De Grammont, Mademoiselle Montpensier, De Retz, Bellegarde, Duc de Richelieu, Sully. The English can set against this array only Pepys, North, Waldegrave, Bubb Doddington, Coleridge, and, equal to the best of the French, Boswell and Horace Walpole. The French, before Sismondi, had no creditable history of the country; but no one complained, since every thing was so much more agreeably transmitted in their memoirs. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. Woman in her Social and Domestic Character. By MRS. JOHN SANDFORD. Fifth American edition. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. 1840. Woman as She Should Be. By REV. HUBBARD WINSLOW. Fourth edition. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. 1840. There can be no topic more useful for discussion, not only in books, but in domestic circles, than the appropriate sphere and real duties of women. Sufficient attention has not hitherto been paid to it; and an earnest inquiry set on foot among our most active and intelligent writers, both male and female, could not fail to elicit much practical truth, and exert an extensive influence on society. The volumes before us, which have run through several editions already, are exactly suited to awaken inquiry on this subject, and, to a certain extent, to satisfy inquiry also. They should be universally read, for the soundness of their doctrines, and should form the text-books to be referred to in future discussions. The History of the Condition of Women, in various Ages and Nations. By MRS. D. L. CHILD. Third edition. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. 1840. Kindred to the above-mentioned works is this of Mrs. Child, whose name is a guarantee for a sensible and useful book. The facts which she has contrived to bring together, in the space of two ordinary duodecimo volumes, evince a degree of perseverance and research only paralleled by the zeal of the writer in the cause of her sex and of humanity. Her volumes will be prized not only on account of the interesting character of the subject, but from their furnishing the historical materials requisite for an intelligent discussion of the proper sphere and duties of woman. The American Medical Almanac for 1841. Designed for the daily use of Practising Physicians, Surgeons, Students, and Apothecaries; being also a Pocket Memorandum and Account Book, and General Medical Directory of the United States and the British Provinces. By J. V. C. SMITH, M. D., editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Vol. III, continued annually. Boston: Otis, Broaders & Co. 1841. The title page of this book gives a perfectly full and satisfactory account of the contents. It is very neatly got up in the small pocket size, and substantially bound, From Bentley's Miscellany for November. A man yet young, but clad in garments tatter'd Hath sat for days-motionless as a thing "The Doge Ciani comes!"-He moves no jot- "Name! I had two!-one titular, one my own- Sienna was my birth-place, the wide earth I'm now a mark for mockery and mirth!The Kaiser hath despoil'd me, and hath made The Holder of the Keys, his arts betray'd, A houseless vagabond!-yea, so that Rome, The three-crown'd seven hills whereon I sway'd, Hath yell'd me from her! Friend, nor food, nor home Have I, nor hope! I would that I were dead!- The Prince Ciani sinks upon his knee Startling like thunder! And the clouds which frown'd Frederick the Swabian sits in state, and lo! He, that was after Doge, stands forth to speak Peace 'twixt the Pontiff and the Prince to seek. "Venice doth Frederick Barbarossa greet Long may he reign, protector of the weak, And queller of the strong!-Lo, you! the heat Of furious feud, most impious and unmeet In Christian clime, between thee and the Pope Rages, which humbly Venice doth entreat May now be quenched for ever; in which hope She, for the Pope, her guest, doth peace demand. * A melancholy interest surrounds the above production. The clever author, who had been for some time a contributor to our Miscellany, besides being the author of several popular ballads, placed it in our hands only a few days before, in a moment of mental aberration, he terminated his existence. Mr. Inman had been subject to occasional fits of mental excitement, induced principally by too much study. To this elever young man a medal was awarded by the Melodists' Club in 1837, for the words of a song entitled "The Days of Yore," set to music by John Parry, Jr., and also gained the prize of the value of ten guineas in 1838. Mr. Inman was also the writer of the national song, "St. George's Flag of England," composed by Mr. Blewett, to whom the same club awarded its prize of fifteen guineas on the 25th of June last. He also wrote the song, "Sweet Mary, Mine," which Madame Stockhausen and Miss Birch rendered so popular last season by singing it at numer ous concerts. + This was Byron's "octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foc." Sabellicus recounts the perfidy of Emanuel, the Emperor of Constantinople, thus: "Mostrando adunque egli di voler di segreto parlare ad Henrico Dandolo, uno degli ambasciatori, menatolo in luogo occulto, con ferro ardente lo privo di vista." "No, by the blood of God!" the Swabian roar'd; I keep not yours for hostages. Begone!" Then Dandolo, "For these thy words, proud king, The Planter of the Lion to thy throne Hurls down her gage, and brands thee as a thing Most miscreant and leprous! and stands forth earth!" At dawn the Istrian waves were calm and clear, Home went her warriors chanting o'er the sea, Yea, eighty galleys were the armament But thirty of th' Italians; but their tried Think ye how each Venetian's heart beat glad To view such booty, gained against such odds. "A miracle!" they cried. "Not man's hand fought, but God's!"# The adiniral, Otho, had a sort of sneaking Love for the Pope, or haply his own fame, And wisely owned this vengeance as heaven's wreaking, Since, thereby, certes, neither shame nor blame Could fall on his or any other name! With this consoling subterfuge imprest, One morning to his grace, the Doge, he came, If he were sent to expound this miracle The Doge assented; Otho's scheme took well. Worried by words, by superstition cowed, Bold Frederick lost all heart, and to the Pontiff bowed Abject! Pefore the altar of Saint Mark For at his feet the despot kneels, who laid His ancient pride, that, all results unweighed, He placed his foot on Frederick's neck, and said In the great Psalmist's words, "Thus do I tread On the young lion, and the venomous snake!" Whereat the Kaiser raised his bended head, And cried, "Not thou, but Peter!" Then thus spake The Pontiff, flashing anger from his eye, Then to the Ciani he addressed these words, * The famous device of Austria, A, E, I, O, U, was first used by Frederick III., who adopted it on his plate, books, and buildings. These initials stand for "Austrim Est Imperare Orbi Universo;" or, in German, "Alles Erdreich Ist Osterreich Unterthan," Hallam's Midate Ages. We, God's vicegerent, will it. It shall be To Venice as a wife. In joy and grief, Handmaid and comfort. To thee, the chief Of the republic, we entrust this ring, In token of the covenant; which our brief by the mob was, "Give us back the eleven days | respect be improved. The cover, which is so we have been robbed of" -the reader will recol- arranged as to avoid the extra postage, he hopes lect that Hogarth introduces this in his Election to make a sheet of abiding interest, so combining Feast); and, several years after, when Bradley, worn down by his labours in the cause of science, was sinking under the disease which closed his 'Twas called the mortal career, many of the common people attri At full shall certify! For revelling Be this day marked amid the calendar, And kept each year!"* It was. Bucentaur! J. E. INMAN. AN UNFORTUNATE AUTHOR. - What truth there may be in the following paragraph from a recent newspaper, we cannot say. There is much of it, however, which we suspect to have a strong general resemblance to circumstances of actual daily occurrence in literature : "A person who signs himself Samuel Hardman,' and dates from King's Road, Brighton,' has addressed a letter to the editors of newspapers in Brighton,' in which he begs leave to acquaint' them that he has lost two hundred and odd pounds by publishing' his Descriptive Poem of the Battle of Waterloo,' his Petition to the House of Commons, and a few other little things.' He gives the following details of his fruitless exertions to force a sale: When I published my "Descriptive Poem of the Battle of Waterloo," I paid three pounds to some of the daily papers, and not less than one pound to all the daily and weekly papers; and also one to all the monthly and quarterly reviews. I placarded the streets from Whitechapel Church to Hyde Park Corner, and so on all round London. I presented a copy to the Lord Mayor in the Mansion House; I had three men walking the streets with boards on their backs three weeks; I had my house in Kennington Lane, close to Vauxhall Gardens, placarded all over; they were acting the Battle of Waterloo in the gardens; and after all this enormous expense, I only sold one sixpenny number, and my publisher, Mr. Chappell, of the Royal Exchange, only sold seven numbers; so that we got four shillings between us, for me laying out upwards of one hundred pounds. I expended the same sum on my "Petition to the House of Commons," thinking that I should recover some part of my former loss; but, alas! I only sold seventeen sixpenny numbers of that petition. I have now only sold sixteen numbers of my five letters.'" buted his sufferings to a judgment from heaven, for his having been instrumental in what they considered to have been so impious an undertaking.-Edinburgh Review. COFFINS IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL. - On the 3d of April, men employed in opening a grave in the north aisle of Hereford Cathedral, found, at the depth of about four feet, two stone coffins, one finely chiseled, in which were two male skeletons, evidently the remains of persons holding high offices in the church. One skeleton was enveloped in a silk robe, embroidered with gold lace, and shoes made right and left, with cloth tops and pointed toes, and the hair on the skull was abundant and perfect. The other, which was in the chiseled coffin, had also a robe of silk embroidered with gold, a wig on, but no shoes; under the skull was a pillow with feathers in it. The coffins were covered with stone slabs, but nothing was found indicating the names of the parties. WALDIE'S SELECT CIRCULATING LIBRARY, AND JOURNAL OF POLITE LITERATURE. EDITED BY JOHN SANDERSON, ESQ. Professor of Classics in the Central High School, Philadelphia; Author of the "American in Paris," &c. The proprietor of this popular and well known periodical has the gratification of replying to the many affectionate inquiries after its resumption, from his kind friends and patrons-friends and patrons in the true meaning of the words by the publication of this first number. Restored by a beneficent Providence once more to active life, he hopes again to be able to give that superintendence to the publication which was his pride and pleasure for seven years. He anticipates, with inexpressible satisfaction, the renewal of associations with thousands of families, with either of which an acquaintance is an honour. protracted indisposition, the intensity of suffering was greatly mitigated by the generous expressions of sympathy and regard received from his kind-hearted patrons; and the THE LOST DAYS.-Bradley, astronomer-royal, During his had a considerable share in the assimilation of the British Calendar to that of other nations. Lord Chesterfield was the original promoter of this measure, which was carried in 1751. The following curious anecdote happily illustrates the presumption and ignorance of the mob of those days: Lord Chesterfield took pains, in the periodical journals of the day, to prepare the minds of the public for the change; but he found it much easier to prevail with the legislature, than to reconcile the great mass of the people to the abandonment of their inveterate habits. When Lord Macclesfield's son stood the great contested election for Oxfordshire, in 1754, one of the most vehement cries raised against him * The words which Sabellicus puts into Alexander's mouth, are, "Ricevi questo anello d'oro, o Ciani, e per mia autorità, con questo pegno ti farai il mare soggetto, la qual cosa tu e tuoi successori ogni anno in tal giorno osservate, accio quelle che haveranno a seguire intendano la signoria del mare per ragion de guerra esser vostra, c come la moglie al huomo, cosi il mare al vostro dominio gloom and tedium of a sick room were much lightened by the rays of genuine friendship emitted from every quarter. egotism, hopes, will be judged of mildly-he certainly wish to display-but the of grateful acknowledgment for such disinterested kindness was irrepressible, and he could not announce the reappearance of the work without yielding to it. To these friends he addresses himself, solicitous for their continued support, and hopes to have the Library once more introduced among their families, see it honoured again with a place on their centre tables, and become a welcome weekly visiter. He is at the same time very desirous to extend his acquaintance and form new friends. From the arrangements made, dictated by ex original and selected articles, of foreign and domestic literature, science and art, and from such sources of respectability, as to make it a work of authority and reference. The regularity of its former publication, not a failure in seven years, will be taken as a guarantee for the future punctuality of the Library; but there is only one way to make that permanent, viz. by payment in advance. This is an indispensable pre-requisite from all at a distance. The losses by deviating from this rule formerly, are too heavy to be forgotten soon, and a little reflection may satisfy any one of the reasonableness of the request. The reasons are too obvious, indeed, to require much discussion, Five dollars are all that a subscriber risks, but the publisher risks thousands, by crediting. The publisher is in a city, and can be reached without trouble. A subscriber lives perhaps a thousand miles off; and how is he to be reached? It might cost six times the amount to collect the trifle. Payment in advance, then, as all may perceive, is a reasonable request, and sad experience compels the proprietor to make it absolute. The few who paid in advance for 1840, will be supplied for 1841, unless otherwise ordered. An early remittance of names is respectfully úrged, so as to enable the proprietor to make proper calculations about the quantity to be printed, as he will print very few over the number absolutely subscribed for. To this he would call particular attention. To his brethren of the press, throughout the country, the proprietor returns grateful thanks for former favours, and hopes the work will be again so conducted as to warrant a renewal of their friendly assistance. A few copies of the Port Folio are still on hand, a year of which will be forwarded in payment for advertising as much of this announcement as they may think an equivalent; or two years will be sent for publishing the whole. Premiums. As we have some extra copies for 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1839, we offer two of these years' Library and the new year for Ten Dollars. At the same rate to old subscribers, who wish to complete sets, A few sets of the Library yet on hand for sale. We have sent the Library to those old punetual friends who were on our list at the "suspension." Those who do not wish to take it, will please let us know through a postmaster-not by returning the number, for that we do not get, hut by PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ADAM WALDIE & CO. No. 46 CARPENTER STREET, PHILADELPHIA. $5 for 60 numbers, payable in advance. JOURNAL. During the publication of Jesse's work, we propose extracting from the best authors, anecdotes, characters, &c. of the most distinguished persons who flourished during the seventeenth century-thus throwing cotemporary information on Hours of vation with them: 'that there must have been a glory than that of a romantic duellist.' the most brilliant period of the history of Europe. The life of Lord Herbert is given by Jesse. It is also written by himself, and in the advertisement prefixed, the following character is given of him by Horace Walpole. "The noble family which gives these sheets to the world, is above the little prejudices which make many a race defraud the public of what was designed for it by those, who alone had a right to give or withhold. It is above suppressing what Lord Herbert dared to tell. Foibles, passions, perhaps some vanity, surely some wrong-headedness, these he scorned to conceal, for he sought truth, wrote truth, was truth. He honestly told when he had missed or mistaken it. His descendants, not blind to his faults, but through them conducting the reader to his virtues, desire the world to make this candid obser "As a soldier, he won the esteem of those great captains, the Prince of Orange, and the Constable de Montmorency. As a knight, his chivalry was drawn from the purest founts of the Fairy Queen. Had he been ambitious, the beauty of his person would have carried him as far as any gentle knight can aspire to go. As a public minister, he supported the dignity of his country, even when his prince disgraced it; and that he was qualified to write its annals, as well as to ennoble them, the history I have mentioned proves, and must make us lament, that he did not complete, or that we have lost, the account he purposed to give of his embassy. These busy scenes were blended with, and terminated by meditation and philosophic enquiries. Strip each period of its excesses and errors, and it will not be easy to trace out, or dispose the life of a man of quality into a succession of employments which would better become him. Valour and military activity in youth, business of state in the middle age, contemplation lation and labour for the information of terity in the calmer scenes of closing life. This was Lord Herbert. The deduction he will give himself." BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON. High upon the walls of night, O'er the wintry landscape lying; pos SHAKSPEARE. The poor old year! There he lies, his sceptre gone, His straggling hair and matted beard, On his bed of withered leaves, NO. 2. Poor old year! He drags his snowy sheet around him, His palsied hand no more receives The rod of power, as when they crowned him. The faces near him, friend or lover; The poor old year! But hark! what means this merry chime, The young heir! the New Year bringing. To the Merry New Year. Joyous, blithe he seems, and gay, A Happy New Year? God be with us-we know not A Happy New Year. Talent.-Homer was a beggar; Plautus turned a mill; Terence was a slave; Boefius died in jail; Tasso was often distressed for five shillings; Cervante died of hunger; Milton ended his life in obscurity; Bacon lived a life of meanness; Spenser died of want; Dryden lived in poverty and died of distress; Otway died of hunger; Lee in the streets; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield was sold for a trifle to save him from prison; Fielding lies in the burying ground of an English factory; Savage died in prison; Chatterton destroyed himself; and John Keats died of a broken heart. From the Charivari. THE MAN OF ANECDOTE. Under the general title of storyteller, I include the members of a family as varied as it is numerous, and which, although appearing under divers denominations, and with separate qualities, do not the less belong to a singular and original type. There are professed storytellers, in the same way that there are professed vaudeville and romance writers: these deal in written literature, the former in oral literature. In the hotel, in the back shop, in the cottage, on the deck of each vessel, in the barrack-room, everywhere where men habitually assemble, if only to the number of two or three, there, in the midst of them, we are sure to meet a storyteller, whose constant care it is not to lose ground in the opinion of his audience; and, above all, to observe with jealous care that none encroach on his privilege. Let a number of persons, who are not in the constant habit of meeting together, form an assembly on the occasion of a baptism, a wedding, or a burial, rest assured, that in less than a quarter of an hour one of the party will have assumed the exclusive right of speech, and that he will recount his stories in the waiting room, in the coach, at the church, in the cemetery, at table, in the garden, or at the fireside, in the street, and even to the very door of his dwelling, where a few intrepid auditors never fail to accompany him. In certain houses, the choice of a storyteller is a matter of nice consideration; on this choice the celebrity of the entertainments given, and the affluence of guests, most frequently depend. Indeed I should not be surprised to see, in letters of invitation, "the storyteller's arm chair will be taken by M. -," as we see in the present day, "A band will attend under the direction of Collinet." I have said that there are storytellers in the same way that there are vaudeville writers; but it was never my intention to institute a comparison between these two estimable classes. Oh, how wide the difference! How great, with regard to genius, are the exigencies of the first compared to those of the second! A vaudeville is played forty or fifty nights, while a story will only serve once. Write three or four vaudevilles in a year, and you will be considered as a distinguished author; but if your budget boast but of two or three anecdotes, the most unpretending salon of the Marais will dismiss you ere a fortnight have elapsed. The storyteller is required to possess an immense, a gigantic magazine; his auditors are endowed with the privilege of hawking about and spreading the story, the bon mot he has brought to light, without even exciting the susceptibility of the société des gens de lettres, but for him the rule non bis in uno is peremp tory. The life of a storyteller is, therefore, one of unceasing labour. He rises every morning with the necessity before him of creating a subject, of grouping his personages, of inventing an intrigue, of hitting off characters, of manufacturing a joke. Nor does his task end here; he must not only possess the qualities of an author, he must also be a finished comedian. Here a particular passage requires a smile on the lip,-there another must be given in a fearful tone; now his diction must be naif, and now impassioned; here sarcastic and witty, there sombre and terrible; and when he has carefully studied his gesture and expression-when he has gone through what may be called his rehearsal-it is time to appear last gasp. But it sometimes happened that H-, whether through laziness or thoughtlessness, would give his father a second edition of some bon mot or adventure, which he had already sold a fortnight back, and for which he received double pay without a blush. If the memory of the old man had lost its tenacity, that of his audience had not, who invariably stopped him with the heart-breaking remark, "You have told us that already." Then poor C- V- would suddenly break up the assembly and make his retreat, in an agony of noble indignation; and, ordering his son to be brought before him, would greet him with the following rebuke: "Wretch! you have dared to sell me the same pun twice; you have basely deceived your old father; you have committed a paltry theft; and I predict that you will end your days on the gallows!" Like a star who would esteem it infra dig. to appear on the stage at the rise of the curtain, our storyteller always manages to be the last comer. Already he feels the glow of gratified vanity in reflecting that in each group the enquiry is anxiously made, "Do you think he'll come! I wonder whether he'll come!" And what can equal the voluptuous satisfaction he feel on hearing the " ah!" escape from every mouth at his appearance. That " ah!" which is equal to the loud applause with which a favourite actor is greeted on his first appearance for the evening. After this he makes his tour with open snuffbox for the men, compares all the women under thirty to roses, persuades mammas that they are growing quite young again, and when he has effectually secured the good wishes of his audience, he takes a seat, waits with apparent indifference until a general silence is established, and then commences. He must, indeed, be inexpe- A LESSON IN DANCING, AND A CLErienced and imprudent who would dare to gather a single branch of the laurel which it is the storyteller's privilege to monopolise. The latter, who is a sworn foe to competition, has a thousand means whereby to crush his rival at the outset a pitiful smile, accompanied with a slight shrug of the shoulders, -a fit of sneezing at the most interesting passage, or a controversy suddenly entered into in the very middle of the story on a point of the utmost indifference. One might swear it was a dramatic author called upon to judge the composition of a brother in trade. Every storyteller has his peculiar line. This one excels in sentimental stories, that in tales of travel, another is ever on the scent for scandalous adventures; some deal in reminiscences of the empire, others are acknowledged masters in the art of punning; every school has its representative, every style boasts of its celebrity, from the classic to the romantic, from the ancient tragedy to the modern sea novel. It is no extraordinary thing to see a storyteller arrive at a venerable old age. But, alas! Voltaires are scarce; most commonly, a storyteller who has passed his sixtieth year can claim no other title than that of dotard; and we avoid him with as much eagerness as formerly we sought him with. Think not that this decay can ever induce him to give up. The storyteller is the intrepid champion of his worth, and, like a certain actress of our acquaintance, prefers universal desertion to an honourable retreat. This suggests a reminiscence which I shall not be sorry to relate in conclusion of this article. Among the storytellers who flourished among the last generation, perhaps the most remarkable was C-V-. He had established his chair in the green room of one of our first theatres, and there nightly delighted an audience as numerous as it was select. When C-V- had grown so old as no longer to find sufficient resources in his exhausted imagination, while, notwithstanding, death would have appeared less bitter than the obligation of renouncing his daily tribute of admiration and applause; how was he to do? This is the expedient on which he hit. C- Vmade, with his son, H-, a very clever young man to this day, a treaty, whereby he should become bound to compose facetious stories for his father, at the rate of 12 fr. for each story. Thus revictualled, our venerable storyteller would cling more tenaciously than ever to the arm chair which had witnessed all his flattering triumphs, secretly determined not to quit it until his very RICAL DANCING MASTER. Who has "Have you read Baruch?" was the question which La Fontaine was in the habit of propounding to every person he met. "Have you read Young?" we should take the liberty of asking, were not the enquiry a useless one. not wandered, with the poet of the "Night Thoughts," under the gloomy cypress trees of the churchyards his imagination loved to depict? for, in spite of their dark and sombre colouring, his portraitures possess attractions which it is almost impossible to resist. Such is the constitution of the heart; in its alternations of reverie, the image of grief and suffering is not without a certain charm; and we all know, and must have felt, that there is a pleasure even in melancholy. And yet how much in Young is false and exaggerated! How little he possesses of that gentle and unaffected sadness which finds its way at once to the heart, and twines around its strings while it softens and relaxes them; in fact, in his strained and pompous elegies, there is something laboured and artificial, which checks the illusion, and compels us to think of the author instead of the sentiment. There are fine verses and fine images, but very little nature. True grief, the grief which consoles the heart as if with a hand of iron, does not so coquettishly and carefully arrange the crape folds of its mourning. The declamation of Young is constantly directed against solitude; hence we infer that reverie and contemplation were not habitual to him; yet the Parnassus of the poets is a solitary mountain. Be this as it may, it would have seemed at one time that the most emphatic of our elegiac poets was not predestined to sigh away his soul in lugubrious accents. In his youth, when the horizon of his future life was brilliant clouds, he was among the gayest and merriest, hurrying joyfully along the path of life, and gathering the smiling flowers that embroidered its walks. It was not until multiplied chagrins and bitter disappointments had shivered the prism which refiected so bright a tint on the objects of his hopes and fancy, that he gave utterance to those lamentations which conjure up so despairing an image of human nature. When Young left the university, he was a master of arts, and brought away with him a vast stock of Greek and Latin. But the fire of a fine imagination was not extinguished under the heavier acquisition of his scholastic pursuits; its vivida vis and enthusiasm had survived, and cernment, could we bring home to him the credit fore he was born, that he was not able to stand Rosse himself, and his Spanish servant Diego, were asserted to have been witnesses. James, however, was far from being satisfied with the testimony which had been brought forward: he, very properly, despatched a serjeant-at-arms to Rome, who returned with a strong asseveration from Lord Rosse and his servant, that the statement was wholly and entirely false. In addition to this step, the king took the trouble of comparing Lady Exeter's supposed confession with some of her letters, the result of which was, the expression of his decided opinion that the criminating document was a forgery. Having summoned Lady Lake and her daughter into his presence, and explained his reasons for suspicion, he informed them, that, as the charge now rested entirely on their own assertions, he must require the joint testimony of some other party. A chambermaid, one Sarah Swarton, was then produced, who affirmed that she had stood behind a hanging at the entrance of the apartment, and had overheard the countess reading the confession of her own guilt. In addition to this, a document was produced, purporting to be the deposition of one Luke Hutton, that for forty pounds Lady Exeter had hired him to poison her accusers: this man, however, happened opportunely to appear, and denied all knowledge of the affair. In order to ascertain what degree of credit was to be placed in the sole remaining testimony of the chambermaid, James took an opportunity of riding to Wimbledon, for the purpose of having a personal survey of the scene of action. On inspecting the apartment in which Lady Exeter was said to have made her confession, James discovered that a person standing behind the hangings could not possibly have heard the voice of another, if placed in the situation sworn to by Sarah Swarton: the experiment was severally made by the king and the courtiers who accompanied him. The next step was to summon the housekeeper, by whom, being assured that the same hangings had remained there for thirty years, the king immediately remarked, that they did not reach within a foot of the ground, and could not consequently have concealed any person who endeavoured to hide behind them. "Oaths," said Jaines, "cannot confound my sight." Previous to the trial of Lady Rosse and her mother for conspiracy, the king sent for Sir Thomas Lake, and advised him to leave his wife and daughter to their fate. Sir Thomas, however, declined doing so, observing that he could not refuse to be a husband and a father. The cause was heard before James in the star chamber, and lasted five days. The king was commencing to produce his evidence, when Lady Rosse anticipated him by confessing her guilt, and thus escaped the penal sentence which she would otherwise have incurred. Lady Lake was fined ten thousand pounds to the king, five thousand to the Countess of Exeter, and fifty pounds to Hutton, Sarah Swarton was sentenced to be whipt at the cart's tail, and to do penance at St. Martin's church. The king compared what had taken place with the circumstance of the transgression of our first parents; Lady Lake he likened to the serpent, her daughter to Eve, and Sir Thomas to Adam. Sir Thomas Lake as serted that the whole affair cost him thirty thousand pounds.* James would merit far higher praise for dis of having discovered the hidden meaning contained in the famous letter to Lord Mounteagle, which led to the annihilation of the popish plot. Whether, however, this remarkable instance of discrimination is to be attributed to him or to Secretary Cecil, will probably ever remain in doubt.* The personal accomplishments of James were decidedly inferior to his intellectual acquirements. The portraits of him are less numerous than might have been expected, in consequence of a superstitious repugnance which he entertained to sit for his picture, a weakness which Dr. Johnson informs us, may be reckoned among the anfructuosities of the human mind.t In stature James was rather above than below the common size-not ill made, though inclined to obesity; his face full and ruddy; his beard thin; and his hair of a light brown, though latterly it had become partially gray. Sir Anthony Weldon thus describes the king's personal appearance and peculiarities, with which he must have been well acquainted. "He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough, his clothes ever being made large and easy, the doublets quilted for stiletto proof, his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed; he was naturally of a timorous disposition, which was the reason of his quilted doublets; his eyes large, ever rolling after any stranger that came in his presence, insomuch as many for shame have left the room, as being out of countenance; his beard was very thin; his tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak full in the mouth, as if eating his drink, which came out into the cup on each side of his mouth; his skin was as soft as taffetta sarsnet, which felt so, because he never washed his hands, only rubbed his fingers' ends slightly with the wet end of a napkin; his legs were very weak, having had (as was thought) some foul play in his youth be * In his speech to parliament concerning the the king gives himself the sole credit of the discoBet very: "When the letter was showed to me by my secretary, wherein a general obscure advertisement was given of some dangerous blow at this time, I did upon the instant interpret and apprehend some dark phrases therein, contrary to the ordinary grammar con struction of them, and in another sort, than I am sure any divine, or lawyer, in any university would have taken them to be meant, by this horrible form of blowing us up all by powder; and, therefore, ordered that search to be made, whereby the matter was discovered and the man apprehended." Harl. Misc. vol. iii. p. 8. Again, in the preamble to the act for a public thanksgiving, we find "The conspiracy would have turned to the utter ruin of this kingdom, had it not pleased Almighty God, by inspiring the a divine spirit king's most excellent majesty with to interpret some dark phrases of a letter showed to his majesty, above and beyond all ordinary construction, thereby miraculously discovering this hidden treason." We can hardly imagine the king making so public a boast, or rather, being guilty of so gross a falsehood, had the credit been due to another; and bury, to find the following decisive passage: "We yet it is curious, in the circular of the Earl of Salis(Salisbury and Suffolk) both conceived that it could not by any other way be like to be attempted than with powder, while the king was sitting in that assembly, of which the lord chamberlain conceived more probability, because there was a great vault under the said chamber, we all thought fit to forbear to impart it to the king until some three or four days before the Sessions."-Winwood, vol. ii. p. 171. † Weldon, p. 164. For Johnson's Sesquipedalianism, see Croker's Boswell. I quote from recollection. at seven years of age; that weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders." From what we have seen of the king's character, we should rather have attributed the last mentioned peculiarity to a moral, instead of a constitutional weakness. James was extremely indifferent as to dress, and is said to have worn his clothes as long as they would hang together. When a new-fashioned Spanish hat was once brought him, he pushed it away, observing that he neither liked the Spaniards nor their fashions. On another occasion, when an attendant produced for his wear a pair of shoes adorned with rosettes, he inquired whether they intended to make a "rufflefooted dove" of him? He was so regular in his habits and meals, that one of his courtiers observed, that were he to awake after a seven years' sleep, he would not only be able to tell where the king had been on each particular day, but what he had partaken of for dinner. In his hunting costume, the appearance of Jaines must have been highly ludicrous: Walpole says he hunted in the "most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and trouser breeches." Sir Richard Baker, who was knighted by James, informs us that the king's manner of riding was so remarkable, that it could not with so much propriety be said that he rode, as that his horse carried him. James was accustomed to say that "a horse never stumbled but when he was reined." The king's equestrian ungainliness was the more unfortunate, in one of his exalted rank, as all processions, and journeys of state and convenience, were at this period, with few exceptions, performed on horseback. Even the peers were accustomed to ride to parliament in their robes. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his curious journal, gives the following description of one of the royal processions to the house of lords: it is illustrative of the character of James and the manners of the period. "I got a convenient place in the morning, not without some danger escaped, to see his majesty pass to parliament in state. It is only worth the inserting in this particular, that Prince Charles rode with a rich coronet on his head, between the serjeants-at-arms carrying maces, and the pensioners carrying their poleaxes, both on foot. Next before his majesty rode Henry Vere, Earl of Oxenford,* Lord Great Chamberlain of England, with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England, on his left hand, both bareheaded. Then followed his majesty with a rich crown upon his head, and most royally caparisoned. "In the king's short progress from Whitehall to Westminster, these passages following were accounted somewhat remarkable: - First, That he spake often and lovingly to the people, standing thick and threefold on all sides to behold him. God bless ye! God bless ye!' contrary to his former hasty and passionate custom, which often in his sudden distemper would bid a p-xor a plague on such as flocked to see him; secondly, Though the windows were filled with many great ladies as he rode along, yet that he spake to none of them but to the Marquis of Buckingham's * Henry Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford, killed at the siege of Breda, in 1625. † A knight of the Garter, an antiquary, and a man of taste. He sat as Lord High Steward at the trial of the memorable Earl of Strafford. In 1644 he was created Earl of Norfolk. In 1646 he died at Padua, but was buried at Arundel. |