
and having bruised and dried the grain, made a kind of food from it of
immediate use. Martin in his description of the Western Isles, (p. 204.)
describes this sort of diet, and the quick mode of preparing it, as yet
continued. King, in the 48th and following pages of his first volume,
_has detected, and delineated these rude monuments of our ancestors_.
It is highly curious to trace the appearance of the persons of our
forefathers and their manners. Cæsar remarks that they painted
themselves with vitrum, or woad; and Herodian, that some of them on the
sea-coast punctured or _tattooed_[48] their bodies with figures
resembling various kinds of animals; in consequence of which they also
went without garments, that they might not cover, nor conceal, these
marks. The other natives were, in _general_, clad with skins. They had
long lank hair, but were shorn in every part of the body, except the
head and upper lip.
A wretched substitute for salt was obtained merely by pouring sea-water
on the embers of burning wood.
The Irish drank the blood of animals and even of their enemies.
King, in the latter half of the first volume, (_Munim. Ant._) gives
prints of the altars, or _Cromlechs_, yet entire, in many situations in
Ireland, the Highlands, and England, on which human victims were cruelly
murdered.
The Druids were richly clad; some of them even wore golden chains, or
collars, about their necks and arms; and had their garments dyed with
various colours, and adorned with gold. Chains also both of iron and
gold, were worn by some of the chieftains and nobler ranks. These facts
will appear so incredible, that the reader must be informed, that in
most of the tumuli, or old British graves, described by King, these
ornaments are found in our days. It is a remarkable omission in Mr.
King, that he did not quote the three verses from the fourteenth chapter
of Isaiah so descriptive of the Babylonian regal tumuli, similar to the
British: “All the kings of the nations lie down in glory, each in his
own sepulchre: To meet thee, O Sennacherib, Hades rouseth his mighty
dead: he maketh them rise up from their thrones. All of them shall
accost thee, and shall say unto thee, Art thou become weak as we? Art
thou made like unto us? Is then thy pride brought down to the grave? Is
the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-worm thy covering?”
Strabo, at the end of his third book, says, that “the Cassiterides, or
Islands of Tin, were inhabited by men dressed in black garments, in
tunics descending to the feet, a girdle around their breast; walking
erect with a staff in their hand; and permitting the beard to grow like
that of a goat. They subsist on their cattle, in general spending an
erratic pastoral life.”
Some of the common order of Britons wore, instead of the skins of
beasts, very thick coarse wrappers made of wool; a sort of blanket or
rug, fastened about the neck with a piece of sharp pointed stick. They
used also a coarse, slit, short vest, with sleeves; it barely reached
down to the knees.
As armour, the Britons had a long two-handed sword, hanging by a chain
on the right hand side; a great long wooden shield as tall as a man;
long spears; and a sort of missile wooden instrument, like a javelin,
longer than an arrow, which they darted merely by the hand: modern
writers call these two last mentioned, _Celts_, fixed on the end of
staves and sticks. Some of them used slings for stones, others had
breast plates, made of plates of iron, with hooks, or with wreathed
chains: some had helmets of different forms. Many went to battle nearly
naked, and some wound chains of iron around their necks and loins.
They generally lay and reposed themselves on the bare ground, yet most
of them ate their food sitting on seats. A very beautiful print is given
by Mr. King of their various dresses. The plaid seems to be derived from
them. The coins of the old British, which are engraven in Speed, in
Borlase’s Cornwall, in Gough’s edition of Camden’s Britannia, and in
Plot’s History of Oxfordshire, will explain these descriptions of the
classics. Even Julius Cæsar had noticed that the Britons used either
brass money, or iron circular coins reduced to a standard weight. In the
scale of civilization, therefore, the ancient Britons were as advanced
in the era of Cæsar, as the Romans themselves at the expulsion of their
kings; as the Grecians in the age of Homer; as the Mexicans at the
Spanish conquest; and as the modern Tartars.[49]
Footnote 48:
The practice of tattooing is of great antiquity, and has been common
to numerous nations in Turkey, Asia, the Southern parts of Europe, and
perhaps to a great portion of the inhabitants of the earth. It is
still retained among some of the Moorish tribes, who are, probably,
descendants of those who, formerly, were subjected to the Christians
of Africa, and who to avoid paying taxes, like the Moors, thus
imprinted crosses upon their skins, that they might pass for
Christians. This custom, which originally might serve to distinguish
tribes by their religion, or from each other, became afterwards a mode
of decoration that was habitually retained, when all remembrance of
its origin was effaced.
It may be inferred that the Canaanites and the other nations of the
East, were in the habit of tattooing their skins, because Moses,
(Levit. xix, 28.) expressly enjoins the Israelites not to imprint any
marks upon their bodies, in imitation of the heathens.
The ancient inhabitants of the British Islands, painted their skins in
various grotesque figures, with the juice of woad. This custom of
tattooing was in use both by the Britons and their first invaders, the
Belgæ, and I believe it will be found, that the warriors of all those
nations which practised tattooing, invariably threw off their garments
in the hour of battle. The name of Picts, is said, though erroneously,
to have been given by the Romans to the Caledonians, who possessed the
East coast of Scotland, from their painting their bodies. This
circumstance has made some imagine that the Picts were of British
extraction, and a different race of men from the Scots. That more of
the Britons who fled northward, from the oppression and tyranny of the
Romans, settled in the low lands of Scotland, than among the Scots of
the mountains, may be easily imagined, from the very nature of the
country. It was these people who introduced painting among the Picts,
From this circumstance, some antiquaries affirm, proceeded the name of
the latter, to distinguish them from the Scots, who never had that art
among them, and from the Britons, who discontinued the practice of
tattooing after the Roman conquest.
The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, at this day, paint upon
their bodies various grotesque figures, for the purpose of striking
terror into their enemies, in the day of battle. J. S.
Footnote 49:
From the Classical Journal.
THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.
Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, one of the most
memorable is that of the Seven Sleepers, whose imaginary date
corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius and the conquest of
Africa by the Vandals, or sometime about the year 440. When the Emperor
Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus
concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent
mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave
orders that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of huge
stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was
miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a
period of one hundred and eighty seven years. At the end of that time,
the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had
descended, removed the stones to supply materials for some rustic
edifice; the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven
Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they thought of a
few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and resolved that
Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to
purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if we may still
employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once familiar
aspect of his native country; and his surprize was increased by the
appearance of a large cross triumphantly erected over the principal gate
of Ephesus. His singular dress and obsolete language, confounded the
baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin
of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a secret treasure,
was dragged before the judge. Their mutual enquiries produced the
amazing discovery that two centuries were almost elapsed since
Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a Pagan tyrant.
The Bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and as
it is said, the Emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern
of the Seven Sleepers, who bestowed their benediction, related their
story, and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this
marvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and credulity of
the _modern_ Greeks, since the authentic tradition may be traced within
half a century of the supposed miracle. James of Sarug, a Syrian bishop,
who was born only two years after the death of the younger Theodosius,
has devoted one of his two hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of
the young men of Ephesus. Their legend, before the end of the sixth
century, was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the
care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East preserve
their memory with equal reverence; and their names are honourably
inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian Calendar. Nor
has their reputation been confined to the Christian world. This popular
tale, which Mahomet might learn when he drove his camels to the fairs of
Syria, is introduced as a divine revelation, into the Koran. The story
of the Seven Sleepers has been adopted, and adorned, by the nations,
from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; and some
vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the remote
extremities of Scandinavia.
JOHN RAY, THE NATURALIST.
Ray was the son of a blacksmith, at Black Notley, in Essex, where he was
born in 1628. He received his education at Braintree school, at
Catharine Hall, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. His
intense studies, requiring country air and exercise, occasioned his
predilection for botany; his first rambles in search of plants were
confined in extent, but subsequently diverged throughout England and
Wales; and at length passing the channel he visited many parts of
Europe. His books of instruction were the works of Johnson and
Parkinson, and the Phytologia Britannica. His friend and companion,
Francis Willoughby,[50] was a gentleman as amiable as scientific, their
souls seeming to be blended together. Ray having been ordained, did not
chuse to accept of the emoluments of the church, with which he did not
entirely unite; but just before his death, when it was too late to gain,
he became reconciled to it. Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1672, left him
an annuity of sixty pounds, but it does not appear what other property
he possessed, except his fellowship of Trinity. Though the generations
which have followed him have produced a Linnæus, a Buffon, and a
Pennant, yet Ray’s fame is too well established ever to be supplanted.
He was a wise, a learned, as well as a pious and modest man, and ever
ready to impart that knowledge which he had taken so much pains to
acquire. He died in 1705 with a devout humility that had ever
distinguished him, wishing that he had spent much more of his life in
the immediate service of his Creator. There was no task too arduous for
Ray; if Lister, a contemporary naturalist, would have gone to the bottom
of the ocean for a shell, Ray would have climbed to the extreme point of
the Alps for a new plant. In the church-yard of Black Notley, his native
place, there is a long and elegant inscription to the memory of this
great man, and in the library of Trinity College, there is a fine marble
bust of him, in company with Bacon and other splendid ornaments of that
magnificent foundation.
Footnote 50:
This eminent naturalist and excellent man, was justly admired both at
home and abroad for his virtues and knowledge in every branch of human
learning, more particularly in natural history. He was the son of Sir
Francis Willoughby, Knt. of Wollaton Hall in the county of Nottingham.
Observing in the busy and inquisitive age in which he lived, that the
history of animated nature had in a great measure been neglected, he
made the study and illustration thereof his unceasing object. For the
promotion of this branch of science he went abroad with Mr. Ray, for
the purpose of searching out and describing the several species and
productions of nature. He travelled over most parts of France, Spain,
Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, in all which countries he was so
diligent and successful, that not many sorts of animals described by
others escaped his observation. He drew them with a pencil, and they
were afterwards engraven on copper-plates, at the expense of his
widow. His labours were printed in latin under the title of
“_Ornithologiæ libri tres, &c._ London, 1676,“ folio. This work was
afterwards translated into English by Mr. Ray, with an appendix, and
printed at London, in 1678. Mr. Willoughby also wrote the “History of
Fishes,” which was published by Mr. Ray, at London, in 1686, in folio.
He likewise printed several papers in the Philosophical Transactions.
Mr. Willoughby died on the third of July, 1672, leaving issue by his
wife, Emma, daughter and co-heir of Sir Henry Bernard, Knt. two Sons,
Francis and Thomas, and one daughter Cassandra, married to the Duke of
Chandos. The second son Thomas was in 1712 created Lord Middleton,
from whom is descended the present peer of that title.
LONDON BANKERS, AND THEIR ORIGIN.
The company of Goldsmiths, in London, appeared as a fraternity, as early
as 1180, but it was in the reign of Edward the third, that they were
first incorporated. They became, in time, the bankers of the capital.
The _Lombards_ were the first and greatest, and most of the money
contracts, in old times, passed through their hands. Many of our
monarchs were obliged to them for money.—The three blue balls, now used
by pawnbrokers, but converted by them into golden ones, are, in reality,
the arms of the Lombards.
Lombard-street, in the metropolis, took its name from being the
residence of the Lombards, the great money-changers and usurers of early
times. They came out of Italy into this kingdom before the year 1274; at
length their extortions became so great, that Edward the third seized on
their estates; perhaps the necessity of furnishing himself with money
for his Flemish expedition, might have urged him to this step. They seem
quickly to have repaired their loss; for complaint was soon after made
against them, for persisting in their practices. They were so opulent in
the days of Henry the fourth, as to be able to furnish him with money,
but they took care to get the customs mortgaged to them, by way of
security.
They continued in Lombard-street till the reign of queen Elizabeth, and
to this day it is filled with the shops of eminent bankers. The shop of
the great Sir Thomas Gresham stood in Lombard-street; it is now occupied
by Messrs. Martin and Stone, bankers, who are still in possession of the
original sign of that illustrious person, the _Grasshopper_.
The business of goldsmiths was confined to the buying and selling of
plate, and foreign coins of gold and silver, melting them, and coining
others at the mint. The banking was accidental and foreign to their
institution.
Regular banking by private persons resulted in 1643 from the calamity of
the times, when a seditious spirit was incited by the acts of the
parliamentary leaders. The merchants and tradesmen who before trusted
their cash to their servants and apprentices found that mode no longer
safe; neither did they dare to leave it in the mint at the tower, by
reason of the distresses of majesty itself, which before was a place of
public deposit. In the year 1645, they first placed their cash in the
hands of goldsmiths, who then began publicly to exercise the two
professions of goldsmiths and bankers. Even of late years there were
several very eminent bankers who kept the goldsmith’s shop; but they
were more frequently separated.
The first regular banker was Mr. Francis Child, goldsmith, who began
business after the restoration. He was the father of the profession, a
person of large fortune, of most respectable character, and he was
knighted by the king. He lived in Fleet-street, in the house adjoining
Temple-bar, where the banking business is still carried on in the same
firm, though by different persons. Granger, in his Biographical History,
mentions that Mr. Child succeeded Mr. Backwell,[51] a banker in the time
of Charles the second, noted for his integrity, abilities, and industry;
who was ruined by the shutting up of the Exchequer in 1672.[52] His
books were placed in the hands of Mr. Child, and still remain in the
family.
The next ancient shop was that possessed at present by Messrs. Snow and
Co. in the Strand, a few doors westward of Mr. Child’s, who were
goldsmiths of consequence in the latter part of the same reign. Mr. Gay
celebrates the predecessor of these gentlemen, for his sagacity in
escaping the ruin of the fatal year 1720, in his epistle to Mr. Thomas
Snow, goldsmith, near Temple-bar:—
O thou whose penetrative wisdom found
The _South Sea_ rocks and shelves where thousands drown’d,
When credit sunk and commerce gasping lay,
Thou stoodst; nor sent’st one bill unpaid away.
To the westward of Temple-bar the only other house was that of Messrs.
Middleton and Campbell, goldsmiths, who flourished in 1692, and is now
continued with great credit by Mr. Coutts. From thence to the extremity
of the west end of the town there were none till the year 1756, when the
respectable name of Backwell rose again, conjoined with those of Darel,
Hart, and Croft, who with great reputation opened their shop (afterwards
the house of Devaynes, Noble, and Co.) in Pallmall.
Footnote 51:
He was an alderman of London, and after the Exchequer was shut retired
to Holland, where he died, and was brought over to be interred in the
church of Tyringham, in Buckinghamshire, where he lies embalmed. A
glass is placed over his face, so that it is likely he may even be
seen at this time. There is a small portrait of him at Tyringham
House, in which he is represented in long hair and a flowered gown,
with a table by him.
Footnote 52:
A part of the national debt, amounting to £664,263, is as old as this
iniquitous transaction of Charles the second and his ministers. This
sum was all that those persons received, who had placed their property
and their confidence in that monarch, for the loss of £1,328,526, and
26 years interest thereon at 6 per cent. about £2,100,000 more.
ELUCIDATION OF THE ORNAMENTS WITH WHICH THE GREEKS AND ROMANS ADORNED
THE HUMAN HEAD ON COINS AND MEDALS.
THE DIADEM.
The chief of these ornaments is the diadem, or vitta, which was a
ribband worn about the head, and tied in a floating knot behind. This
was anciently the simple, but superlative badge of kingly power. It is
observable upon the Greek monarchical medals, from the earliest ages, to
the last, without any other ornament, and is almost an infallible sign
of kingly power, and that the portrait, if there be no other
characteristic, is that of a prince. In the Roman coins it is seen on
the Consular ones with Numa and Ancus; but never afterwards till the
time of Licinius. So great an aversion had the Romans to this kingly
distinction, that their emperors had for more than two centuries worn
the radiated crown, peculiar to the gods, before they dared to assume
the diadem, which was considered as the symbol of tyranny. In the family
of Constantine, the diadem becomes common, though not with the ancient
simplicity, being ornamented on either edge with a row of pearls, and
various other decorations.
The Greek queens used the diadem, but the Roman empresses never appear
with it; however, the variety of their head dresses more than
compensates for the want of this ornament.
THE RADIATED CROWN.
The radiated crown was, at first, as on the posthumous coins of
Augustus, a mark of deification, and in little more than a century
after, was put upon most of the emperors’ heads on their several medals.
THE CROWN OF LAUREL.
The crown of laurel was at first the honorary prize of conquerors, but
was afterwards commonly worn, at least on their medals, by all the Roman
emperors, from JULIUS CÆSAR, who was permitted by the senate to wear it
always, to hide the baldness of his forehead. This perhaps gave rise to
the first emperors always appearing with it on their coins, a
circumstance continued even to our times, and looking at its origin is
now a little laughable. The laurel employed by the ancients in forming
their crowns, is apparently what we term the Alexandrian laurel, a most
beautiful evergreen, of a fine tender verdure. In the lower empire the
laurel is often held by a hand above the head as a mark of piety.
THE ROSTRAL CROWN.
Agrippa appears on his coins with the rostral crown, a sign of naval
victory or command, being made of gold, in resemblance of prows of
ships, tied together.
THE MURAL CROWN.
Agrippa is likewise seen with the mural or turretted crown, the prize of
first ascending the walls of an enemy’s city.
THE CIVIC CROWN.
The oaken or civic crown is frequent on reverses, as of Galba and
others; and was the badge of having saved the life of a citizen, or of
many citizens.
THE HELMET.
The helmet appears on coins; as in those of Macedon under the Romans,
which have a head of Alexander, sometimes covered with a helmet. Probus
also has often the helmet on his coins; and Constantine the first, has
helmets of different forms curiously ornamented.
THE NIMBUS OR GLORY.
The nimbus or glory, now peculiar to the saints, was formerly applied to
emperors. A nimbus appears round the head of Constantine the second, in
a gold coin of that prince; and of Flavia Maxima Fausta, in a gold
medallion; and of Justinian in another. But the idea is as ancient as
the reign of Augustus, and is found in Roman authors, before it appeared
on coins. Oiselius gives a coin of Antoninus Pius, with the _nimbus_,
but this however is doubtful, and may have been some flaw in the coin
from which he engraved his representation.
OTHER ORNAMENTS OF THE HEAD.
Besides the diadem, the Greek princes sometimes appear with the laurel
crown. The Arsacidæ, or kings of Parthia, wear a kind of sash round the
head, with their hair in rows of curls like a wig. Tigranes and the
kings of Armenia, wear the _tiara_, a singular kind of cap, but the well
known badge of imperial power in the ancient eastern world. Xerxes, a
petty prince of Armenia, appears in a coin extant of him in a conical
cap, with a diadem around it. Juba, the father, has a singular crown,
like a conical cap, all hung with pearls.
The successors of Alexander assumed by way of distinction, different
symbols of the Deity, to be observed on the busts of their medals, such
as the lion’s skin of Hercules, which surrounds the head of the first
Seleucus; the horn placed behind the ear, an image of their strength and
power, or of their being the successors of Alexander, called the son of
Jupiter Ammon; the wing placed in like manner behind the ear, symbolic
of the rapidity of their conquests, or of their being descendants from
the god Mercury.
Some authors, however, have doubted if all these heads be not of gods,
except those with the horn. Eckhel observes, that even the horn and
diadem belong to Bacchus, as on a coin of Nuceria Alfaterna. Bacchus,
according to Diodorus Siculus, invented the diadem, to cure his
head-aches, and was horned like his father Jupiter Ammon. The only king
who appears on coins, according to Eckhel, with the horn, is Lysimachus.
Pyrrhus had a crest of goats’ horns to his helmet, as we are informed by
Plutarch, in his life, and the goat was the symbol of Macedon. It is
likely that the successors of Alexander took this badge of the horn in
consequence.
Besides the distinctions of supreme power, or honorary reward, there are
other symbolic ornaments of the head, observable on some Roman coins.
Such is the veil, or, more properly, the _toga_ drawn over the head, to
be seen on the busts of Julius Cæsar, when Pontifex Maximus, and others.
This shews that the person bore the pontificate or the augurship; the
augurs having a particular gown, called _laena_, with which they covered
their heads, when employed in observing omens. Latterly the veil is only
a mark of consecration, and is common in coins of empresses, as
Faustina, Mariniana, and others. In the coins of Claudius Gothicus we
first find it as a mark of the consecration of an emperor; and it
continued in those of Constantius the first, Maximian the first, and
Constantine the first.
The remarkable part of the Roman head dress among the ladies, was the
_sphendona_, or sling, on the crown of the head; answering to the modern
hair cushion. But it was of gold, and so prominent as to be even
remarkable in a coin. The hair appears in many fashions, as now.
Sometimes the bust of an empress is supported by a crescent, to imply
that she was the moon, as her husband was the sun of the state.
Generally, only the bust is given on ancient coins; but sometimes half
the body or more. In the latter case the hands often appear, with tokens
of majesty in them. Such is the globe, said to have been introduced by
Augustus, to express possession of the world. The sceptre, sometimes
confounded with the consular staff. The roll of parchment, symbolic of
legislative power; and the handkerchief expressing that of the public
games, where the emperor gave the signal. Some princes even hold the
thunderbolt, shewing that their power was equal to that of Jupiter in
heaven. Others hold an image of victory.
Most queens of Egypt, on their coins, have the sceptre. It appears at
the top of their head; and would seem part of the dress, were it not
that in other coins, it passes beneath the neck transversely, so that
both ends appear.
The victors, at the sacred games among the ancients, had bound round the
head, an ornament called _anadema_, which has sometimes been confounded
with the diadem worn by the ancient Persian kings.
THE TRADESCANTS.
The Tradescants, father and son, were among the first eminent gardeners,
and were the very first collectors of natural history in this kingdom.
John Tradescant the elder was, according to Anthony Wood, a Fleming, or
a Dutchman. We are informed by Parkinson, that he had travelled into
most parts of Europe, and into Barbary, and from some emblems remaining
upon his monument in Lambeth church-yard, it appears that he had visited
Greece, Egypt, and other Eastern countries.
In his travels, he is supposed to have collected not only plants and
seeds, but most of those curiosities of every sort which formed his
collection, which afterwards became celebrated, and is now the Ashmolean
museum, at Oxford.
When he first settled in this kingdom, cannot at this distance of time,
be ascertained; perhaps it was towards the latter end of the reign of
queen Elizabeth, or the beginning of that of king James the first. His
portrait, engraven by Hollar, before the year 1656, represents him as a
person very far advanced in years, and seems to countenance this
opinion.
He lived in a large house at South Lambeth, where, there is reason to
think, his museum was frequently visited by persons of rank, who became
benefactors thereto; among these were king Charles the first, to whom he
was gardener, Henrietta Maria, his queen, Archbishop Laud, George, Duke
of Buckingham, Robert and William Cecil, Earls of Salisbury, and many
other persons of distinction.
John Tradescant may, therefore, justly be considered as the earliest
collector in this kingdom,[53] of every thing that was curious in
natural history, namely, minerals, birds, fishes, insects, &c. &c. He
had also a good collection of coins and medals, besides a great variety
of extraordinary rarities. Some of the plants which grew in his garden
are, if not totally extinct in this country, at least become very
uncommon.
This able man, by his great industry, made it manifest, in the very
infancy of botany, as a science, that there is scarcely any plant
existing in the known world, that will not, with proper care, thrive in
this kingdom. The time of his death cannot be ascertained, no mention
being made of it in the register of Lambeth church.
John Tradescant the son, and his wife, joined in a deed of gift, by
which their friend Elias Ashmole was entitled to this collection after
the decease of the former. On that event taking place, in 1662, it was
accordingly claimed by him, but the widow Tradescant refusing to deliver
it, was compelled so to do by a decree of the court of Chancery. She
was, a few years after, found drowned, in a pond, in her own garden.
His house at South Lambeth, then called Tradescant’s Ark,[54] thus
coming into the possession of Ashmole, he came to reside there in 1674,
and added a noble room to it, adorning the chimney with his arms,
impaling those of Sir William Dugdale, whose daughter was his third
wife. Ashmole was much respected by his contemporaries, and was
frequently visited at South Lambeth by persons of very exalted rank,
particularly by the ambassadors of foreign princes, to whom he had
presented his book on the Order of the Garter.
It is well known that Tradescant’s collection was given by Ashmole to
the University of Oxford, where it forms the principal part of the
museum that goes by his name, the house, in which it is contained,
having been built for its reception.[55]
A monument was erected in the south east part of Lambeth church-yard, in
1662, by Hester, the relict of John Tradescant, the son, to the memory
of her husband, and the other members of his family.
This, once beautiful monument has suffered so much by the weather, that
no just idea can now, on inspection, be formed of the north and south
sides; but this defect is supplied from very fine drawings[56] in the
Pepysian library, at Cambridge. On the east side is Tradescant’s arms;
on the west a hydra, and under it a skull; on the south, broken columns,
Corinthian capitals, &c. supposed to be ruins in Greece, or some other
Eastern country; and on the north, a crocodile, shells, &c. and a view
of some Egyptian buildings; various figures of trees, &c. in relievo,
adorn the four corners of the monument.
In a visit made by Sir W. Watson and Dr. Mitchell to Tradescant’s
garden, in 1749, an account of which, is inserted in Philos. Trans. vol.
xlvi. p. 160, it appears that it had been many years totally neglected,
and the house belonging to it empty and ruined, but though the garden
was quite covered with weeds, there remained among them manifest
footsteps of its founder.[57] They found there the _Borago latifolia
sempervirens_ of Caspar Bauhine; _Polygonatum vulgare latifolium, C. B_;
_Aristolochia clematitis recta, C. B._ and _Dracontium_ of Dodoens.
There were then remaining two trees of the _Arbutus_, which from their
being so long used to our winters, did not suffer by the severe cold of
1739-40, when most of their kind were killed in England. In the orchard
there was a tree of the _Rhamnus catharticus_, about 20 feet high, and
nearly a foot in diameter. There are at present no traces of this garden
remaining.
The Tradescants were usually called Tradeskin by their contemporaries,
and the name is uniformly so spelled in the parish register of Lambeth,
and by Flatman the painter, who in a poem mentions Tradescant’s
collection;
“Thus John Tradeskin starves our wond’ring eyes,
”By boxing up his new-found rarities.“
The following is a list of the portraits of the Tradescant family now in
the Ashmolean Museum; both father and son are in these portraits called
Sir John, though it does not appear that either of them were ever
knighted.
1. Sir John Tradescant, sen. a three quarters piece, ornamented with
fruit, flowers, and garden roots.
2. The same, after his decease.
3. The same, a small three-quarters piece, in water colours.
4. A large painting of his wife, son and daughter, quarter-length.
5. Sir John Tradescant, junior, in his garden, with a spade in his hand,
half length.
6. The same with his wife, half length.
7. The same, with his friend Zythepsa of Lambeth, a collection of
shells, &c. upon a table before them.
8. A large quarter piece inscribed Sir John Tradescant’s second wife and
son.
These pictures have neither date nor painter’s name. They are esteemed
to be good portraits, but who the person was, who is called Zythepsa is
not known. He is painted as if entering the room, and Sir John is
shaking him by the hand.
Hollar engraved two portraits of the Tradescants, father and son, which
are placed as frontispieces to the little volume, mentioned in the
preceding note.
Granger (2. 370) says he saw a picture at a gentleman’s house in
Wiltshire, which was not unlike that of the deceased Tradescant, and the
inscription was applicable to it:—
Mortuus haud alio quam quo pater ore quiesti
Quam facili frueris nunc quoque nocte doces.
Footnote 53:
Tradescant was the first English collector of curiosities in a private
rank. Thoresby was the second. _Gough’s Topogr_.
Footnote 54:
The late James West, Esq. told Mr. Bull, that one of the family of
Roelans, of which there are four or five prints by Hollar, lived a
long while at Lambeth, in the house that afterwards belonged to
Tradescant, to whom Roelans sold it. _Granger’s B. II._ 2. 371.
Footnote 55:
In the year 1656 the younger Tradescant, published a small volume,
entitled “Museum Tradescantianum, or a Collection of Rarities
preserved at South Lambeth. London, 1656, small octavo.” This book is
divided into two parts, the first containing a catalogue of the
museum, and the second an enumeration of the plants, shrubs, and
trees, growing in the garden at South Lambeth. Among the natural
curiosities here preserved are “a dragon’s egg—the claw of the bird
_Rock_, which, as authors report, is able to trusse an elephant,” &c.
&c.
Footnote 56:
These drawings are engraven in the Philosophical Trans. vol. 63, p.
88; and printed from the same plates, in Bibl. Topogr. Brit. vol. 2.
in Dr. Ducarel’s Hist. of Lambeth.
Footnote 57:
Tradescant’s was the next botanical garden in England after Gerard’s.
Gerard seems to have been the first that cultivated a botanical
garden. He had a large one near his house in Holborn, London, where he
raised nearly eleven hundred different trees and plants. He published
his history of plants in 1597 under the patronage of Lord Burleigh.
His herbal was republished in 1636 by Johnson.
ORANGE TREES.
The first orange trees seen in England, are said to have been planted by
Sir Francis Carew, at Beddington, in Surrey. Sir Francis died in 1607,
aged 81. Aubrey says they were brought from Italy by Sir Francis, but
the editors of the Biographia Britannica speaking from a tradition
preserved in the family, tell us that they were raised by him from the
seeds of the first oranges which were imported into England by Sir
Walter Raleigh, who had married his niece. The trees were planted in the
open ground, and were preserved in the winter by a moveable shed. They
flourished about a century and a half, being destroyed by the hard frost
in 1739-40.
In the transactions of the Linnæan Society there are some notices
relating to the progress of botany in England, written by the late
eminent naturalist, Peter Collinson. Speaking of the orange trees at
Beddington be says—“In the reign of queen Elizabeth the first orange and
lemon trees were introduced into England by two curious gentlemen, one
of them Sir Nicholas Carew, at Beddington. They were planted in the
natural ground, but against every winter an artificial covering was
raised for their protection. I have seen them some years ago[58] in
great perfection. But this apparatus going to decay, without due
consideration a green-house of brick work was built all round them, and
left on the top uncovered in the summer. I visited them a year or two
after in their new habitation, and to my great concern found some
dyeing, and all declining; for although there were windows on the south
side, they did not thrive in their confinement; but being kept damp,
with the rains, and wanting a free, airy, full sun, all the growing
months of summer, they languished, and at last all died.
“A better fate has attended the other fine parcel of orange trees, &c.
brought over at the same time, by Sir Robert Mansell, at Margam in South
Wales. My nephew counted 80 trees of citrons, limes, burgamots, Seville
and China orange-trees, planted in great cases all ranged in a row
before the green-house. This is the finest sight of its kind in England.
He had the curiosity to measure one of them. A China orange measured in
the extent of its branches fourteen feet. A Seville orange-tree was
fourteen feet high, the case included, and the stem twenty one inches
round. A China orange-tree twenty two inches and a half in girt.
“I visited the orangery at Margam, in the year 1766, in company with Mr.
Lewis Thomas, a very sensible and attentive man, who told me that the
orange-trees, &c. in that garden were intended as a present from the
king of Spain to the king of Denmark; and that the vessel in which they
were shipped, being taken in the channel, the trees were made a present
of to Sir Robert Mansell.”
Footnote 58:
This was written in the year 1754.
ARTICLES OF USE AND LUXURY INTRODUCED INTO EUROPE BY THE ROMANS.
Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive
empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences
to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the
vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life. In the more
remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The east was
in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the west was
inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of
an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the
industry of more civilized nations were gradually introduced into the
western countries of Europe, and the natives were encouraged, by an open
and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve
the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles,
either of the animal or vegetable kingdoms which were successively
imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt; it is only intended here to
touch on a few of the principal heads. It is also not improbable that
the Greeks and Phœnicians introduced some new arts and productions into
the neighbourhood of Marseilles and Cadiz.
1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the fruits, that grow in our
European gardens, are of foreign extraction, which in many cases, is
betrayed even by their names; the apple was a native of Italy, and when
the Romans had tasted the richer flavour of the apricot, the peach, the
pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented themselves with
applying to all these new fruits the common denomination of apple,
discriminating them from each other by the additional epithet of their
country.
2. In the time of Homer, the vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and
most probably in the adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the
skill, nor did it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
inhabitants. A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast, that of the
fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more than two thirds were
produced from her soil. The blessing was soon communicated to the
Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so intense was the cold to the north of
the Cevennes, that in the time of Strabo, it was thought impossible to
ripen the grapes in those parts of Gaul. The intense cold of a Gallic
winter was even proverbial among the ancients. This difficulty, however,
was gradually vanquished; and there is some reason to believe that the
vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. In the
beginning of the fourth century, the orator Eumenius speaks of the vines
in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age, and the first
plantation of which was totally unknown.
3. The olive, in the western world, followed the progress of peace, of
which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the
foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful
plant; it was naturalized in those countries; and at length carried into
the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it
required a certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the
neighbourhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and
experience.
4. The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and
enriched the whole country, however it might impoverish the particular
lands on which it was sown.
5. The use of artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of
Italy and the provinces, particularly the lucerne, which derived its
name and origin from Media. The assured supply of wholesome and
plentiful food for the cattle during winter, multiplied the number of
the flocks and herds, which, in their turn, contributed to the fertility
of the soil.
To all these improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines
and fisheries, which by employing a multitude of laborious hands, serves
to increase the pleasures of the rich, and the subsistence of the poor.
The elegant treatise of Columella describes the advanced state of the
Spanish husbandry, under the reign of Tiberius; and it may be observed,
that those famines, which so frequently afflicted the infant republic,
were seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The
accidental scarcity, in any single province, was immediately relieved by
the plenty of its more fortunate neighbours.
ACCOUNT OF THE ESCAPE OF THE EARL OF NITHSDALE, FROM THE TOWER, IN THE
YEAR, 1716.
Lord Nithsdale was one of the Scottish noblemen who were concerned in
the rebellion headed by the Earl of Mar, in the year 1715. The House of
Commons preferred articles of impeachment against him, and several
others, who all, except the Earl of Wintoun, pleaded guilty, and on the
9th of February, 1716, received judgment of death. The countess of
Nithsdale and lady Nairne threw themselves at the king’s feet as he
passed through the apartments of the palace, and implored his mercy in
behalf of their husbands; but their tears and entreaties were of no
avail. The countess finding that nothing would appease the king but the
death of her husband and the other lords, planned the earl’s escape from
the tower in woman’s apparel, which she safely effected. The letter, of
which the following is a copy, written by herself and addressed to her
sister lady Lucy Herbert, abbess of the Augustine nunnery at Bruges,
giving an account of that transaction is still preserved in the family,
and was in the possession of the late Marmaduke Constable Maxwell, Esq.
of Everingham in Yorkshire.
”_Palais Royal de Rome, 18th April, 1718._
“Dear Sister,
“My Lord’s escape is now such an old story, that I have almost forgotten
it; but since you desire me to give you a circumstantial account of it,
I will endeavour to recal it to my memory, and be as exact in the
narration as I possibly can; for I owe you too many obligations to
refuse you any thing that lies in my power.
“I think I owe myself the justice to set out with the motives which
influenced me to undertake so hazardous an attempt, which I despaired of
thoroughly accomplishing, foreseeing a thousand obstacles, which never
could be surmounted but by the most particular interposition of Divine
Providence. I confided in the Almighty God, and trusted that he would
not abandon me, even when all human succours failed me.
“I first came to London upon hearing that my Lord was committed to the
Tower, I was at the same time informed that he had expressed the
greatest anxiety to see me, having, as he afterwards told me, nobody to
console him till I arrived. I rode to Newcastle, and from thence took
the stage to York. When I arrived there the snow was so deep that the
stage could not set out for London. The season was so severe, and the
roads so extremely bad, that the post itself was stopt; however, I took
horses, and rode to London through the snow, which was generally above
the horse’s girth, and arrived safe and sound without any accident.
“On my arrival I went immediately to make what interest I could amongst
those who were in place. No one gave me any hopes; but all to the
contrary, assured me, that although some of the prisoners were to be
pardoned, yet my lord would certainly not be of the number. When I
enquired into the reason of this distinction, I could obtain no other
answer, than that they would not flatter me; but I soon perceived the
reasons which they declined alleging to me. A roman catholic, upon the
frontiers of Scotland, who headed a very considerable party—a man whose
family had always signalized itself by its loyalty to the royal house of
Stuart, and who was the only support of the catholics against the
inveteracy of the Whigs, who were very numerous in that part of
Scotland, would become an agreeable sacrifice to the opposite party.
They still retained a lively remembrance of his grandfather, who
defended his own castle of Carlaverock to the very last extremity, and
surrendered it up only by the express command of his royal master. Now
having his grandson in their power, they were determined not to let him
escape from their hands.
“Upon this I formed the resolution to attempt his escape, but opened my
intentions to nobody but my dear Evans. In order to concert measures I
strongly solicited to be permitted to see my lord, which they refused to
grant me, unless I would remain confined with him in the Tower. This I
would not submit to, and alleged for excuse, that my health would not
permit me to undergo the confinement. The real reason of my refusal was,
not to put it out of my power to accomplish my design; however, by
bribing the guards, I often contrived to see my lord, till the day upon
which the prisoners were condemned; after that we were allowed for the
last week to see and take our leave of them.
“By the help of Evans, I had prepared every thing necessary to disguise
my lord, but had the utmost difficulty to prevail upon him to make use
of them; however, I at length succeeded by the help of ALMIGHTY GOD.
“On the 22d of February, which fell on a Thursday, our petition was to
be presented to the House of Lords, the purport of which was to intreat
the lords to intercede with his majesty to pardon the prisoners. We
were, however, disappointed the day before the petition was to be
presented; for the Duke of St. Alban’s, who had promised my Lady
Derwentwater to present it, when it came to the point, failed in his
word: however, as she was the only English countess concerned, it was
incumbent upon her to have it presented. We had one day left before the
execution, and the duke still promised to present the petition; but, for
fear he should fail, I engaged the Duke of Montrose to secure its being
done by the one or the other. I then went in company of most of the
ladies of quality who were then in town, to solicit the interest of the
lords, as they were going to the house. They all behaved to me with
great civility, but particularly my Lord Pembroke, who, though he
desired me not to speak to him, yet promised to employ his interest in
our favour, and honourably kept his word; for he spoke in the house very
strongly in our behalf. The subject of the debate was, whether the king
had the power to pardon those who had been condemned by parliament? And
it was chiefly owing to Lord Pembroke’s speech, that it passed in the
affirmative: however, one of the lords stood up and said, that the house
would only intercede for those of the prisoners who should approve
themselves worthy of their intercession, but not for all of them
indiscriminately. This salvo quite blasted all my hopes; for I was
assured it aimed at the exclusion of those who should refuse to
subscribe to the petition, which was a thing I knew my lord would never
submit to; nor, in fact, could I wish to preserve his life on such
terms.
“As the motion had passed generally, I thought I could draw some
advantage in favour of my design. Accordingly, I immediately left the
House of Lords, and hastened to the Tower, where, affecting an air of
joy and satisfaction, I told all the guards I passed by, that I came to
bring joyful tidings to the prisoners. I desired them to lay aside their
fears, for the petition had passed the house in their favour. I then
gave them some money to drink to the lords and his majesty, though it
was but trifling; for I thought that if I were too liberal on the
occasion, they might suspect my designs, and that giving them something
would gain their good humour and services for the next day, which was
the eve of the execution.
“The next morning I could not go to the Tower, having so many things in
my hands to put in readiness; but in the evening when all was ready, I
sent for Mrs. Mills, with whom I lodged, and acquainted her with my
design of attempting my lord’s escape, as there was no prospect of his
being pardoned; and this was the last night before the execution. I told
her that I had every thing in readiness, and I trusted that she would
not refuse to accompany me, that my lord might pass for her. I pressed
her to come immediately, as we had no time to lose. At the same time I
sent for Mrs. Morgan, then usually known by the name of Hilton, to whose
acquaintance my dear Evans had introduced me, which I looked upon as a
very singular happiness. I immediately communicated my resolution to
her. She was of a very tall and slender make, so I begged her to put
under her own riding-hood, one that I had prepared for Mrs. Mills, as
she was to lend her’s to my Lord, that in coming out he might be taken
for her. Mrs. Mills was then with child; so that she was not only of the
same height, but nearly of the same size as my lord. When they were in
the coach, I never ceased talking, that they might have no leisure to
reflect. Their surprise and astonishment, when I first opened my design
to them, had made them consent, without ever thinking of the
consequences. On our arrival at the Tower, the first I introduced was
Mrs. Morgan; for I was only allowed to take in one at a time. She
brought in the clothes that were to serve Mrs. Mills, when she left her
own behind her. When Mrs. Morgan had taken off what she had brought for
my purpose, I conducted her back to the staircase; and in going I begged
her to send me in my maid to dress me; that I was afraid of being too
late to present my last petition that night, if she did not come
immediately. I despatched her safe, and went partly down stairs to meet
Mrs. Mills, who had the precaution to hold her handkerchief to her face,
as was very natural for a woman to do when she was going to bid her last
farewell to a friend on the eve of his execution. I had indeed desired
her to do it, that my lord might go out in the same manner. Her eyebrows
were rather inclined to be sandy, and my lords were dark and very thick;
however, I had prepared some paint of the colour of her’s, to disguise
his with. I also brought an artificial head-dress of the same coloured
hair as her’s; and I painted his face with white and his cheeks with
rouge, to hide his long beard, as he had not time to shave. All this
provision I had before left in the Tower.
The poor guards, whom my slight liberality the day before had endeared
to me, let me go quietly with my company, and were not so strictly on
the watch as they usually had been; and the more so, as they were
persuaded, from what I had told them the day before, that the prisoners
would obtain their pardon. I made Mrs. Mills take off her own hood, and
put on that which I had brought for her; I then took her by the hand and
led her out of my lord’s chamber; and in passing through the next room,
in which there were several people, with all the concern imaginable, I
said, “My dear Mrs. Catherines, go in all haste, and send me my waiting
maid; she certainly cannot reflect how late it is; she forgets that I am
to present a petition to-night, and if I let slip this opportunity I am
undone, for to-morrow will be too late. Hasten her as much as possible,
for I shall be on thorns till she comes.” Every body in the room, who
were chiefly the guards’ wives and daughters, seemed to compassionate me
exceedingly, and the sentinel very officiously opened the door to me.
When I had seen her out I returned back to my lord, and finished
dressing him. I had taken care that Mrs. Mills did not go out crying as
she came in, that my lord might the better pass for the lady who came in
crying and afflicted, and the more so, because he had the same dress she
wore. When I had almost finished dressing my lord in all my petticoats
excepting one, I perceived that it was growing dark, and was afraid that
the light of the candles might betray us, so I resolved to set off; I
went out leading him by the hand, and he held his handkerchief to his
eyes; I spoke to him in the most piteous and afflicted tone of voice,
bewailing bitterly the negligence of Evans, who had ruined me by her
delay. Then, said I, “My dear Mrs. Betty, for the love of GOD run
quickly, and bring her with you; you know my lodging, and if ever you
made despatch in your life, do it at present, I am almost distracted
with this disappointment.” The guards opened the doors, and I went down
stairs with him, still conjuring him to make all possible despatch. As
soon as he had cleared the door I made him walk before me, for fear the
sentinel should take notice of his walk, but I still continued to press
him to make all the despatch he possibly could. At the bottom of the
stairs I met my dear Evans, into whose hands I confided him. I had
before engaged Mr. Mills to be in readiness, before the Tower, to
conduct him to some place of safety, in case we succeeded. He looked
upon the affair so very improbable to succeed, that his astonishment,
when he saw us, threw him into such consternation, that he was almost
out of himself, which Evans perceiving, with the greatest presence of
mind, without telling him any thing, lest he should mistrust them,
conducted him to some of her own friends, on whom she could rely, and so
secured him, without which we should have been undone. When she had
conducted him, and left him with them, she returned to find Mr. Mills,
who, by this time, had recovered himself from his astonishment. They
went home together, and having found a place of security, they conducted
him to it.
In the mean while, as I had pretended to have sent the young lady on a
message, I was obliged to return up stairs and go back to my lord’s
room, in the same feigned anxiety of being too late, so that every body
seemed sincerely to sympathize with my distress. When I was in the room,
I talked to him, as if he had been really present, and answered my own
questions in my lord’s voice, as nearly as I could imitate it. I walked
up and down, as if we were conversing together, till I thought they had
time enough thoroughly to clear themselves of the guards. I then thought
proper to make off also. I opened the door, and stood half in it, that
those in the outward chamber might hear what I said, but held it so
close, that they could not look in. I bid my lord a formal farewell, for
that night, and added that something more than usual must have happened
to make Evans negligent on this important occasion, who had always been
so punctual in the smallest trifles; that I saw no other remedy than to
go in person; that if the Tower were still open when I finished my
business, I would return that night; but that he might be assured I
would be with him as early in the morning as I could gain admittance
into the Tower, and I flattered myself I should bring favourable news.
Then, before I shut the door, I pulled through the string of the latch,
so that it could only be opened on the inside. I then shut it with some
degree of force, that I might be sure of its being well shut. I said to
the servant as I passed by, that he need not carry in candles to his
master till my lord sent for him, as he desired to finish some prayers
first. I went down stairs, and called a coach. As there were several on
the stand, I drove home to my lodgings, where poor Mr. Mackenzie had
been waiting to carry the petition, in case my attempt had failed. I
told him there was no need of any petition, as my lord was safe out of
the Tower, and out of the hands of his enemies, as I hoped; but that I
did not know where he was.
I discharged the coach, and sent for a sedan chair, and went to the
Duchess of Buccleugh, who expected me about that time, as I had begged
of her to present the petition for me, having taken my precautions
against all events, and asked if she was at home; and they answered,
that she expected me, and had another duchess with her. I refused to go
up stairs, as she had company with her, and I was not in a condition to
see any other company. I begged to be shewn into a chamber below stairs,
and that they would have the goodness to send her grace’s maid to me,
having something to say to her. I had discharged the chair, lest I might
be pursued and watched. When the maid came in, I desired her to present
my most humble respects to her grace, who they told me had company with
her, and to acquaint her that this was my only reason for not coming up
stairs. I also charged her with my sincerest thanks for the kind offer
to accompany me when I went to present my petition. I added, that she
might spare herself any further trouble, as it was now judged more
advisable to present one general petition in the name of all; however,
that I should never be unmindful of my particular obligations to her
grace, which I would return very soon to acknowledge in person.
I then desired one of the servants to call a chair, and I went to the
duchess of Montrose, who had always borne a part in my distress. When I
arrived, she left her company to deny herself, not being able to see me
under the affliction which she judged me to be in. By mistake I was,
however admitted; so there was no remedy. She came to me; and as my
heart was in extasy of joy, I expressed it in my countenance as she
entered the room. I ran up to her in a transport of joy. She appeared to
be extremely shocked and frightened; and has since confessed to me that
she apprehended my trouble had thrown me out of myself, till I
communicated my happiness to her. She then advised me to retire to some
place of security; for that the king was highly displeased, and even
enraged at the petition that I had presented to him, and had complained
of it severely. I sent for another chair, for I always discharged them
immediately, lest I might be pursued. Her grace said she would go to
court to see how the news of my lord’s escape was received. When the
news was brought to the king he flew into an excess of passion, and said
he was betrayed; for it could not have been done without some
confederacy. He instantly despatched two persons to the Tower to see
that the other prisoners were well secured, lest they should follow the
example. Some threw the blame upon one, some upon another. The duchess
was the only one at court who knew it.
When I left the duchess I went to a house which Evans had found out for
me, and where she promised to acquaint me where my lord was; she got
thither some few minutes after me, and told me that when she had seen
him secure, she went in search of Mr. Mills, who, by this time, had
recovered himself from his astonishment; that he had returned to her
house, where she found him, and that he had removed my lord from the
first place, where she had desired him to wait, to the house of a poor
woman, directly opposite to the guard-house; she had but one small room
up one pair of stairs, and a very small bed in it.—We threw ourselves
upon the bed, that we might not be heard walking up and down. She left
us a bottle of wine and some bread; and Mrs. Mills brought us some more
in her pocket the next day. We subsisted on this provision from Thursday
till Saturday night, when Mrs. Mills came and conducted my lord to the
Venetian ambassador’s.
We did not communicate the affair to his excellency; but one of his
servants concealed him in his own room till Wednesday, on which day the
ambassador’s coach and six was to go down to Dover to meet his brother.
My lord put on a livery, and went down in the retinue, without the least
suspicion, to Dover, where Mr. Mitchell (which was the name of the
ambassador’s servant) hired a small vessel, and immediately set sail for
Calais. The passage was so remarkably short, that the captain threw out
this reflection, that the wind could not have served better if his
passengers had been flying for their lives, little thinking it to be
really the case. Mr. Mitchell might have easily returned without being
suspected of being concerned in my lord’s escape; but my lord seemed
inclined to have him continue with him, which he did, and has at present
a good place under our young master.
This is as exact and full an account of this affair, and of the persons
concerned in it, as I could possibly give you, to the best of my memory,
and you may rely on the truth of it. I am, with the strongest
attachment, my dear sister, your’s most affectionately,
WINIFRED NITHSDALE.
ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST RISE OF FAIRS IN ENGLAND, AND THE MANNER OF LIVING
IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
Before the necessaries or ornaments of life from the convenience of
communication and the increase of provincial intercourse could be
procured in towns, through the medium of shops, goods and commodities of
every kind were chiefly sold at fairs, to which, as to one universal
mart, the people resorted periodically, and supplied most of their wants
for the ensuing year.
Fairs and markets were at first held near the castles of the great
barons, and near the cathedrals and principal churches in the cities and
great towns, not only to prevent frauds in the king’s duties or customs,
but also as they were esteemed places where the laws of the land were
observed, and as such had a very particular privilege.
The display of merchandize and the conflux of customers at these
principal and only emporia of domestic commerce were prodigious, and
they were, therefore, often held on open and extensive plains.
It appears from a curious record containing the establishment and
expenses of the Earl of Northumberland in the year 1512, that the stores
of his lordship’s house at Wressle, for the whole year were laid in from
fairs; “He that stands charged with my lord’s house for the whole year,
if he may possible, shall be at all fairs, where the gross emptions
(that is the principal articles) shall be bought for the house for the
whole year, as wine, wax, beeves, muttons, wheat and malt.”
This quotation is a proof that fairs were at that time the principal
marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which now are
supplied by trading towns, and the mention of buying beeves and muttons,
(oxen and sheep) shews that at so late a period they knew but little of
breeding cattle.
The great increase of shops in the retail trade in all the towns and
villages through the kingdom since the commencement of the eighteenth
century, by means of which the inhabitants are supplied with every
article necessary for subsistence as well as for luxury, has in a great
measure rendered useless the purposes for which fairs were originally
established. This change in the domestic trade of the country may be
attributed partly to the facility of payment given by the notes of the
bank of England and inland bills of exchange, and partly to the more
speedy and certain intercourse which has been produced by the regularity
of the post office. The latter may be looked upon as the cause and the
former the effect of this change which has so completely altered the
state of fairs throughout the kingdom.
Connected with fairs as furnishing the necessaries of life may be given
an account of the living of the people in England in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
From the household book of the Earl of Northumberland above-mentioned it
appears, that his family, during winter, lived mostly on salted meat and
salt fish, and on that account there was an order for providing 180
gallons of mustard. On flesh days through the year, breakfast for the
earl and his lady was a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a
quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled. On
meagre days, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of
wine, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, or a dish of buttered
eggs. During Lent, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a
quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six baconed herrings, or a dish
of sprats. The other meals had as little variety, except on festival
days.
At that time capons, chickens, hens, pigeons, rabbits, plovers,
woodcocks, quails, snipes, partridges, and pheasants, were accounted
such delicacies as to be prohibited except at the earl’s table.
From the same book it appears that the earl had only two cooks for
dressing victuals for his household which consisted of 229 persons.
Hollinshed, who wrote about 1577, observes that white meats, i. e. milk,
butter and cheese, formerly the chief food of the English people, were
in his time degraded to be the food of the lowest sort, and that the
wealthy fed upon flesh and fish.
Feasts in those times were carried beyond all bounds of moderation.
There is preserved an account of a feast given by Archbishop Nevill at
his installation, 1466, in which are mentioned, among a great variety of
others, the following articles, viz. wheat 300 quarters, ale 300 tuns,
80 oxen, 6 wild bulls, 1000 sheep, 300 calves, 300 swine called porks,
2000 pigs, 200 kids, 4000 rabbits, upwards of 400 harts, bucks and roes,
3000 geese, 2300 capons, 2000 chickens, 4000 pigeons, 100 peacocks, 200
cranes, 4000 mallards and teals, 500 partridges, 400 woodcocks; 1500
hot, and 4000 cold venison pasties, 2000 hot custards, and 4000 cold
ones. On the tables at this feast it is mentioned there were 4 porpoises
and 8 seals.
There were 62 cooks and 515 servants to assist them, and not less than
3000 persons in all were at this feast.
At the above period there was not discovered in society, any pleasure
but that of crouding together in hunting and feasting. The delicate
pleasures of conversation, in communicating opinions, sentiments and
desires, were wholly unknown.
About the year 1512 the breakfast hour was eight, and at ten they sat
down to dinner; at three in the afternoon they had a drinking, and four
was the hour for supper. The gates of the Earl of Northumberland’s
castles were shut at nine in the evening throughout the year, “to the
intent that no servant shall come in at the said gate, that ought to be
within, who are out of the house at that hour.”
By a household establishment of Lord Fairfax’s, about 1650, it appears
that eleven had then become the hour of dining, and towards the end of
that century the hour was twelve, but from the beginning of the last
century it has gradually grown later to the present times, when seven
has become the fashionable hour in noblemen’s houses.
In the country, and in moderate families in the metropolis, one and two
are the more general hours for dining.
From the Percy household book it may be observed, that several dishes
were then in use which have been long banished from our tables; among
these may be reckoned cranes, herons, sea-gulls, bitterns and kirlews,
and at archbishop Nevill’s feast, porpoises and seals were served up.
After the accession of Henry the seventh to the throne, the nation began
to rest from the scenes of war and blood which for several years had
subsisted between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and in the next
reign the people turned their attention more to trade and the arts of
peace, so that we find the mode of living considerably changed, for
luxury being ever the attendant of extended commerce, this brought us
acquainted with the produce of foreign countries till then unknown in
England.
Previously to 1509 the principal vegetables used at the tables of the
great were imported from the Netherlands, so that when Catherine, queen
of Henry the eighth wanted a sallad, she was obliged to despatch a
messenger to Flanders. Asparagus and artichokes were introduced into
England about 1578, and cauliflowers somewhat later. Celery was not
introduced into England till after 1709, when Marshal Tallard being made
prisoner at the battle of Malplaquet, and brought into England, first
introduced this plant on the English tables.
There is an article in the Percy household book which says, “That from
henceforth there be no herbs bought, seeing that the cooks may have
herbs enough in my lord’s gardens.”
Since the introduction of tea into England at the close of the
seventeenth century the living of all classes of the people has
experienced a total change, but it was not till about 1740 that tea came
to be generally used in the country, for previously to that time those
who made use of it got it by stealth, each being afraid of being known
to be in possession of what was then termed a great luxury.
Waller has a poem addressed to the queen Maria d’Este, wife of James the
second in 1683, “On Tea commended by her Majesty,” whereby it seems it
was even then a new thing, though Mr. Hanway in his Essay on Tea says
that Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory introduced it into England in 1666,
and that it was then admired as a new thing. Their ladies introduced it
among the women of quality, and its price was then £3 per pound, and
continued the same till 1707. In 1715 green tea began to be used, and
the practice of drinking tea descended to the middling classes of the
people.
In the Tatler (No. 86, Oct. 27, 1709) the author mentions inviting his
friends, seemingly as though tea was common, to drink a dish of tea,
which they refused, saying they never drank tea in the morning.
The same author observes, that dinner had in his memory, crept by
degrees from twelve o’clock to three, and in the Spectator it is said
that coffee houses were frequented by shopkeepers from six in the
morning, and that the students at law made their appearance in them in
their night gowns about eight. A lady who sends her journal to the
Spectator represents herself as taking chocolate in bed, and sleeping
after it till ten, and drinking her Bohea from that hour till eleven.
Her dinner hour was from three to four, and she did not sit up later at
a card party than twelve. A citizen out of trade, in the same work,
describes himself as rising at eight, dining at two, and going to bed at
ten if not kept up at the club he frequented.
The history of Taverns in this country may be traced back to the time of
king Henry the fourth, for so ancient is that of the Boar’s Head in East
Cheap, London, the rendezvous of prince Henry and his riotous
companions. Of little less antiquity is the White Hart without
Bishopsgate, which now bears in the front of it, the date of its
erection, 1480.
SIR RICHARD CLOUGH.
Sir Richard Clough was a man of distinguished character, who raised
himself by his merit, from a poor boy at Denbigh to be one of the
greatest merchants of his time. He was first a chorister at Chester,
then had the good fortune to become apprentice to the famous Sir Thomas
Gresham, and afterwards his partner, with whom he may be considered as
joint founder of the Royal Exchange, having contributed several thousand
pounds towards that noble design. His residence was chiefly at Antwerp,
where after his death his body was interred; his heart at Whitchurch, in
the vicinity of Denbigh. He is said to have made a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, and to have been a knight of the holy sepulchre; and he
accordingly assumed the five crosses, the badge of that order, for his
arms. His wealth was so great, that his name became proverbial, and the
Welsh have a saying, on any person’s attaining great riches, that he _is
become a CLOUGH_. Sir Richard left two daughters, but it is probable
that they enjoyed but an inconsiderable part of his wealth, which is
said to have gone to Sir Thomas Gresham, according to an agreement in
case of survivorship. Sir Richard died first, but the time is unknown.
Sir Thomas survived till the year 1579.
The original hint of the Royal Exchange was given to Sir Thomas Gresham
by Sir Richard Clough, who in the year 1561, had been advanced by the
former, to be his correspondent and agent in the then emporium of the
world, Antwerp. Clough wrote to his master, to blame the citizens of
London for neglecting so necessary a thing; bluntly saying that “they
studied nothing else but their own private profit; that they were
content to walk about in the rain, more like pedlars than merchants, and
that there was no kind of people but had their place to transact
business in, in other countries.” Thus stimulated, Sir Thomas, in 1566,
laid the foundation, and the next year completed what was then called
the _Bourse_, which three years after on being visited by queen
Elizabeth, was dignified by her with the title of _Royal Exchange_.
An original picture of Sir Richard Clough is preserved at Llanywern, the
seat of Sir Thomas Salusbury, Bart. It is a half length extremely well
painted on board, his hair is very short, and of a dark brown. He is
dressed in a short close jacket, black, striped with white, and great
white breeches. In his right hand a glove; his left on his sword; on his
right side is a dagger. The arms of the holy sepulchre, which he had
assumed, are on one side of the picture. It was probably painted at
Antwerp, which at this period abounded with artists of the first merit.
ROYAL CLEMENCY.
Lewis the thirteenth of France being desirous to sit as judge at the
trial of the Duke de la Vallette, assembled, in his cabinet, some
members of the Parliament, together with some counsellors of state, to
consult on the propriety of such a step. Upon their being compelled by
the king to give their opinions concerning the decree for his arrest,
the president, De Believre, said, “That he found it very strange that a
prince should pass sentence upon one of his subjects; that kings had
reserved to themselves the power of pardoning, and left that of
condemning to their officers; that his majesty wanted to see before him
at the bar, a person, who by his decision was to be hurried away in an
hour’s time into another world. That this is what a prince’s
countenance, from whence favours flow, should never bear; that his
presence alone removed ecclesiastical censures; and that subjects ought
not to go away dissatisfied from their prince.” When sentence was
passed, the same president said, “This is an unprecedented judgment, and
contrary to the example of past ages, to see a king of France, in the
quality of a judge, condemning a gentleman to death.”—It may be proper
to add, that the sentence was afterwards revoked.
It has always been urged against king James the second, as a proof of
the inveterate cruelty of his disposition, that he should have ordered
the Duke of Monmouth into his presence, and not pardoned him. Welwood,
in his Memoirs, says, that James, in this instance, made an exception to
a general rule observed inviolably by kings, “never to allow a criminal,
under sentence of death, the sight of his prince’s face, without a
design to pardon him.”
The custom of pardoning criminals, by admitting them into the presence
of the sovereign, is of very ancient date. When Agag, king of the
Amalekites, had been taken prisoner by Saul (1 Sam., xv. 20-33) and his
life spared by that monarch, contrary to the divine command, and was
afterwards brought into the presence of Samuel, he exclaimed “Surely the
bitterness of death is past,” evidently in allusion to this custom. But
Samuel executed the command of GOD, by putting Agag to death, which
ought to have been done by Saul, on taking him prisoner.
LOTTERIES.
As a source of revenue, this is only a modern invention; and it is
evident, were it not for the monopoly of this species of gambling, which
the government insists on enjoying, that it could not possibly prove of
any material advantage; for individuals would soon set up private
lotteries, could afford to carry them on with less profit, and would
soon draw all the benefit of such speculations to themselves.
The Romans had lotteries, particularly whilst they were under the
government of the emperors. The tickets were distributed gratis among
those guests who attended their entertainments, and all of them gained
some prize. Heliogabalus took pleasure in making the prizes of very
disproportionate value. Some of the prizes were ten camels, others ten
flies, some ten pounds of gold, ten eggs, and the like. The plays which
Nero gave, were concluded by lotteries, consisting of prizes of wheat,
wine, stuffs, gold, silver, slaves, ships, houses, and lands.
In England, lotteries certainly took place in the reign of queen
Elizabeth. According to Raynal, the two American companies in her reign,
were favoured with the first lottery that ever was drawn in her
dominions. The first however, of which we have any regular account was
drawn in the year 1569. It consisted of 400,000 lots, at ten shillings
each; the prizes were plate, and the profits were to go towards
repairing the havens of this kingdom. It was drawn at the west door of
St. Paul’s Cathedral. The drawing began on the 11th of January, 1569,
and continued incessantly, day and night, until the sixth of May,
following. There were then only three lottery offices in London. It was
at first intended to have been drawn at the house of Mr. Derricke, the
queen’s jeweller, but was afterwards drawn as above mentioned.
The proposals for this lottery were published in the years 1567 and
1568. Dr. Rawlinson shewed the Society of Antiquaries in 1748, “A
proposal for a very rich lottery, general, without any blanks,
containing a great number of good prizes, as well of ready money as of
plate and certain sorts of merchandizes, having been valued and prized
by the commandment of the queen’s most excellent majesty’s order, to the
intent that such commodities as may chance to arise thereof, after the
charges borne, may be converted towards the reparations of the havens,
and strength of the realm, and towards such other public good works. The
number of lots shall be 400,000 and no more, and every lot shall be the
sum of ten shillings sterling and no more. To be filled by the feast of
St. Bartholomew. The shew of prizes are to be seen in Cheapside, at the
sign of the Queen’s Arms, the house of Mr. Derricke, goldsmith, servant
to the queen.”
In the year 1612, king James in special favour for the plantation of
English colonies in Virginia, granted a lottery to be held at the west
end of St. Paul’s, whereof one Thomas Sharplys, a tailor of London, had
the chief prize, which was 4000 crowns in plate.
Lotteries were revived in the reign of William the third, and as all our
evils were then attributed to Dutch counsels, the blame of lotteries,
those banes of industry, frugality, and virtue, was ascribed to an
imitation of the example of Holland, and a wish in the natives of that
country to ruin our morals, as well as to cramp our trade.
In the reign of queen Anne it was thought necessary to suppress
lotteries as nuisances to the public. They have, however, been revived
of late years, and are now carried forward in a more extensive manner
than at any former period.
HERCULANEUM MANUSCRIPTS.
The following account of the ancient rolls of Papyrus, discovered at
Herculaneum, and the method employed to unroll them, is extracted from a
letter written in 1802, by the Hon. Henry Grey Bennett, addressed to the
late Rev. Samuel Henley, D. D.
“The _papyrus_ of the Greeks and Romans was the inside coating of a
plant of the same name; which was formerly common in various parts of
Sicily; a small river now choaked up near Palermo was called the
_Papyrus_, probably from the number of that species of plant which grew
in its bed; the same name was also given to various rivulets in the
island. It is however most common in the neighbourhood of Syracuse,
where a Sicilian a few years ago established a manufactory of that
article, more indeed to gratify the wishes of the curious, than to reap
any immediate profit. The texture is not so fine as in the Egyptian or
eastern manuscripts, which exist in the libraries of Paris. This may be
owing probably to the method of preparation, and not to any difference
in the plant.
“The _papyri_ are joined together, and form one roll, on each sheet of
which, the characters are painted, standing out in a species of _bas
relief_, and singly to be read with the greatest ease. As there are no
stops, a difficulty is found in joining the letters, in making out the
words, and in discovering the sense of the phrase. The manuscripts were
found in a chamber of an excavated house, in the ancient Herculaneum, to
the number of about 1800, a considerable part of which were in a state
to be unrolled. That city was buried for the most part under a shower of
hot ashes, and the manuscripts were reduced by the heat to a state of
tinder, or to speak more properly, resembled paper which has been burnt.
Where the baking has not been complete, and where any part of the
vegetable juice has remained it is almost impossible to unroll them, the
sheets towards the centre, being so closely united. In the others as you
approach to the centre, or conclusion, the manuscripts become smoother,
and the work proceeds with greater rapidity. A manuscript, by Epicurus,
was unrolled in March, 1802, twenty seven sheets of which were taken
off, not indeed so well as could have been hoped, but a great part
sufficiently intelligible, to judge of the style of the author, and the
nature of its contents. It unfortunately fell to the lot of a young
beginner, who in his hurry to conclude, spoiled much more than he saved.
“The _papyri_ are very rough on the outside, and in some there are great
holes. All the inequalities are made smooth, previous to unrolling them,
with facility; in consequence much must inevitably be lost. Great care,
however, is taken to preserve all the pieces, and when broken off, they
are placed in the same sheet, preserving their original position.
“When first Mr. Hayter began this process, there was one man tolerably
expert, and three only who had ever seen the manner of it; consequently,
all were to be taught. This may serve as a reason why, as yet, so little
has been done. One Latin manuscript was found, but it was in too bad a
state to promise any chance of success. They are of different sizes,
some containing only a few sheets, as a single play, others some
hundreds, and a few, perhaps, two thousand. We may hope from the first,
Menander, and from the others, the histories of Livy and Diodorus
Siculus, perhaps the Doric poetry of the Sicilian muse, or the
philosophy of the schools of Agrigentum and of Syracuse. We are led from
the nature of the manuscripts to trust, that the indefatigable labours,
the attention, and industry of Mr. Hayter will not be thrown away, and
that the assistance to be derived from the English minister, Mr.
Drummond, as well on account of his classical knowledge, and his love of
literature, as the advantages arising from his situation, may command
ultimate success, and secure to those who are engaged in this business,
the protection of the Neapolitan government, and the thanks of the
literary world.”
WOLVES IN ENGLAND.
King Edward the first commissioned Peter Corbet to destroy the wolves in
the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and Stafford,
and ordered John Gilford to hunt them in all the forests of England.
The forest of Chiltern was infested by wolves and wild bulls in the time
of Edward the Confessor. William the Conqueror granted the lordship of
Riddesdale, in Northumberland, to Robert de Umfraville, on condition of
defending that part of the country against enemies and wolves. King John
gave a premium of ten shillings for catching two wolves.
In the reign of king Henry the third Vitalis de Engaine held the manors
of Laxton and Pitchley, in the county of Northampton, by the service of
hunting the wolf, whenever the king should command him. In the reign of
Edward the first, it was found by inquisition that John de Engaine, held
the manor of Great Gidding in the county of Huntingdon by the service of
hunting the hare, fox, wild cat, and wolf, within the counties of
Huntingdon, Northampton, Buckingham, Oxford, and Rutland. In the reign
of Edward the third, Thomas de Engaine, held certain manors by the
service of finding at his own proper cost, certain dogs for the
destruction of wolves, foxes, martins, and wild cats, in the counties of
Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham.
PROFESSOR PORSON.
This eminent scholar and acute critic was born at East Ruston, in the
county of Norfolk, on the 25th of December, 1759. At a very early period
he displayed talents which gave promise of future excellence, and some
gentlemen who admired his acquirements in learning, sent him to Eton,
from whence he was afterwards entered of Trinity College, Cambridge. The
following account of Mr. Porson, when an Eton boy, is extracted from the
evidence of Dr. Goodall, the present Provost of Eton, given before the
Education Committee of the House of Commons.
Dr. Goodall being asked if he was acquainted with what happened to the
late Professor Porson to prevent his election to King’s College, replied
as follows:—
“Every account that I have read about him, in relation to that
circumstance is incorrect. When he came to the school he was placed
rather higher by the reputation of his abilities, than perhaps he
ought to have been, in consequence of his actual attainments; and I
can only say that many of the statements in the life of Porson are
not founded in truth. With respect to prosody, he knew but little,
and as to Greek he had made comparatively but little progress when
he came to Eton. The very ingenious and learned editor of one
account of him, has been misinformed in most particulars; and many
of the incidents which he relates, I can venture from my own
knowledge to assert, are distorted or exaggerated. Even Person’s
compositions, at an early period, though eminently correct, fell far
short of excellence; still we all looked up to him in consequence of
his great abilities and variety of information, though much of that
information was confined to the knowledge of his schoolfellows, and
could not easily fall under the notice of his instructors. He always
undervalued school exercises, and generally wrote his exercises fair
at once, without study. I should be sorry to detract from the merit
of an individual whom I loved, esteemed, and admired; but I speak of
him when he had only given the promise of his future excellence; and
in point of school exercises, I think he was very inferior to more
than one of his contemporaries; I would name the present Marquis
Wellesley as infinitely superior to him in composition.
“On being asked whether he wrote the same beautiful hand as he did
afterwards, Dr. Goodall replied he did, nor was there any doubt of
his general scholarship.
“To a question whether he made great progress during the time he was
at Eton, or after he left? Dr. Goodall said he was advanced as far
as he could be with propriety, but there were certainly some there
who would not have been afraid to challenge Porson as a school-boy,
though they would have shunned all idea of competition with him at
Cambridge. The first book that Porson ever studied, as he often told
me, was Chambers’s Cyclopædia; he read the whole of that dictionary
through, and in a great degree made himself master of the algebraic
part of that work entirely by the force of his understanding.
“Dr. Goodall was then asked if he considered there was any ground
for complaint on the part of Porson, in not having been sent to
Cambridge, to which he answered no; he was placed as high in the
school as he well could be; as a proof however of his merits, when
he left Eton, contributions were readily supplied by Etonians in aid
of Sir George Baker’s proposal, to secure the funds for his
maintenance at the university.”
In the year 1793, Mr. Porson was elected professor of Greek in the
University of Cambridge, that office being then vacant by the death of
professor Cooke. The following letter relating to this election from Mr.
Porson to the Rev. Dr. Postlethwayte, master of Trinity College, is now
first printed:—
“_Essex Court, Temple, 6th October, 1792._
“Sir,—When I first received the favour of your letter I must own
that I felt rather vexation and chagrin than hope and satisfaction.
I had looked upon myself so completely in the light of an outcast
from Alma Mater, that I had made up my mind to have no farther
connection with the place. The prospect you held out to me gave me
more uneasiness than pleasure. When I was younger than I now am, and
my disposition more sanguine than it is at present, I was in daily
expectation of Mr. Cooke’s resignation, and I flattered myself with
the hope of succeeding to the honour he was going to quit. As hope
and ambition are great castle-builders, I had laid a scheme, partly
as I was willing to think, for the joint credit, partly for the
mutual advantage, of myself and the university. I had projected a
plan of reading lectures, and I persuaded myself that I should
easily obtain a grace, permitting me to exact a certain sum from
every person who attended. But seven years’ waiting will tire out
the most patient temper, and all my ambition of this sort was long
ago laid asleep. The sudden news of the vacant professorship put me
in mind of poor Jacob, who having served seven years in hopes of
being rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it was Leah.
“Such, sir, I confess were the first ideas that took possession of
my mind. But after a little reflection, I resolved to refer a matter
of this importance to my friends. This circumstance has caused the
delay, for which I ought before now to have apologized. My friends
unanimously exhorted me to embrace the good fortune which they
conceived to be within my grasp. Their advice, therefore, joined to
the expectation I had entertained of doing some small good by my
exertions in the employment, together with the pardonable vanity
which the honour annexed to the office inspired, determined me; and
I was on the point of troubling you, sir, and the other electors
with notice of my intentions to profess myself a candidate, when an
objection which had escaped me in the hurry of my thoughts, now
occurred to my recollection.
“The same reason which hindered me from keeping my fellowship by the
method you obligingly pointed out to me, would, I am greatly afraid,
prevent me from being Greek professor. Whatever concern this may
give me for myself, it gives me none for the public. I trust there
are at least twenty or thirty in the university, equally able and
willing to undertake the office; possessed, many of talents superior
to mine, and all of a more complying conscience. This I speak upon
the supposition that the next Greek professor will be compelled to
read lectures; but if the place remains a sinecure, the number of
qualified persons will be greatly increased. And though it was even
granted that my industry and attention might possibly produce some
benefit to the interests of learning and the credit of the
university, that trifling gain would be as much exceeded by keeping
the professorship a sinecure, and bestowing it on a sound believer,
as temporal considerations are outweighed by spiritual. Having only
a strong persuasion, not an absolute certainty, that such a
subscription is required of the professor elect; if I am mistaken, I
hereby offer myself as a candidate, but if I am right in my opinion,
I shall beg of you to order my name to be erased from the boards,
and I shall esteem it a favour conferred on, Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
R. PORSON.”
* * * * *
_Letter from the Rev. Joseph Goodall, D. D. Upper Master (now
Provost) of Eton College, to Mr. Porson._
“_Eton, Nov. 16th, 1806._
“Dear Porson,—The bishop of Rochester [Dr. Dampier] has written to
me requesting my assistance on the following subject. ‘On summing up
matters the Oxford people find no account of the Eton MS of Strabo,
of which use has been made, and want one for their preface.’ Now the
said bishop, urged by his brother of Oxford [Dr. Randolph] at the
same time he hints that you have examined the MS in question, and
advises me to enter upon the subject with you, which I most gladly
do, praying for such information as you may be disposed to give me,
being fully persuaded that you are not likely to forget what you
have once seen.
“I write to the bishop by this post to acknowledge my incompetence.
How glad should Mrs. Goodall and myself be, if you would take the
trouble of once more inspecting the MS and dating your kind
communication from the Eton library. Should you be a prisoner
in——street will you suffer me to bring the MS to town about the
middle of December, and then give me your opinion of its value, age,
&c. The master of the Charter-House, [Dr. Raine] whom I hope soon to
greet by some other title, will I am sure, have the goodness to
forward this petition to you.
“Charles Hayes, who, with his wife is now on a visit to us, desires
his kindest remembrance. Mrs. Goodall is fatigued to death with
nursing a sick nephew and niece, and I am sorry to add that I am on
the invalid list myself, but we hope to be all well in the course of
a few days. She unites in every good wish with
Dear Porson,
Yours most faithfully,
J. GOODALL.”
* * * * *
_From Mr. William Laing of Edinburgh to Mr. Porson._
“_Edinburgh, 3d of Jan. 1807._
“Sir,—The edition of Herodotus being now compleated after the plan
you proceeded on, I have taken the liberty of dedicating to you,
which I hope will meet your approbation. Mr. Dunbar who has
succeeded poor Mr. Dalzel has paid the utmost attention to it. I
shall order Cuthell to forward a copy for your use. A selection has
been made of the best notes from Wesseling; which with his Index
Rerum, will make it very compleat. I return you my best thanks for
the trouble you voluntarily undertook in promoting this speculation.
I hope soon to see you in town, and shall personally repeat my
obligations.
“I am about to print a new and elegant edition of Pindar in two
volumes from Heyne’s—You see there is still some spirit for
enterprize existing here.
“I hope all my little editions will possess beauty and correctness.
I believe you have still a volume of Herodotus which belongs to a
person here who wants it. Please deliver it to my son who will call
for it.
I remain with the highest respect,
Sir, your very obedient servant,
WILLIAM LAING.”
* * * * *
_From Dr. Charles Burney to Mr. Porson._
“_Greenwich, June 20th, 1808._
“My dear Porson,—My friends at Cambridge direct me to request you
will go down as speedily as may be, to vote, and collect votes, for
a degree of M. A. to be conferred on me. Now though I know your
objections to expeditions of such a nature, yet I cannot help
intreating you, if you have not sound reasons against it to go down
and aid my cause.
“Kaye tells me that no time is to be lost. So if you can, pack up a
small portion of wardrobe and visit _alma mater_, so will you
greatly oblige and favor
C. BURNEY.”
* * * * *
_From Dr. Davy, Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to Mr.
Porson._
“_Caius Coll. Tuesday 21st June, 1808._
“My dear Porson—I take the liberty of telling you, in case it should
affect any of your movements, that Dr. Burney’s mandamus will be
voted for on Friday next, at 2 o’clock precisely. Every thing seems
in his favour.
Your’s most truly,
M. DAVY.”
* * * * *
_From Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq. to Mr. James Perry, Morning Chronicle
office, Strand._
“_Carlton House, Feb. 12th, 1805._
“Dear Sir,—Do pray at your convenience inform me of the address of
Mr. Porson, as some papers have been found in the collection of the
late Sir William Hamilton respecting the Papiri, which are very
interesting; and several MSS so clearly written out, as to be ready
for the opinion of Mr. Porson, the only person in my opinion fit to
inspect them in the whole kingdom.
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
THOMAS TYRWHITT.”
HISTORY OF SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.
In the early ages of Christianity the honour of being deposited within
the walls of the church was reserved to martyrs; and it was the request
of the emperor Constantine in imitation of this holy mode of interment,
that after his death, his remains might be allowed to lie in the porch
of the basilica of the Apostles, which he himself had erected in
Constantinople. Hence the eloquent Chrysostom, when speaking of the
triumphs of Christianity, exultingly observes, in allusion to this
circumstance, that the Cæsars, subdued by the humble fishermen whom they
had persecuted, now appeared as suppliants before them, and gloried in
occupying the place of porters at the doors of their sepulchres. Bishops
and priests distinguished by their learning, zeal, and sanctity, were
gradually permitted to share the honours of the martyrs, and to repose
with them within the sanctuary itself. A pious wish in some to be
deposited in the neighbourhood of such holy persons, and to rest under
the shadow of the altars; in others an absurd love of distinction even
beyond the grave; to which may be added, that the clergy, by making such
a distinction expensive, rendered it enviable; so that by degrees, all
the wholesome restrictions of antiquity were broken through, and at
length the noblest public edifices, the temples of the ETERNAL, the
seats of holiness and purity, were converted into so many dormitories of
the dead.
Our present business is to investigate the antiquity and variety of
sepulchral monuments, which have been erected as memorials of the
illustrious dead, in the cathedral, conventual, and parish churches of
this island. During the time of our Saxon ancestors, it is probable,
that few or no monuments of this kind were erected; at least, being
usually placed in the churches belonging to the greater abbeys, they
felt the stroke of the general dissolution, and it is believed there are
now scarcely any extant. Those we meet with for the kings of that race,
such as Ina at Wells;[59] Osric, at Gloucester; Sebba and Ethelbert,
which were in Old St. Paul’s, or where-ever else they may occur, are
undoubtedly cenotaphs, erected in later ages by the several abbeys and
convents of which these royal personages were the founders, in gratitude
to such generous benefactors.
The period immediately after the conquest was not a time for people to
think of such memorials for themselves, or friends. Few could then tell
how long the lands they enjoyed would remain their own; and most indeed
were put into the hands of new possessors, who, frequently, as we find
in Domesday Book, held thirty or forty manors, or more, at a time. All
_then_ above the degree of servants, were soldiers, the sword alone made
the gentleman, and accordingly on a strict inquiry, we shall meet with
few or no monuments of that age, except for the kings, royal family, or
some few of the chief nobility and leaders, among which, those for the
Veres, Earls of Oxford, at Earl’s Colne, in Essex, are some of the most
ancient. It is probable that this state of things, so far as regards
sepulchral monuments, continued through the troublesome reign of
Stephen, and during the confusion which prevailed while the barons’ wars
subsisted, and until the ninth year of king Henry the third, 1224.
In that year Magna Charta being confirmed, and every man’s security
better established, property became more dispersed, manors were in more
divided hands, and the lords of them began to settle on their
possessions in the country. In that age many parish churches were built,
and it is not improbable that the care of a resting-place for their
bodies, and monuments to preserve their memories, became more general
and diffused.
In country parish churches, the ancient monuments are usually found
either in the chancel, or in small chapels, or side aisles, which have
been built by the lords of manors, and patrons of the churches, (which
for the most part went together,) and being designed for burying places
for their families, were frequently endowed with chantries, in which
priests officiated, and offered up prayers for the souls of their
founder and his progenitors.
The tracing out, therefore, of such founders, will frequently help us to
the knowledge of an ancient tomb which is found placed near the altar of
such chantries. If there are more than one, they are, probably, for
succeeding lords, and where there have been found ancient monuments in
the church, also, besides what are in such chapels or aisles, they may
be supposed to have been erected in memory of lords, prior to the
foundation of the buildings.
CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS.
The first species of monument, of which I propose to give the history,
is that denominated _cross-legged_, from its having the recumbent effigy
of the deceased upon it, represented in armour, with the legs crossed.
During the Norman period of our history, the holy war, and vows of
pilgrimage to Palestine, were esteemed highly meritorious. The religious
order of laymen, the knights templars, were received, cherished, and
enriched throughout Europe, and the individuals of that community, after
death, being usually buried cross-legged, in token of the banner under
which they fought, and completely armed in regard to their being
soldiers, this sort of monument grew much in fashion, and though all the
effigies with which we meet in that shape are commonly called knights
templars, yet it is certain that many of them do not represent persons
of that order; and Mr. Lethieullier says (_Archæologia, vol. 2. p. 292_)
that he had rarely found any of these monuments which he could with
certainty say had been erected to the memory of persons who had belonged
to that community.
The order of knights templars had its rise but in the year 1118, and
in 1134, we find Robert duke of Normandy, son of William the
conqueror, represented in this manner on his tomb in Gloucester
cathedral.[60]—Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was represented thus on
his fine tomb, which was in St. Paul’s cathedral, before the fire of
London. And in the Temple church there still remain the cross-legged
effigies of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219;
William his son, who died in 1231; and Gilbert, another son, who died
in 1241; none of whom it is believed were of the order of Templars.
If these monuments were designed to denote at least, that the
persons, to whose memory they were erected, had been in the Holy
Land, yet all who had been there did not follow this fashion, for
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, second son of king Henry the
third, had been there, and yet, as appears by his monument, still in
being in Westminster-abbey, he is not represented cross-legged.[61]
However, it seems to have been a prevailing fashion till the sixth
year of Edward the second, 1312, when the order of Templars coming
to destruction, and into the highest contempt, their fashions of all
kinds seem to have been totally abolished.
By this it may be determined that all those effigies, either of wood or
stone, which we find in country churches, whether in niches in the walls
or on table tombs, and represented in complete armour, with a shield on
the left arm, and the right hand grasping the sword, cross-legged, and a
lion, talbot, or some animal couchant at the feet, have been set up
between the ninth of Henry the third, 1224, and the seventh of Edward
the second, 1313, and what corroborates this opinion is, that whenever
any such figures are certainly known, either by the arms on the shield,
or by uninterrupted tradition, they have always been found to fall
within that period, and whenever, says Mr. Lethieullier in the before
mentioned paper, I have met with such monument, totally forgotten, I
have, on searching for the owners of the church and manor, found some
person or other, of especial note, who lived in that age, and left
little room to doubt but it was his memory which was intended to be
preserved.
It must, however, be acknowledged that this sort of monument did not
entirely cease after the year 1312, for there is one in the church of
Leekhampton, in Gloucestershire, which, by tradition, is said to be for
Sir John Gifford, who died possessed of that manor, in the third of king
Edward the third, 1328.
The Rev. Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcester, has the following
observations on this sort of monument:—“It is an opinion which
universally prevails, with regard to the cross-legged monuments, that
they were all erected to the memory of knights templars; now, to me, it
is very evident that not one of them belonged to that order, but as Mr.
Habingdon, in describing those at Alvechurch, hath justly expressed it,
to ‘Knights of the Holy Voyage,’ for the order of knights templars
followed the rule of the canons regular of St. Augustin, and as such
were under a vow of celibacy. Now there is scarcely any one of these
monuments which is certainly known for whom it was erected, but it is as
certain that the person it represents was a married man.
“The knights templars always wore a white habit, with a red cross on the
left shoulder. I believe not a single instance can be produced of either
the mantle or cross being carved on any of these monuments, which surely
would not have been omitted, as by it they were distinguished from all
other orders, had these been really designed to represent knights
templars.
“Lastly, this order was not confined to England only, but dispersed
itself all over Europe, yet it will be very difficult to find one
cross-legged monument any where out of England; whereas no doubt they
would have abounded in France, Italy, and elsewhere, had it been a
fashion peculiar to that famous order.
“But though for these reasons I cannot allow the cross-legged monuments
to have been erected for knights templars, yet they have some relation
to them; being memorials of those zealous devotees, who had either been
in Palestine, personally engaged in what is called the Holy War, or had
laid themselves under a vow to go thither, though perhaps they were
prevented from it by death; some few indeed might possibly be erected to
the memory of persons who had made pilgrimages thither, merely out of
devotion; among the latter probably was the lady of the family of
Metham, of Metham in Yorkshire, to whose memory a cross-legged monument
was placed in a chapel adjoining the once collegiate church of Howden,
in Yorkshire, and is at this day remaining, together with that of her
husband on the same tomb.
“As this religious madness lasted no longer than the reign of our Henry
the third, (the seventh and last crusade being published in the year
1268) and the whole order of knights templars dissolved in the seventh
of Edward the second; military expeditions to the Holy Land, as well as
devout pilgrimages thither had their period by the year 1312,
consequently none of those cross-legged monuments are of a later date
than the reign of Edward the second, or the beginning of Edward the
third, nor of an earlier than that of king Stephen, when those
expeditions first took place in this kingdom.”
THE FOLLOWING RULES WERE OBSERVED BY ANCIENT SCULPTORS IN ERECTING
SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.[62]
Kings and princes, in what part, or by what means soever, they died,
were represented upon their tombs clothed with their coats of arms,
their shield, bourlet or pad, crown, crest, supporters, lambrequins or
_mantlings_, orders, and devices, upon their effigies, and round about
their tombs.
Knights and gentlemen might not be represented with their coats of arms,
unless they had lost their lives in some battle, single combat or
rencontre with the prince himself, or in his service, unless they died
and were buried within their own manors and lordships; and then to shew
they died a natural death in their beds, they were represented with
their coat of armour, ungirded, without a helmet, bareheaded, their eyes
closed, their feet resting against the back of a greyhound, and without
any sword.
Those who died on the day of battle, or in any mortal conflict on the
side of the victorious party, were to be represented with a drawn sword
in their right hand, the shield in their left, their helmet on their
head, (which some think ought to be closed and the vizor let down, as a
sign that they fell fighting against their enemies) having their coats
of arms girded over their armour, and their feet resting on a lion.
Those who died in captivity, or before they had paid their ransom, were
figured on their tombs without spurs or helmets, without coats of arms,
and without swords, the scabbard thereof only girded to, and hanging at
their side.
Those who fell on the side of the vanquished in a rencontre or battle
were to be represented without coats of arms, the sword at their side
and in the scabbard, the vizor raised and open, their hands joined
before their breasts, and their feet resting against the back of a dead
and overthrown lion.
Those who had been vanquished and slain in the lists in a combat of
honour were to be placed on their tomb armed at all points, their
battle-axe lying by them, the left arm crossed over the right.
Those who were victorious in the lists were exhibited on their tombs
armed at all points, their battle-axe in their arms, the right arm
crossed over the left.
It was customary to represent ecclesiastical persons on their tombs
clothed in their respective sacerdotal habits. The canons with the
surplice, square cap, and aumasse or amice, that is the undermost part
of the priest’s habit.
The abbots were represented with their mitres and crosiers turned to the
left.
The bishops, with their great copes, their gloves in their hands,
holding their crosiers with their left hands and seeming to give their
benediction with the right, their mitres on their heads and their
armorial bearings round their tombs supported by angels.
The popes, cardinals, patriarchs, and archbishops were likewise all
represented in their official habits.
The editors of the Antiquarian Repertory (vol. 2. p. 226.) have given
the following additional particulars relating to these monuments:—
“Although the figures represented on tombs with their legs crossed, are
commonly stiled Knights Templars, there are divers circumstances which
intitled other persons to be so represented. The first, having served
personally, though for hire in the Holy Land. Secondly, having made a
vow to go thither, though prevented by sickness or death. Thirdly, the
having contributed to the fitting out of soldiers or ships for that
service. Fourthly, having been born with the army in Palestine. And
lastly, by having been considerable benefactors to the order of Knights
Templars, persons were rendered partakers of the merits and honours of
that fraternity, and buried with their distinctions, an idea which has
been more recently adopted abroad by many great personages, who have
been interred in the habits of Capuchins. Indeed the admission of laymen
to the fraternity of a religious order was no uncommon circumstance in
former days.
“So long as the Knights Templars remained in estimation it is probable
that persons availed themselves of that privileged distinction, but as
at its dissolution the Knights were accused of divers enormous crimes,
it is not likely any one would chuse to claim brotherhood with them, or
hand themselves or friends to posterity as members of a society held in
detestation all over Europe, so that cross-legged figures, or monuments,
may pretty safely be estimated as _prior_ to the year 1312, when that
dissolution took place, or at most they cannot exceed it by above sixty
or seventy years, as persons of sufficient age to be benefactors before
that event, would not, according to the common age of man, outlive them
more than that term.”
CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS IN THE TEMPLE CHURCH.[63]
_Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex._
(1148.)
He is represented in mail with a surcoat, and round helmet flatted on
the top, with a nose piece, which was of iron to defend the nose from
swords. His head rests on a cushion placed lozenge fashion, his right
hand on his breast, a long sword at his right side, and on his left arm
a long pointed shield, charged with an escarbuncle on a diapered field.
This is the first instance in England of arms on a sepulchral figure.
This Earl, driven to despair by the confiscation of his estates by king
Stephen, indulged in every act of violence, and making an attack on the
castle of Burwell, was there mortally wounded, and was carried off by
the Templars, who as he died under sentence of excommunication, declined
giving him Christian burial, but wrapping his body up in lead, hung it
on a crooked tree in the orchard of the Old Temple, London. William,
prior of Walden, having obtained absolution for him of the Pope, made
application for his body, for the purpose of burying it at Walden, upon
which the Templars took it down, and deposited it in the cemetery of the
New Temple.
_William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke._
This monument represents a knight in mail with a surcoat, his helmet
more completely rounded than the adjoining one, and the cushion as in
all the rest laid straiter under his head. He is drawing his short
dagger or broken sword with his right hand, and on his left arm has a
short pointed shield, on which are his arms, per pale, _or_ and _vert_,
a lion rampant, _gules_, armed and langued, _gules_, below his knees are
bands or garters, as if to separate the cuisses from the greaves; his
legs are crossed, and under his feet is a lion couchant.
The first account of this William is in the 28th of Henry the second,
when Henry son of that prince, who had behaved himself rebelliously
against his father, lying on his death bed, with great penitence
delivered to him, as to his most intimate friend, his cross to carry to
Jerusalem. He obtained from Richard the first on his first coming to
England after his father’s death, Isabel, daughter and heiress of
Richard, Earl of Pembroke, in marriage, and with her that earldom. He
died advanced in years at his manor of Caversham, near Reading, in 1219.
His body was carried first to Reading abbey, then to Westminster, and
last to the Temple church, where it was solemnly interred.
_Robert Lord Ros of Hamlake._
The most elegant of all the figures in the Temple church represents a
comely young knight, in mail, and a flowing mantle, with a kind of cowl;
his hair neatly curled at the sides, and his crown appearing to be
shaven. His hands are elevated in a praying posture, and on his left arm
is a short pointed shield, charged with three water-bougets, the arms of
the family of Ros. He has at his left side a long sword, and the armour
of his legs, which are crossed, has a ridge or seam up the front,
continued over the knee, and forming a kind of garter below the knee: at
his feet a lion.
This Robert Lord Ros was surnamed _Fursan_, and incurred the displeasure
of king Richard the first, but for what offence is not said. He was one
of the chief barons who undertook to compel king John’s observance of
the great charter. At the close of his life he took upon him the order
of the Templars, and died in their habit. He was buried in this church
in 1227.
_William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke._
The next figure but one to that of the Earl of Pembroke, may be for
William Marshall, eldest son of that Earl. It is a cross-legged knight
in mail, with a surcoat, his helmet round, surmounted with a kind of
round cap, and the mouth piece up, his hands folded on his breast, his
shield long and pointed, and now plain: a very long sword at his right
side; the belt from which his shield hangs studded with quatre-foils,
and that of his sword with lozenges.
This William Marshall died without issue in 1231, and was buried in this
church near the grave of his father.
_Uncertain Monuments in the Temple Church._
The five figures in the north group of this church are not ascertained
absolutely to whom they belong. Camden and Weever ascribe one of them to
Gilbert Marshall, third son of the first William, who on the death of
his brother succeeded to the whole of the paternal inheritance, and lost
his life at a tournament at Ware in 1241. His bowels were buried before
the high altar of the church of our Lady at Hertford, and his body in
the Temple Church, London, near his father and brother.
In the present state of these monuments it is almost impossible to
ascertain the property of more than one of the Marshall family. The two
effigies whose belts have the same ornaments were it is probable of one
family.
It may be observed that Magnaville, William Marshall, jun. and the last
figure in the north groupe have their legs crossed in an unusual manner.
They lie on their backs and yet cross their legs as if they lay on their
sides. So were those of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 1312, in old St.
Paul’s.
The spurs of all are remarkably short, and seem rather straps with
rowels. Not above two or three have the long pointed shoe, and two have
their surcoats exactly reaching to the knee, whereas the others are of
different lengths and fall more easily.
Weever informs us that sepulture in this church was much affected by
Henry the third and his nobility. Stowe has determined that four of the
cross-legged figures belong to the three earls of Pembroke and Robert
Ros: “and these are all,” says he, “that I can remember to have read
of.”
Mr. Gough relates, (he says from good authority,) that a Hertfordshire
baronet applied for some of these cross-legged knights to grace his
newly erected parochial chapel, but the society of Benchers, discovered
their good sense, as well as regard to antiquity, by refusing their
compliance.
TABLE TOMB.
To the cross-legged monument it is highly probable, says Mr.
Lethieullier, succeeded the table tomb, with figures recumbent upon it,
with their hands joined in a praying posture, sometimes with a rich
canopy of stone over them, sometimes without such canopy, and again,
some very plain without any figures. Round the edge of these for the
most part were inscriptions on brass plates, which are now too
frequently destroyed.
The table monument, however, came in more early than Mr. L. supposes.
The most ancient monument of this kind that is extant, in England at
least, of the sovereigns of this kingdom, is that of king John, in the
choir of Worcester Cathedral.[64] His effigy lies on the tomb, crowned;
in his right hand he holds the sceptre, in his left a sword, the point
of which is received into the mouth of a lion couchant at his feet. The
figure is as large as life. On each side of the head are cumbent images,
in small, of the bishops St. Oswald and St. Wulstan, represented as
censing him.—This monarch died in the year 1216. His bowels were buried
in Croxton abbey, and his body, which was conveyed to Worcester from
Newark, was according to his desire, buried in that Cathedral.
GRAVE STONES.
At the same time came in common use the humble grave stone laid flat
with the pavement, sometimes with an inscription cut round the border of
the stone, sometimes enriched with costly plates of brass, as every
person who has examined our cathedral and parish churches cannot fail to
have observed. But either avarice, or an over zealous aversion to some
words in the inscription, has robbed most of these stones of the brass
which adorned them, and left the less room for certainty when this
fashion began. Earlier than the fourteenth century very few have been
met with, and even towards the beginning of that century it is thought
they were but rare. Mr. Lethieullier says that one was produced at a
meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, dated 1300.[65] Weever mentions
one in St. Paul’s for Richard Newport, anno 1317, and gives another at
Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, which he by mistake dates 1306, the true
date being 1356. Upon the whole, where we have not a positive date, it
is hardly probable that any brass plate met with on grave stones can be
older than 1350, and few so old, but from about 1380 they grew into
common use and remained so even to the time of king James the first.
Only after the reign of Edward the sixth we find the old gothic square
letter changed into the roman round hand and the phrase _Orate pro
anima_ universally omitted.
Towards the latter end of the fourteenth century a custom prevailed
likewise of putting the inscription in French and not in Latin. These
inscriptions are generally from 1350 to 1400, and very rarely
afterwards. John Stow has indeed preserved two, which were in St.
Martin’s in the Vintry, dated 1310, and 1311.
The late editor of the Antiquities of Westminster affirms (from what
authority he does not say) that stone coffins were never or rarely used
after the thirteenth century.[66] If this assertion had been correct we
should have had an æra from whence to go upwards in search of any of
those monuments where the stone coffin appears, as it frequently does,
but there is reason to doubt the accuracy of this author’s statement.
As Grecian architecture had a little dawning in Edward the sixth’s time,
and made a further progress in the three succeeding reigns, we find, in
the great number of monuments which were then erected, the small column
introduced with its base and capital, sometimes supporting an arch,
sometimes an architrave, but every where mixed with them, may be
observed a great deal of the Gothic ornaments retained, as small spires,
ill carved images, small square roses and other foliage, painted and
gilt, which sufficiently denote the age which made them, though no
inscriptions are left.
HERALDIC SYMBOLS.
Some knowledge of heraldry is very necessary in monumental researches, a
coat of arms, device, or rebus, very often remains where not the least
word of an inscription appears, and where indeed very probably there
never was any.
Armorial bearings seem to have taken their rise in this kingdom in the
reign of king Richard the first, and by little and little to have become
hereditary; it was accounted most honourable to carry those arms which
the bearers had displayed in the Holy Land, against the professed
enemies of Christianity, but they were not fully established until the
latter end of the reign of king Henry the third.
King Richard the first after his return from his captivity in Austria,
had a new great seal made, on which seal he first bore three lions
passant guardant for his arms, which from this time became the
hereditary arms of the kings of England.
The arms assigned or attributed to the kings of the Norman dynasty,
namely _gules_, two lions passant guardant, _or_, Mr. Sandford, in his
Genealogical History of England, says he could not find had ever been
used by those Princes, either on monuments, coins, or seals, but that
historians had assigned or fixed them upon the Norman line to
distinguish it from that of their successors the Plantagenets, who bore
_gules_, three lions passant guardant, _or_.[67] According to the
opinion of modern genealogists, king Henry the second, who bore two
lions for his arms, in the manner before mentioned, added, on his
marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the arms of that dutchy, namely
_gules_, a lion, _or_, to his own, and so was the first king of England
who bore three lions; but for this there is no better proof than for
those assigned to the Norman dynasty, for the arms of king Henry the
second upon his monument at Fontevraud in Normandy, are on a shield of a
modern form, and on the same monument are escutcheons with both
impalements and quarterings which were not used till a hundred years
after his death.
King Edward the first was the first son of a king of England that
differenced his arms with a file, and the first king of England that
bore his arms on the caparisons of his horse.
Margaret of France, second wife of king Edward the first, was the first
queen of England that bore her arms _dimidiated_ with her husband’s in
one escutcheon, that is, both escutcheons being parted by a
perpendicular line, or _per pale_, the dexter side of the husband’s
shield, is joined to the sinister side of the wife’s, which kind of
bearing is more ancient than the impaling of the entire coats of arms.
King Edward the third, in the year 1339, having taken upon him the title
of king of France, was the first of our kings who quartered arms,
bearing those of France and England, quarterly, and so careful were the
kings, his successors, in marshalling the arms of both kingdoms in the
same shield, that when Charles the sixth, king of France, changed the
semée of fleurs de lys into three, our king Henry the fifth did the
like,[68] and so it continued till the union of Great Britain with
Ireland in 1801, when the arms of France were relinquished.
The first example of the quartering of arms, is found in Spain, when the
kingdoms of Castile and Leon were united under Ferdinand the third, and
was afterwards imitated, as above described, by king Edward the third.
Eleanor of Castile, his queen, introduced this mode of bearing arms into
England, in which she was followed by the king, her husband.
Until the time of king Edward the third, we find no coronets round the
heads of peers. The figure upon the monument of John of Eltham, second
son of king Edward the third, who died in 1334, and is buried in
Westminster abbey, is adorned with a diadem, composed of a circle of
greater and less leaves or flowers, and is the most ancient portraiture
of an earl, says Sandford, that has a coronet. For the effigies of Henry
Lacy, earl of Lincoln, on his tomb in Old St. Paul’s, had the head
encompassed with a circle only, and that of William de Valence, earl of
Pembroke, half brother of king John, who died in 1304, and is buried in
St. Edmund’s chapel, in Westminster abbey, has only a circle, enriched
and embellished with stones of several colours, but without either
points, rays, or leaves.
John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, who died in 1375, was the first subject
who bore two coats quarterly.
Richard the second was the first of the English kings, who used
supporters to his arms.
Henry the sixth was the first of our kings who wore an arched crown,
which has been ever since continued by his successors.[69]
Henry the eighth was the first king of England that added to his shield,
the garter and the crown, in imitation of which, the knights of the
garter, in the latter end of his reign, caused their escutcheons on
their stalls at Windsor, to be encompassed with the garter, and those
who were dukes, marquesses, or earls, had their coronets placed on their
shields, which has been so practised ever since.
Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign who used in her arms, a harp
crowned, as an ensign for the kingdom of Ireland.
King James the first was the first of our monarchs, who quartered the
arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in one shield.
The number of princes of the blood royal of the houses of York and
Lancaster, may easily be distinguished, by the labels on their coats of
arms, which are different for each, and very often their devices are
added.
Where the figure of a woman is found with arms both on her kirtle and
mantle, those on the kirtle are always her own family’s, and those on
the mantle, her husband’s.
The first instance of arms on sepulchral monuments, in England, are
those on the tomb of Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex, (so
created in 1148,) in the Temple church, in London. Armorial bearings
were used in France, on monuments, forty years before we find them in
England.
Very intimately connected with the ornaments and devices upon sepulchral
monuments are the figures and dresses of our early monarchs found on
their great seals, and of the principal nobility of those times on their
seals. King Henry the third was the first English sovereign who wore
upon his helmet a crown, and he is also the first king who is depicted
upon his great seal as wearing rowels in his spurs in the manner in
which they are now used, all the former kings using spurs with a single
point or spike from the heel.
Sandford, in his Genealogical History of England, says, that the arms
upon the seal of John, Earl of Morton, (afterwards king John,) namely,
two lions passant, are the first which he had seen upon any seal of the
royal family. This was in the reign of king Henry the second.
MONUMENTS FOR ECCLESIASTICS.
As to monuments for the several degrees of churchmen, as bishops,
abbots, priors, monks, &c. or of religious women, they are easily to be
distinguished from other persons, but equally difficult to assign to
their true owners. Among these, as among the before-mentioned monuments,
for the most part the stone effigies are the oldest, with the mitre,
crosier, and other proper insignia, and very often wider at the head
than feet, having, indeed, been the cover to the stone coffins in which
the body was deposited.
When brass plates came in fashion they were likewise much used by
bishops, &c. many of whose grave stones remain at this day, very richly
adorned, and in many, the indented marble shews that they have been so.
In Salisbury cathedral, says Mr. Lethieullier, I found two very ancient
stone figures of bishops, which were brought from Old Sarum, and are
consequently older than the time of king Henry the third. In that
church, likewise, the pompous marble which lies over Nicholas Longespee,
bishop of that see, and son of the, Earl of Salisbury, who died in the
year 1297, appears to have been richly plated, though the brass is now
quite gone, and is one of the most early of that kind which has been met
with. Frequently, where there are no effigies, crosiers or crosses
denote an ecclesiastic. The latter have been met with, but with little
difference in their form, for every order from a bishop to a parish
priest.
THE SKELETON MONUMENT.
One sort of monument more may be mentioned, which is somewhat peculiar;
this is the representation of a skeleton in a shroud, lying either under
or upon, but generally under a table tomb. A monument of this kind is to
be met with in almost all the cathedral and conventual churches
throughout England, and scarcely ever more than one, but to what age the
unknown ones are to be attributed, we have no clue to guide us, since
there is one in York cathedral for Robert Claget, treasurer of that
church, as ancient as 1241, and in Bristol cathedral, Paul Bush, the
first bishop of that see, who died so late as 1558, is represented in
the same manner, and some of these figures may be found in every age
between.
These skeleton monuments represent the figure of a man emaciated by
extreme sickness, or taken immediately after death; they are usually of
ecclesiastics, and placed with another figure of the same prelate, as a
contrast to his pride, in pontificals. The art of the sculptor is more
apparent in the first mentioned, because much anatomical accuracy was
required.
One of the earliest monuments of a warrior so contrasted is that of John
de Arundel, slain in the French wars, under the Duke of Bedford. It
remains in the sepulchral chapel of that noble family at Arundel, and is
finely sculptured in white marble. The dead figure, is indeed a masterly
performance, and has every appearance of having been originally modelled
from nature.
In Exeter Cathedral there is an altar tomb, upon which lies the effigy
of bishop Marshall, who died in 1203, dressed in his episcopal robes,
with a mitre on his head, his right hand lying upon his breast, with the
palm upwards, the fore finger, ring finger, and thumb extended, and the
other fingers closed. Near this monument in a low niche, lies the figure
of a skeleton, cut in free stone, with the following inscription over
it:—“Ista figura docet nos omnes premeditari qualiter ipsa nocet mors
quando venit dominari.”
The tomb of bishop Beckington in Wells Cathedral, who died in 1464, has
his effigy in alabaster, habited in his episcopal robes; and underneath
is a representation of his skeleton.
Footnote 59:
In the centre of the nave of Wells Cathedral there is a large stone
that had formerly upon it an effigy in brass, which was generally
ascribed to king Ina, the founder of that church.
Footnote 60:
This is one of the earliest specimens we have of the cross-legged
monument. It is made of Irish oak, as well the table part, as the
effigy. On the pannels are the arms of several of the worthies, and at
the foot the arms of France and England, quarterly, which shews these
escutcheons to have been painted since the reign of king Henry the
fourth. This monument stood entire until the parliamentary army,
during the Cromwell usurpation, having garrisoned the city of
Gloucester against the king, the soldiers tore it to pieces, which
being about to be burned, were bought of them by Sir Humphrey Tracy,
of Stanway, and privately laid up until the Restoration, when the
pieces were put together, repaired, and ornamented, and again placed
in their former situation by Sir Humphrey, who also added a wire
screen for their future preservation. There is an engraving of this
monument in Sandford’s Genealogical History, page 16, which Rudder,
(_History of Gloucester_, p. 126.) calls a noble representation of it.
Gibbon has left us the following account of this prince, (Rom. Hist.
vol. 11. p. 32)—“Robert, Duke of Normandy, one of the chiefs of the
first crusade, on his father’s death was deprived of the kingdom of
England, by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus.
The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness
of temper; his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure,
his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his
indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the
amiable qualities of a private man, became the essential defects of a
sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks (the one
hundredth part of its present yearly revenue) he mortgaged Normandy
during his absence in the first crusade, to the English usurper; but
his behaviour in the Holy War, announced in Robert, a reformation of
manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.”
There is an engraving of Robert, Duke of Normandy, in Ducarel’s
Anglo-Norman Antiq. Plate 5.
The monument of William, Earl of Flanders, son of Robert, Duke of
Normandy, as also two of his seals, are engraven in Sandford’s
Genealogical Hist. p. 17.
Footnote 61:
The monument of Edmund Crouchback has been very lofty; it was painted,
gilt, and inlaid with stained glass. The inside of the canopy has
represented the sky with stars, but, by age, is changed into a dull
red. On the base, towards the area are the remains of ten knights,
armed, with banners, surcoats of armour, and cross-belted,
representing, undoubtedly, his expedition to the Holy Land, the number
exactly corresponding with what Matthew Paris reports, namely, Edmund
and his elder brother, four earls and four knights, of whom some are
still discoverable, particularly the Lord Roger Clifford, as were
formerly in Waverly’s time, William de Valence and Thomas de Clare.
Footnote 62:
These rules are extracted from the Antiquarian Repertory, vol. ii. p.
124; and from the Introduction to Gough’s “History of Sepulchral
Monuments,” p. 115.
Footnote 63:
This account of these monuments is extracted from Gough’s “History of
Sepulchral Monuments.”
Footnote 64:
This monument was asserted by Green, in his History of Worcester, to
have been a cenotaph, and accordingly the Dean and Chapter had
determined on its removal, intending to place it over the supposed
remains of the king in the lady chapel. But on opening the tomb on
Monday, July the 17th, 1797, the royal remains were found therein in a
stone coffin, the internal measure of which from the feet to the top
of the excavation hollowed out for the head, was 5 feet 6 inches and a
half. The body was doubtless originally placed in the coffin, nearly
in the same form, and arrayed in such a robe as the figure on the
tomb, with his sword in his left hand, and booted, but it was so much
deranged as evidently to shew that it had been disturbed, and that
perhaps at its removal from the place of its first interment in the
lady chapel, if ever that event had taken place, which seems to have
been a controverted point with historians. The most perfect part of
the body seemed to be the toes, on some of which the nails were still
distinguishable, but of what the dress had originally been composed,
could be only matter of conjecture. The influx of people, eager to see
the royal remains after an interment of nearly 600 years, was so great
as to be the cause of the tomb being closed on the following day.
Footnote 65:
The monument of Walter de Langton, Dean of York, who died in 1279, was
the first in that Cathedral that had an inscription upon it. It was
destroyed by the Puritans during the Cromwell Usurpation.
Footnote 66:
Coffins formed of a single stone, hollowed with a chissel, are an
improvement which has been attributed to the Romans. Sometimes they
were of marble. Some contained two or more bodies, others only one, in
which case, it was not unusual for them to be made to fit the body,
with cavities for the reception of the head and arms, and other
protuberances.
The solid stone or marble coffin, often curiously wrought, was in use
among the first christians in England, who, in all probability, copied
the customs of the Romans, after those conquerors had quitted our
island.—Stone coffins were disused in the fifteenth century. None but
opulent persons were interred in coffins of this description; the body
was wrapped in fine linen, attired in the most honourable vestments,
and laid in spices. The coffin was placed no deeper in the ground,
than the thickness of a marble slab, or stone to be laid over it, even
with the surface of the pavement. The coffin shaped stones which are
frequently seen in churches at the present day, have, in general, been
the covers of stone coffins.
The leaden coffin was also in use among the Romans, not only for the
reception of the body, but in many instances, for the ashes and bones.
It was adopted by the christians, and continues in frequent use to the
present time, among the more opulent.
Alexander was buried in a golden coffin, by his successor Ptolemy; and
glass coffins have been found in England.
The oldest instance, on record, among us, of a coffin made of wood, is
that of king Arthur, who was buried in an entire trunk of oak.
It was not till the latter end of the seventeenth or the beginning of
the eighteenth century, that coffins became in general use in England.
Before that time, there was, in every parish church, a common coffin,
in which the corpse was placed and conveyed on a bier, from the
residence of the deceased, to the grave; it was then taken out of the
coffin and interred. Some of these common coffins yet remain in
country churches.
Footnote 67:
The gold noble, or half mark, struck by king Edward the third, in the
seventeenth year of his reign, is the first money on which the arms of
England appear, namely, three lions passant guardant.
Footnote 68:
The _three_ fleurs de lys were used, on some occasions, much earlier
than this, both in France and England. There is an angel of Philip de
Valois, coined in 1340, with the _three_ fleurs de lys, which was
probably done for the sake of variation, king Edward having then
lately taken the arms _semée_ de lys. Le Blanc mentions a charter of
Philip, in 1355, with a seal of the arms in like manner. There is also
a groat of king John of France, with only _three_ fleurs de lys,
though he used them likewise _semée_. But Charles the sixth, who began
his reign in 1380, constantly bore the _three_ lys for the arms of
France, as they have been continued ever since. As the English kings
altered the arms of France, in imitation of the French king, it is
most likely that our Henry the fourth who was contemporary with
Charles the sixth, began this practice. He did indeed bear the fleurs
de lys _semée_, upon his great seal, because it was his predecessor’s,
but that he bore the _three_ lys upon other occasions is most likely,
for so they are seen at the head of his monument, at Canterbury, and
his son Henry, afterwards Henry the fifth, in like manner, bore the
_three_ fleurs de lys upon his seal, annexed to an indenture, so early
as the sixth year of his father’s reign.
Footnote 69:
The coins of king Henry the sixth, both gold and silver, are supposed
to be distinguished from his father’s, by the arched crown, surmounted
with the orb and cross, being the first of our kings who appears with
an arched crown upon his coins; but upon his great seal he has an open
crown, _fleuri_, with small pearls, upon points, between. This is
likewise the first time we see the orb with the cross upon the money,
though it had been used upon other occasions, by almost all our kings,
down from Edward the Confessor. The arched, or close crown, is not of
ancient use, except in the empire, and thence, perhaps, called
imperial. Some think Edward the third first used it, because he was
vicar-general of the empire, and it is said that Henry the fifth had
an imperial crown made, but Henry the sixth had certainly the best
pretence to it, of any prince in Europe, of his time, being crowned
king both of France and England. But why he did not bear it upon his
great seal, as well as upon his coin, is not easily resolved any more
than that his successor should bear it upon his great seal, and not
upon his coins.
FINIS.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the articles in which they are
referenced.
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