tion subsided intc egregious cowardice; they cried out for mercy, and asked forgiveness on their knees. It was now midnight, and order appeared to be restored; but after an hour of deceitful tranquillity, the insurrection burst forth anew. The mutineers ran upon the officers like desperate men, each having a knife or a sabre in his hand; and such was the fury of the assailants that they tore their flesh, and even their clothes, with their teeth. There was no time for hesitation; a general slaughter took place, and the raft was strewed with dead bodies.

On the return of day it was found that, in the course of the preceding night of horror, sixty-five of the mutineers had perished, and two of the small party attached to the officers. One cask of wine only remained. Before the allowance was served out, they contrived to get up their mast afresh; but having no compass, and not knowing how to direct their course, they let the raft drive before the wind, apparently indifferent whither they went. Enfeebled with hunger, they now tried to catch fish, but could not succeed, and abandoned the attempt. At length, what is horrible to relate, the unhappy men, whom death had spared in the course of the night, fell upon the carcases of the dead and began to devour them. Some tried to eat their sword belts and cartridge boxes: others devoured their linen, and others the leather of their hats; but all these expedients, and others of a still more loathsome nature, were of no avail.

A third night of horror now approached; but it proved to be a night of tranquillity, disturbed only by the piercing cries of those whom hunger and thirst devoured. In the morning a shoal of flying fish, in passing the raft, left nearly three hundred entangled between the spars. By means of a little gunpowder and linen, and by erecting an empty cask, they contrived to make a fire; and mixing with the fish the flesh of a deceased comrade, they all partook of a meal, which, by this means, was rendered less revolting.

The fourth night was marked by another massacre. Their numbers were at length reduced to twenty-eight, fifteen of whom only appeared to be able to exist for a few days; the other thirteen were so reduced that they had nearly lost all sense of existence. As their case was hopeless, and as, while they lived, they would consume a part of the little that was left, a council was held, and, after a deliberation at which the most horrible despair is said to have presided, it was decided to throw them overboard. "Three sailors and a soldier undertook the execution of this cruel sentence. We turned away our eyes, and shed tears of blood on the fate of these unfortunate men; but this painful sacrifice saved the fifteen who remained, and who, after this dreadful catastrophe, had six days of suffering to undergo before they were relieved from their dismal situation." At the end of this period a small vessel was descried at a distance; she proved to be the Argus brig, which had been despatched from Senegal to look out for them. All hearts on board were melted with pity at their deplorable condition. "Let any one," say our unfortunate narrators, "figure to himself fifteen unhappy creatures almost naked, their bodies shrivelled by the rays of the sun, ten of thèm scarcely able to move; our limbs stripped of the skin; a total change in all our features; our eyes hollow, and almost savage; our long beards, which gave us an air almost hideous; we were in fact but the shadows of ourselves."

Such is the history of these unfortunate men! Of the hundred and fifty embarked on the raft, fifteen only were received on board the brig; and of these six died shortly after their arrival at St. Louis, and the remaining nine, covered with cicatrices, and exhausted by the suffering to which they were so long exposed, are stated to have been entirely altered in appearance and constitution. We are shocked to add, such were the neglect and indifference of their shipmates, who had arrived there in safety, that had it not been for the humane attention of Major Peddy and

Captain Campbell, they would, in all probability, have experienced the fate of their unfortunate companions.

Of the boats, two only (those in which the governor and the captain of the frigate had embarked) arrived at Senegal; the other four made the shore in different places, and landed their people. They suffered extremely from hunger and thirst, and the effects of a burning sun reflected from a surface of naked sand. With the exception, however, of two or three, they all reached Senegal.

The preceding narrative is perfectly well authenticated, being compiled from an account written by two of the unhappy survivors.

228.-LONDON IN THE TIME OF CHAUCER.

GODWIN.

[WILLIAM GODWIN, whose political writings are forgotten, but whose novel of Caleb Williams' will endure with our language, was born in 1756, and died in 1836. During this long life he was principally engaged in literary pursuits. He married in 1797, the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, who died the same year, leaving him one daughter, the present Mrs. Shelley. The following extract is from his 'Life of Geoffrey Chaucer.']

"Also

The seat of Chaucer's nativity was the city of London. This is completely ascertained by his own words in the Testament of Love, book i., section 5. the citye of London, that is to me so dere and swete, in which I was forth growen; and more kindely love have I to that place than to any other in yerth, as every kindely creture hath full appetite to that place of his kindely engendrure, and to wilne reste and pece in that stede to abide."

This passage contains nearly all the information we possess relative to the commencement of our poet's life. But it is fraught with various inferences. It is peremptory as to the place of his birth, or, as he calls it, of his "kindely engendrure" (that is, his geniture according to kind, or the course of nature). It renders it extremely probable that London was the abode of his tender years, and the scene of his first education; so much is not unlikely to be implied in his giving it the appellation of the place in which he was "forth growen." Lastly, as he is in this passage assigning a reason why many years after (in the fifty-sixth year of his age) he interested himself in the welfare, and took a part in the dissensions, of the metropolis, it may with some plausibility be inferred that his father was a merchant, and that he was himself by the circumstances of his birth entitled to the privileges of a citizen.

He who loves to follow the poet through the various scenes from which his mind receives its first impressions, will be eager in this place to recollect what sort of a city London was in the beginning of the fourteenth century; how far it resembled, and in what respects it differed from, the present metropolis of England.

I am afraid little doubt can be entertained that, if we were to judge of it from the first impression it was likely to make upon a stranger, it would not have been found much more advantageous than that of Paris at the same era, which Petrarca describes (A. D. 1333) as "the most dirty and ill-smelling town he had ever visited; Avignon only excepted."

Of this, however, we may be sure, that the impression which London produced on the mind of Chaucer, was very different from that of Paris on the mind of Petrarca. Petrarca viewed the cities of France with the prepossessions of an Italian, and the haughtiness of a pedant, proud that he owed his birth to the country of Cicero and Virgil, of Brutus and Cato, and looking on the rest of the world as a people of barbarians. Chaucer had none of these prejudices: he felt the great dictates of nature, and cherished them with the fondness of attachment. London, with its narrow lanes, and its dirty ways, its streets encumbered with commerce,

and its people vexed with the cares of gain, was in his eyes beautiful, lovely, and engaging. "More kindely love and fuller appetite" had he "to that place than to any other in yerth."

But, though London had at this time very little to boast on the score of its general architecture, it was already the scene of considerable population and wealth. The topographer who would attain to an exact idea of any of our principal towns at a remote period of their history, must go back in the first place to the consideration of what they were in the time of the Roman empire. For near four centuries, from the year of Christ 50, to the year 450, Britain was a flourishing and powerful colony to the great mistress of the world. The Romans, in proportion as they subdued her barbarous inhabitants, founded cities, erected theatres, established universities, constructed highways, and adorned the island with magnificent works of art, as well as planted within its circuit the seeds of discipline, science, and literature. England was then a civilised and a magnificent scene, and would have presented as many objects worthy of the curiosity of a traveller of taste, as at any period of its subsequent history. London was founded by the Romans, and inclosed with a wall, nearly equal in extent to the present boundaries of the city of London strictly so called. Its limits were from about the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, west, to the Tower Stairs, east on the north it extended to the street now denominated London Wall, and on the south it had another wall which skirted the whole length of the city along the shores of the river.

In that melancholy period when the Roman empire in the west became universally a prey to the hordes of ferocious barbarians, England fell to the lot of certain piratical tribes from the north of Germany, since known by the general denomination of Anglo-Saxons. These invaders were successful in exterminating from among us all vestiges of literature and Roman civilisation. The Christian religion itself sunk under their hostility. The institutions of the ancient Germans and the mythology of Woden became universal. At the time when the monk, St. Augustine, arrived in this country for the pious purpose of converting its usurpers, A.D. 596, it has been supposed that there was not a book to be found through the whole extent of the island. From this time, however, there was a period of comparative illumination. The Saxons had poetry, and the missionaries from Rome brought with them such literature as Europe then had to boast. We had our Bede, cur Alcuin, and our Alfred. This infancy of improvement was nearly crushed by the Danes; the inveterate foes of monasteries and learning, who were in the tenth century what the Saxons had already been in the sixth. England presents little to soothe the eye of the lover of civilisation, from the retreat of the Romans to the epoch of the Norman Conquest, when a race of warriors educated in a happier scene, and a succession of kings nearly all of distinguished ability, brought back to us the abode of the Muses and the arts of cultivated life.

During this interval, London, the heart of England, had experienced a common fate with the rest of its members. The walls, indeed, in considerable part remained, but the houses tumbled into ruin, and the tall grass waved in the streets: not that it was ever wholly unpeopled, but that it was an inconsiderable place, in comparison of the dimensions which the Romans had marked out for it. A short time, however, previously to the Conquest, it had a bridge of wood erected over the Thames : a work which would scarcely have been constructed in those rude times, if it had not even then been a flourishing city.

The Tower of London was constructed for the purpose of subjugation by William the Conqueror. William Rufus, who had a strong passion for magnificence, enlarged this edifice, rebuilt London Bridge on a more commodious plan, and laid the foundation of Westminster Hall. London Bridge was first built of stone under Henry

the Second. Edward the Confessor, who, a short time before the Conquest, im ported some of the Norman arts into Britain, first gave existence to the city of Westminster, having built there the old palace, and the venerable structure known by the name of Westminster Abbey.

London also, in the time of Chaucer, contained several royal palaces. The Tower was long a principal residence of our kings; beside which they had a smaller mansion very near it, called the Royal; a second, south of St. Paul's, called the Wardrobe; and a third, nearly on the site of the present Bridewell. This city was besides adorned with various monasteries, the chief of which were the Temple, which had lately been the residence of the Knights Templars, but was now in the occupation of the students at law; and the monastery of St. John, belonging to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, a gate of which is remaining to this day. It had many other buildings, which, relatively to the times we are considering, might be styled magnificent.

The population of London is stated by Peter of Blois, a man of talents, and for the time in which he lived an elegant writer of Latin, at forty thousand persons in the reign of King Stephen. In the reign of Edward the First, and the year 1285, the twenty-four wards of London are enumerated in a charter of that monarch nearly as at present, so that London must then have occupied the same space of ground as the city of London now occupies. We must not, however, suppose that this space was covered with inhabitants: Cheapside for example, we are told, was no manner of street, a fair large place, commonly called Crown Field ;" and tournaments were held there in the reign of Edward III. Among the environs of London we find enumerated the villages of Strand, Charing, and Holborn.

Respecting the population of London in the year 1349, when Chaucer was already twenty-one years of age, we have a ground of calculation of singular authenticity. That was a period when Europe, and nearly the whole known world was afflicted with a pestilence, more terrible than perhaps any other in the records of mankind. In England, our old historians assure us that scarcely the tenth person was left alive. Sir Walter Manny, one of the most distinguished warriors and courtiers of Edward III., purchased at this time a piece of ground, now the site of the Charter House, for the interment of such persons as the churches and church-yards of London might not suffice to bury; and it appears from an inscription on a stone cross erected on the spot, which remained in the time of these historians, that more than fifty thousand persons were buried in this ground in the space of one year. Maitland, in his History of London, very naturally observes, that this cannot be supposed to exceed the amount of one-half of the persons who died in that period. One hundred thousand persons, therefore, may safely be taken to be a part, whatwver part we may choose to imagine it, of the population of London at that period. Nor did the wealth and commerce of London by any means fail of their due proportion to the number of its inhabitants. Of this many striking examples may be produced. The father of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and lord chancellor to King Richard the Second, was a merchant; and the first cause of the subsequent eminence of the son was the loans of money advanced at several times by the father to Edward III. to assist him in the prosecution of his wars in France.

In the year next after the battle of Poitiers, Henry Picard, vintner, or wine-merchant, mayor of London, gave a sumptuous entertainment to four kings, Edward, King of England, John, King of France, David, King of Scots, and the King of Cyprus. The circumstances of the entertainment are thus characteristically described by the old historian. "After dinner, the sayd Henry Picard kept his hall against all commers whosoever, that were willing to play at dice and hazard. manner, the Ladie Margaret, his wife, did also keepe her chamber

intent. The King of Cipres playing with Henry Picard in his hall, did winne of him fiftie markes; but Henry, being very skilful in that arte, altering his hand, did after winne, of the same king, the same fiftie markes and fiftie markes more, which, when the same king began to take in ill parte, although hee dissembled the same, Henry sayd unto him, My Lord and King, be not agreeved, I covet not your gold but your play; for I have not bidde you hither that I might greeve you, but that amongst other things I might trie your play; and gave him his money again, plentifully bestowing of his owne amongst the retinue; besides, hee gave many rich giftes to the king, and other nobles and knights, which dined with him."

In the second year of King Richard the Second, John Mercer, a Scotchman, having fitted out a piratical fleet against the English, John Philpot, a citizen of London, hired, with his own money, to the number of a thousand soldiers; and, putting to sea, in a short time, took the said John Mercer, with all his prizes, and fifteen valuable Spanish ships which he had drawn to his assistance.

In the same reign, Sir Richard Whittington, Mayor of London, of whom so many traditional and improbable stories are told, rebuilt at his own expense the jail of Newgate, the library of the Gray Friars, the hospital of Little St. Bartholomew's, and a college near St. Paul's, which was called after his own name.

The story of Sir William Walworth's contention with Wat Tyler, and the gallantry and high spirit he displayed on the occasion, are too well known to need to be recited here. The increase of the towns and the progress of commerce were the immediate causes of that great revolution in the thirteenth century, the rise of the Commons; and we shall be at a loss to understand many circumstances in the history of this period, if we do not distinctly recollect that the wealthy merchants of England and the neighbouring countries were now enabled to enter into a sort of rivalship with the ancient barons, which these latter wished, perhaps, but were not able, to despise. The citizens had not yet learned the sordid habits of later times, and appear to have copied with success the purest models that were afforded them by their contemporaries. The father of Chaucer is conjectured, by one of his editors, to have been, like Henry Picard, a vintner, or merchant of the vintry. Such, then, were the scenes which our poet first beheld, and the description of persons with whom his infant years were connected.

SWIFT.

229.-GULLIVER, AND THE KING OF BROBDINGNAG. THE king, who, as I before observed, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I should be brought in my box, and set upon the table in his closet: he would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and sit down within three yards' distance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almost to a level with his face. In this manner I had several conversations with him. I one day took the freedom to tell his majesty, that the contempt he discovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of mind that he was master of; that reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body: on the contrary, we observed in our country, that the tallest persons were usually the least provided with it; that, among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art, and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds; and that, as inconsiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his majesty some signal service. The king heard me with attention, and began to conceive a much better opinion of me than he ever had before. He desired I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could; because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs, (for so he