God of unbounded benignity by enforcing systems of gloom and horror; by dreadful denunciations against the rest of mankind, and ascetical self-privations. He holds with the Caliph Omar, that we must make a hell of this world to merit heaven in the next. In all probability, he is a vice-suppresser, and hating to see others enjoy that which he denies to himself, wages a petty but malignant warfare against human happiness, from the poor boy's kite to the old woman's apple-stall. If in good circumstances, he orders out his coachman, footman, and horses, to go to chapel, that the world may at once know his wealth and his devoutness; yet dines upon cold meat, to let God Almighty see that he does not unnecessarily employ his servants on the Sabbath. Music on this day is an utter abomination; and, if he had his will, he would imprison the running waters for making melody with the pebbles; set the wind in the stocks for whistling; and cite the lark, the thrush, and the blackbird into the Ecclesiastical Court.

The man of fashion cannot possibly get dressed in time for church; the park is mauvais ton; there is no other place to ride in-he hates walking-lounges at the subscription-house, and votes Sunday a complete bore, until it is time to drop in at the Marchioness's, in Arlington-street.

Jammed in by other carriages, and sometimes unable to move from the same spot for hours together, the woman of fashion spends her Sunday morning in the ring, exposed to sun, wind, and dust, and the rude stare of an endless succession of oriental vulgarians.

Half filling his showy and substantial carriage, the rich citizen rides from his country-house to the church, fully impressed with the importance of the duty he is performing, and not altogether unmindful of the necessity of acquiring an appetite for dinner. He has, moreover, a lurking hope that his supplications may not have an unpropitious effect on the fate of his missing ship, the Good Intent, on which he is short insured; to strengthen which influence, he deplores to his son the irreligious omission of the introductory and concluding prayer in the newly printed bills of lading; censures the same impropriety in the form of modern wills; and informs him that most of the old mercantile ledgers had the words "Laus Deo" very properly printed in their first page. His wife, fat and fine, with a gorgeous pelisse, and a whole flower-garden in her bonnet, sits opposite to him, and, as they go to church to abjure all pomps and vanities, their rich liveried

An Insurance Company, at Cadiz, once took the Virgin Mary into formal partnership, covenanting to set aside her portion of profits for the enrichment of her shrine in that city. Not doubting that she would protect every vessel, in which she had such a manifest interest, they underwrote ships of all sorts, at such reduced rates, that in a few months the infatuated partners were all declared bankrupts.

servant, with fifty bobs and tags dangling from his shoulder, clatters up the aisle behind them, to perform the essential offices of carrying one little prayer-book, and shutting the door of their pew. Whatever be the rank of those who practise this obtrusive and indecorous display, it is of the very essence of vulgar upstart pride, and constitutes an offence, which the beadle of every parish ought to have special orders to prevent.

The city dandy and dandisette, arrayed in the very newest of their septenary fashions, pick the cleanest way to the Park, and leaving the verdant sward, umbrageous avenues, and chirping birds of Kensington-gardens, to nurserymaids and children, prefer taking the dust, and enjoying the crowd by the road-side, accompanied by the unceasing grating of the carriage-wheels in the gravel.

The maid-servant, having a smart new bonnet, asks her mistress's permission to go to morning-service; and, when her fellow servants inquire what the sermon was about, exclaims, with a toss of her head, "I always told Mary what the flirting of that fellow Tomkins would come to; spite of all his fine speeches about the banns, they was'nt no more asked in church than I was.'

The labourer, or mechanic, who was formerly enabled to freshen his feet in the grass of the green fields, and recreate his smoke-dried nose with the fragrance of a country breeze, can no longer enjoy that gratification now that London itself is gone out of town. He prowls about the dingy swamps of Battersea or MileEnd, with a low bull-dog at his heels, which he says he will match, for a gallon of beer, with e'er a dog in England. Being of the same stock with the cockney young lady, who pathetically lamented that she "never could exasperate the Haitch," and then innocently inquired" whether the letter We was'nt a wowell?" he, with a scrupulous inaccuracy, misplaces his H's, V's, and W's. At Vauxhall he stops to buy an ash-stick; because, as he argumentatively tells Bill Gibbons, his companion, "I always likes a hash un. However numerous may be his acquaintance, he never meets one without asking him what they shall drink, having a bibulous capacity as insatiable as that of a dustman, who, beginning at six o'clock in the morning, will swallow a quart of washy small beer at every door on both sides of a long street.

The more decent artisan, having stowed four young children, all apparently of the same age, in a hand-cart, divides with his wife the pleasure of dragging them, for the benefit of country air, as far as the Mother Red Cap in the Hampstead-road, where he ascends into a balcony commanding a fine view of the surrounding dust, smokes his pipe, drinks his ale, and, enjoying the heat of the high road as he lugs his burden back again, declares, that "them country excursions are vastly wholesome." "the

It was my intention to have contrasted with these scenes

sound of the church-going bell" in a quiet sequestered village; but, in writing of London, I have so far caught its spirit, as to have left myself little room for further enlargement, and I shall, therefore, comprise all I had to say in the following extract from Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone

"From Bolton's old monastic tower,

The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun is bright; the fields are gay,
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of the crystal Wharf,
Through the vale, retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.

And up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus, in joyous mood, they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory."

H.

ANECDOTES OF THE GUELPHS.

It is singular that, in an age when the biography of individuals forms so great a portion of our national literature, the history of the illustrious House, which now enjoys the crown of England, should have been so long neglected. On the accession of the Brunswick family, indeed, several volumes appeared, which professed to contain authentic accounts of that house, but which were, for the most part, collected from the ancient chronicles, and filled with the most ridiculous fictions. The attempt of Gibbon, therefore, has been the only source to which we have hitherto had resort, for any thing like accurate and historical information on this subject. At length, however, a more extensive and finished work has been given to the public, which, if it does not supersede the labours of the future historian, will at least furnish him with a fund of accurate and valuable information.* As the annals of this warlike and adventurous family abound with interesting relations, we have selected such as were the most striking, and which, by being col

A general History of the House of Guelph, or Royal Family of Great Britain, from the earliest period in which the name appears upon record, to the accession of his Majesty King George the First to the throne, with an appendix of authentic and o.iginal documents. By Andrew Halliday, M. D. Domestic Physician to H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence. 4to. London, Underwood, 1921.

lected together, will perhaps afford a characteristic picture of the ancestors of the monarchs, who now, for more than a century, have swayed the sceptre of these realms.

The origin of the family name is involved in great obscurity. John Tambactus, a writer of the eleventh century, has related the following fable respecting it. The wife of a certain knight, having borne, at one birth, (simul et semel) twelve sons, and being apprehensive, on account of her husband's poverty, that they would prove too great a burden for him, bribed her handmaid to carry her infants to the river, and drown them. While the maid was about to consign her young charge to the waves, the Bishop of Cologne happening to pass near the banks of the river, observed her, and dispatched one of his suite to inquire what she was doing; the messenger reported what he had discovered, and the good bishop, moved with compassion, took the infants under his own care, and charged himself with their education. It is said, that the maiden-executioner, when first questioned by the bishop's messenger as to what she had in her apron, answered whelps, whence the youths afterwards assumed it as the surname of their family. The same verbal derivation is supported by the author of the " Origines Guelficæ," who says that the word is considered by some as a translation of the Latin Catulus, amongst the Saxons written and pronounced Woëlpe; among the Belgians, Welpe, Wolpe, and Wülpe; and among the English, Whelp. The learned Professor Eichorn is inclined to think that the name is derived from the Saxon huelpe, written in German hülpe, and signifying aid or assistance; while, in the opinion of Dr. Halliday, it was assumed from the badge or emblem of the family, as the figure of some animal was usually painted on the banners of the chiefs, which served as the rallying war-cry of the tribe they commanded.

The earliest annals of the Guelphs are too obscure to furnish much interesting information. The first of the name was a Prince of the Scyrri in the fifth century; and, in the seventh century, a Guelph was the chamberlain of Dagobert, King of France; and about the year 823, Wolfardus, a descendant of the chamberlain, was made Count of Lucca by Charlemagne, and, by a translation of his name into Latin, was called Boniface the First. His son, Boniface the Second, made an expedition into Africa; and, after a sanguinary conflict, defeated a formidable army of Arabs and Moors. Collaterally related to these were the Kings of Burgundy, who failed in the person of Rudolph the Third, and the Counts of Altdorf, which latter family became again united to that of the descendants of Boniface, by the marriage of Cunigunda, daughter of the fourth Count of Altdorf, to Azo, the second Marquis of Este. Among the ancestors of the Altdorf branch, was Henry of the Golden Chariot, who acquired that appellation from the fol

lowing circumstance. Having consented to receive, as the feudatory of the Emperor Arnulph, as much land as he could surround in one day with a chariot, he had a little vehicle made of gold, with which he mounted his fleetest horses, stationed at proper distances, and so acquired about four thousand mansi, or measure of land, in the four-and-twenty hours. Of these states, which lay in Upper Bavaria, he was created Duke. The degrading stratagem by which he gained his principality, so disgusted the independent spirit of his father, that, in the height of his despair, he retired, with twelve of his lords, to the forest of Ambergau, where he erected thirteen cells, and passed there the remainder of his life, without ever again sceing or forgiving his degenerate son.

Henry, the fourth in descent from Henry of the Golden Chariot, met with an early and melancholy death. The Guelphic princes were bound annually to present a degrading tribute, or sin-offering, at the shrine of St. Othmar. This the young prince refused to do; but soon afterwards, as he was hunting the roe in the mountains of the Tyrol, he threw himself on the ground for repose, under the shadow of a rock, a huge fragment of which fell upon his head, and killed him on the spot. His brother Guelph, more pious than he, dutifully paid the tribute, and, of course, was blessed with a long and happy reign.

Guelph, the sixth Count of Altdorf, and the third Duke of Bavaria, was the issue of the marriage of Cunigunda and Azo the Second; and from him, Henry the Lion, one of the most celebrated of the Guelphic princes, was lineally descended. His father died in 1139, leaving him, his only son, in the tenth year his age. To add to his misfortune, the young Duke was abandoned by his mother, who, in 1141, married Henry, the Margrave of Austria, the enemy of her house. His grandmother, Richenza, however, became his guardian; and the Saxons shewed themselves faithful to the son of their late sovereign. Having been prevailed upon to surrender his title to Bavaria, the young prince was acknowledged by the empire as Duke of Saxony, and enjoyed some years of domestic peace. His early attachment to warlike and manly sports, his fortitude, his energy, and his decision of character, acquired him the title of the Lion; and at the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Diet at Frankfort, composed of men and princes, where he received the order of knighthood, which had then been newly instituted.

In the crusade against the idolatrous Sclavi of the Baltic, Henry the Lion took a distinguished part; and on the return of the Emperor Conrad, who had taken the cross against the Saracenic infidels, he endeavoured to recover his Bavarian dominions from the Margrave of Austria, to whom they had been resigned. While he was thus employed, he was informed that Conrad had entered Saxony at the head of an army, with the intention of de