Perhaps this was the first time that it had ever been resolved in
parliament to raise a public monument of glory and gratitude--to an
individual! The novelty of the attempt may serve as the only excuse for
the loose arrangements which followed after parliament had approved of
the design, without voting any specific supply for the purpose! The
queen always issued the orders at her own expense, and commanded
expedition; and while Anne lived, the expenses of the building were
included in her majesty's debts, as belonging to the civil list
sanctioned by parliament.[64]

When George the First came to the throne, the parliament declared the
debt to be the debt of the queen, and the king granted a privy seal as
for other debts. The crown and the parliament had hitherto proceeded in
perfect union respecting this national edifice. However, I find that the
workmen were greatly in arrears; for when George the First ascended the
throne, they gladly accepted a _third_ part of their several debts!

The great architect found himself amidst inextricable difficulties. With
the fertile invention which amuses in his comedies, he contrived an
extraordinary scheme, by which he proposed to make the duke himself
responsible for the building of Blenheim!

However much the duke longed to see the magnificent edifice concluded,
he showed the same calm intrepidity in the building of Blenheim as he
had in its field of action. Aware that if he himself gave any order, or
suggested any alteration, he might be involved in the expense of the
building, he was never to be circumvented--never to be surprised into a
spontaneous emotion of pleasure or disapprobation; on no occasion, he
declares, had he even entered into conversation with the architect
(though his friend) or with any one acting under his orders, about
Blenheim House! Such impenetrable prudence on all sides had often
blunted the subdolous ingenuity of the architect and plotter of
comedies!

In the absence of the duke, when abroad in 1705, Sir John contrived to
obtain from Lord Godolphin, the friend and relative of the Duke of
Marlborough, and probably his agent in some of his concerns, a warrant,
constituting Vanbrugh _surveyor, with power of contracting on the behalf
of the Duke of Marlborough_. How he prevailed on Lord Godolphin to get
this appointment does not appear--his lordship probably conceived it was
useful, and might assist in expediting the great work, the favourite
object of the hero. This warrant, however, Vanbrugh kept entirely to
himself; he never mentioned to the duke that he was in possession of any
such power; nor, on his return, did he claim to have it renewed.

The building proceeded with the same delays, and the payments with the
same irregularity; the veteran now foresaw what happened, that he should
never be the inhabitant of his own house! The public money issued from
the Treasury was never to be depended on; and after 1712, the duke took
the building upon himself, for the purpose of accommodating the workmen.
They had hitherto received what was called "crown pay," which was high
wages and uncertain payment--and they now gladly abated a third of their
prices. But though the duke had undertaken to pay the workmen, this
could make no alteration in the claims on the Treasury. Blenheim was to
be built _for_ Marlborough, not _by_ him; it was a monument raised by
the nation to their hero, not a palace to be built by their mutual
contributions.

Whether Marlborough found that his own million might be slowly injured
while the Treasury remained still obdurate, or that the architect was
still more and more involved, I cannot tell; but in 1715, the workmen
appear to have struck, and the old delays and stand-still again renewed.
It was then Sir John, for the first time, produced the warrant he had
extracted from Lord Godolphin, to lay before the Treasury; adding,
however, a memorandum, to prevent any misconception, that the duke was
to be considered as the paymaster, the debts incurred devolving on the
crown. This part of our secret history requires more development than I
am enabled to afford: as my information is drawn from "the Case" of the
Duke of Marlborough in reply to Sir John's depositions, it is possible
Vanbrugh may suffer more than he ought in this narration; which,
however, incidentally notices his own statements.

A new scene opens! Vanbrugh not obtaining his claims from the Treasury,
and the workmen becoming more clamorous, the architect suddenly turns
round on the duke, at once to charge him with the whole debt.

The pitiable history of this magnificent monument of public gratitude,
from its beginnings, is given by Vanbrugh in his deposition. The great
architect represents himself as being comptroller of her majesty's
works; and as such was appointed to prepare a model, which model of
Blenheim House her majesty kept in her palace, and gave her commands to
issue money according to the direction of Mr. Travers, the queen's
surveyor-general; that the lord treasurer appointed her majesty's own
officers to supervise these works; that it was upon defect of money from
the Treasury that the workmen grew uneasy; that the work was stopped,
till further orders of money from the Treasury; that the queen then
ordered enough to secure it from winter weather; that afterwards she
ordered more for payment of the workmen; that they were paid in part;
and upon Sir John's telling them the queen's resolution to grant them a
further supply (_after a stop put to it by the duchess's order_), they
went on and incurred the present debt; that this was afterwards brought
into the House of Commons as the debt of the crown, not owing from the
queen to the Duke of Marlborough, but to the workmen, and this by the
queen's officers.

During the uncertain progress of the building, and while the workmen
were often in deep arrears, it would seem that the architect often
designed to involve the Marlboroughs in its fate and his own; he
probably thought that some of their round million might bear to be
chipped, to finish his great work, with which, too, their glory was so
intimately connected. The famous duchess had evidently put the duke on
the defensive; but once, perhaps, was the duke on the point of indulging
some generous architectural fancy, when lo! Atossa stepped forwards and
"put a stop to the building."

When Vanbrugh at length produced the warrant of Lord Godolphin,
empowering him to contract for the duke, this instrument was utterly
disclaimed by Marlborough; the duke declares it existed without his
knowledge; and that if such an instrument for a moment was to be held
valid, no man would be safe, but might be ruined by the act of another!

Vanbrugh seems to have involved the intricacy of his plot, till it fell
into some contradictions. The queen he had not found difficult to
manage; but after her death, when the Treasury failed in its golden
source, he seems to have sat down to contrive how to make the duke the
great debtor. Vanbrugh swears that "He himself looked upon the crown, as
engaged to the Duke of Marlborough for the expense; but that he believes
the workmen always looked upon the duke as their paymaster." He advances
so far, as to swear that he made a contract with particular workmen,
which contract was not unknown to the duke. This was not denied; but the
duke in his reply observes, that "he knew not that the workmen were
employed for _his_ account, or by _his_ own agent:"--never having heard
till Sir John produced the warrant from Lord Godolphin, that Sir John
was "his surveyor!" which he disclaims.

Our architect, however opposite his depositions appear, contrived to
become a witness to such facts as tended to conclude the duke to be the
debtor for the building; and "in his depositions has taken as much care
to have the guilt of perjury without the punishment of it, as any man
could do." He so managed, though he has not sworn to contradictions,
that the natural tendency of one part of his evidence presses one way,
and the natural tendency of another part presses the direct contrary
way. In his former memorial, the main design was to disengage the duke
from the debt; in his depositions, the main design was to charge the
duke with the debt. Vanbrugh, it must be confessed, exerted not less of
his dramatic than his architectural genius in the building of Blenheim!

"The Case" concludes with an eloquent reflection, where Vanbrugh is
distinguished as the man of genius, though not, in this predicament, the
man of honour. "If at last the charge run into by order of the crown
must be upon the duke, yet the infamy of it must go upon another, who
was perhaps the only architect in the world capable of building such a
house; and the only friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the
debt upon one to whom he was so highly obliged."

There is a curious fact in the depositions of Vanbrugh, by which we
might infer that the idea of Blenheim House might have originated with
the duke himself; he swears that "in 1704, the duke met him, and told
him _he_ designed to build a house, and must consult him about a model,
&c.; but it was the queen who ordered the present house to be built with
all expedition."

The whole conduct of this national edifice was unworthy of the nation,
if in truth the nation ever entered heartily into it. No specific sum
had been voted in parliament for so great an undertaking; which
afterwards was the occasion of involving all the parties concerned in
trouble and litigation; threatened the ruin of the architect; and I
think we shall see, by Vanbrugh's letters, was finished at the sole
charge, and even under the superintendence, of the duchess herself! It
may be a question, whether this magnificent monument of glory did not
rather originate in the spirit of party, in the urgent desire of the
queen to allay the pride and jealousies of the Marlboroughs. From the
circumstance to which Vanbrugh has sworn, that the duke had designed to
have a house built by Vanbrugh, before Blenheim had been resolved on, we
may suppose that this intention of the duke's afforded the queen a
suggestion of a national edifice.

Archdeacon Coxe, in his Life of Marlborough, has obscurely alluded to
the circumstances attending the building of Blenheim. "The illness of
the duke, and the tedious litigation which ensued, caused such delays,
that little progress was made in the work at the time of his decease. In
the interim a serious misunderstanding arose between the duchess and the
architect, which forms the subject of a voluminous correspondence.
Vanbrugh was in consequence removed, and the direction of the building
confided to other hands, under her own immediate superintendence."

This "voluminous correspondence" would probably afford "words that burn"
of the lofty insolence of Atossa, and "thoughts that breathe" of the
comic wit; it might too relate, in many curious points, to the
stupendous fabric itself. If her grace condescended to criticise its
parts with the frank roughness she is known to have done to the
architect himself, his own defence and explanations might serve to let
us into the bewildering fancies of his magical architecture. Of that
self-creation for which he was so much abused in his own day as to have
lost his real avocation as an architect, and stands condemned for
posterity in the volatile bitterness of Lord Orford, nothing is left for
us but our own convictions--to behold, and to be for ever
astonished!--But "this voluminous correspondence?" Alas! the historian
of war and politics overlooks with contempt the little secret histories
of art and of human nature!--and "a voluminous correspondence" which
indicates so much, and on which not a solitary idea is bestowed, has
only served to petrify our curiosity!

Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only
recovered several vivacious extracts from confidential letters of
Vanbrugh's to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of
_invention_, as well as rancour, in her grace and the wit: whether
Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could have had the patience to have composed a
comedy of five acts I will not determine; but unquestionably she could
have dictated many scenes with equal spirit. We have seen Vanbrugh
attempting to turn the debts incurred by the building of Blenheim on the
duke; we now learn, for the first time, that the duchess, with equal
aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the debts on Vanbrugh!

"I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever
getting it, near 2000_l._ due to me for many years' service, plague, and
trouble, at Blenheim, which that wicked woman of 'Marlborough' is so far
from paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work
done there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for
which I think she ought to be hanged."

In 1722, on occasion of the duke's death, Vanbrugh gives an account to
Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at
his illustrious victims.

"The Duke of Marlborough's treasure exceeds the most extravagant guess.
The grand settlement, which it was suspected her grace had broken to
pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and
his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the
land-tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this was
exclusive of his 'land;' his 5000_l._ a year upon the post-office; his
mortgages upon a distressed estate; his South-Sea stock; his annuities,
and which were not subscribed in, and besides what is in foreign banks;
and yet this man could neither pay his workmen their bills, nor his
architect his salary.

"He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her!) 10,000_l._ a
year _to spoil Blenheim her own way_; 12,000_l._ a year to keep herself
clean and go to law; 2000_l._ a year to Lord Rialton for present
maintenance; and Lord Godolphin only 5000_l._ a year jointure, if he
outlives my lady: this last is a wretched article. The rest of the heap,
for these are but snippings, goes to Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will
have 40,000_l._ a year in present."

Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the
maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim,
invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!--one
perfectly characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to
Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another
magnificent monument of his singular genius.

"We staid two nights in Woodstock; but there was an order to the
servants, _under her grace's own hand, not to let me enter Blenheim_!
and lest that should not mortify me enough, she having somehow learned
that my _wife_ was of the company, _sent an express the night before we
came there_, with orders that if _she_ came with the Castle Howard
ladies, the servants should not suffer her to see either house, gardens,
or even to enter the park: so she was forced to sit all day long and
keep me company at the inn!"

This was a _coup-de-théâtre_ in this joint comedy of Atossa and
Vanbrugh! The architect of Blenheim, lifting his eyes towards his own
massive grandeur, exiled to a dull inn, and imprisoned with one who
required rather to be consoled, than capable of consoling the enraged
architect!

In 1725, Atossa still pursuing her hunted prey, had driven it to a spot
which she flattered herself would enclose it with the security of a
preserve. This produced the following explosion!

"I have been forced into chancery by that B. B. B. the Duchess of
Marlborough, where she has got an injunction upon me by her friend the
late good chancellor (Earl of Macclesfield), who declared that I was
never employed by the duke, and therefore had no demand upon his estate
for my services at Blenheim. Since my hands were thus tied up from
trying by law to recover my arrear, I have prevailed with Sir Robert
Walpole _to help me in a scheme which I proposed to him, by which I got
my money in spite of the hussy's teeth. My carrying this point enrages
her much_, and the more because it is of considerable weight in my small
fortune, which she has heartily endeavoured so to destroy as to throw me
into an English Bastile, there to finish my days, as _I began them, in a
French one_."

Plot for plot! and the superior claims of one of practised invention are
vindicated! The writer, long accustomed to comedy-writing, has excelled
the self-taught genius of Atossa. The "scheme" by which Vanbrugh's
fertile invention, aided by Sir Robert Walpole, finally circumvented the
avaricious, the haughty, and the capricious Atossa, remains untold,
unless it is alluded to by the passage in Lord Orford's "Anecdotes of
Painting," where he informs us that the "duchess quarrelled with Sir
John, and went to law with him; but though he _proved to be in the
right_, or rather _because_ he proved to be in the right, she employed
Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St. James's Park."

I have to add a curious discovery respecting Vanbrugh himself, which
explains a circumstance in his life not hitherto understood.

In all the biographies of Vanbrugh, from the time of Cibber's Lives of
the Poets, the early part of the life of this man of genius remains
unknown. It is said he descended from an ancient family in _Cheshire_,
which came originally from _France_, though by the name, which properly
written would be _Van Brugh_, he would appear to be of _Dutch_
extraction. A tale is universally repeated that Sir John once visiting
France in the prosecution of his architectural studies, while taking a
survey of some fortifications, excited alarm, and was carried to the
Bastile: where, to deepen the interest of the story, he sketched a
variety of comedies, which he must have communicated to the governor,
who, whispering it doubtless as an affair of state to several of the
noblesse, these admirers of "sketches of comedies"--English ones no
doubt--procured the release of this English Molière. This tale is
further confirmed by a very odd circumstance. Sir John built at
Greenwich, on a spot still called "Van Brugh's Fields," two whimsical
houses; one on the side of Greenwich Park is still called "the
Bastile-House," built on its model, to commemorate this imprisonment.

Not a word of this detailed story is probably true! that the _Bastile_
was an object which sometimes occupied the imagination of our architect,
is probable; for by the letter we have just quoted, we discover from
himself the singular incident of Vanbrugh's having been _born in the
Bastile_.[65]

Desirous, probably, of concealing his alien origin, this circumstance
cast his early days into obscurity. He felt that he was a Briton in all
respects but that of his singular birth. The father of Vanbrugh married
Sir Dudley Carleton's daughter. We are told he had "political
connexions;" and one of his "political" tours had probably occasioned
his confinement in that state-dungeon, where his lady was delivered of
her burden of love. This odd fancy of building a "Bastile-House" at
Greenwich, a fortified prison! suggested to his first life-writer the
fine romance; which must now be thrown aside among those literary
fictions the French distinguish by the softening and yet impudent term
of "_Anecdotes hasardées!_" with which formerly Varillas and his
imitators furnished their pages; lies which looked like facts!

FOOTNOTES:

  [62] The name by which Pope ruthlessly satirized Sarah Duchess of
    Marlborough.

  [63] I draw the materials of this secret history from an unpublished
    "Case of the Duke of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh," as also
    from some confidential correspondence of Vanbrugh with Jacob Tonson,
    his friend and publisher.

  [64] Parliament voted 500,000_l._ for the building, which was
    insufficient. The queen added thereto the honour of Woodstock, an
    appanage of the crown, on the simple condition of rendering at
    Windsor Castle every year on the anniversary of the victory of
    Blenheim, a flag adorned with three fleur-de-lys, "as acquittance
    for all manner of rents, suits and services due to the crown."

  [65] Cunningham, in his "Lives of the British Architects," does not
    incline to the conclusions above drawn. He says, "I suspect that
    Vanbrugh, in saying he began his days in the Bastile, meant only
    that he was its tenant in early life--at the commencement of his
    manhood." The same author tells us that Vanbrugh's grandfather fled
    from Ghent, his native city, to avoid the persecutions of the Duke
    of Alva, and established himself as a merchant in Walbrook, where
    his son lived after him, and where John Vanbrugh (afterwards the
    great architect) was born in the year 1666. His father was at this
    time Comptroller of the Treasury Chamber. Cunningham thinks the
    Cheshire part of the genealogy "unlikely to be true."

SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.[66]

Rawleigh exercised in perfection incompatible talents, and his character
connects the opposite extremes of our nature! His "Book of Life," with
its incidents of prosperity and adversity, of glory and humiliation, was
as chequered as the novelist would desire for a tale of fiction. Yet in
this mighty genius there lies an unsuspected disposition, which requires
to be demonstrated, before it is possible to conceive its reality. From
his earliest days, probably by his early reading of the romantic
incidents of the first Spanish adventurers in the New World, he himself
betrayed the genius of an _adventurer_, which prevailed in his character
to the latest; and it often involved him in the practice of mean
artifices and petty deceptions; which appear like folly in the wisdom of
a sage; like ineptitude in the profound views of a politician; like
cowardice in the magnanimity of a hero; and degrade by their littleness
the grandeur of a character which was closed by a splendid death, worthy
the life of the wisest and the greatest of mankind!

The sunshine of his days was in the reign of Elizabeth. From a boy,
always dreaming of romantic conquests (for he was born in an age of
heroism), and formed by nature for the chivalric gallantry of the court
of a maiden queen, from the moment he with such infinite art cast his
rich mantle over the miry spot, his life was a progress of glory. All
about Rawleigh was as splendid as the dress he wore: his female
sovereign, whose eyes loved to dwell on men who might have been fit
subjects for "the Faerie Queene" of Spenser, penurious of reward, only
recompensed her favourites by suffering them to make their own fortunes
on sea and land; and Elizabeth listened to the glowing projects of her
hero, indulging that spirit which could have conquered the world, to
have laid the toy at the feet of the sovereign!

This man, this extraordinary being, who was prodigal of his life and
fortune on the Spanish Main, in the idleness of peace could equally
direct his invention to supply the domestic wants of every-day life, in
his project of "an office for address." Nothing was too high for his
ambition, nor too humble for his genius. Pre-eminent as a military and a
naval commander, as a statesman and a student, Rawleigh was as intent on
forming the character of Prince Henry, as that prince was studious of
moulding his own aspiring qualities by the genius of the friend whom he
contemplated. Yet the active life of Rawleigh is not more remarkable
than his contemplative one. He may well rank among the founders of our
literature; for composing on a subject exciting little interest, his
fine genius has sealed his unfinished volume with immortality. For
magnificence of eloquence, and massiveness of thought, we must still
dwell on his pages.[67] Such was the man who was the adored patron of
Spenser; whom Ben Jonson, proud of calling other favourites "his sons,"
honoured by the title of "his father;" and who left political
instructions which Milton deigned to edit.

But how has it happened that, of so elevated a character, Gibbon has
pronounced that it was "ambiguous," while it is described by Hume as "a
great but ill-regulated mind!"

There was a peculiarity in the character of this eminent man; he
practised the cunning of an _adventurer_--a cunning most humiliating in
the narrative! The great difficulty to overcome in this discovery is,
how to account for a sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and
attempting to obtain by circuitous deception what it may be supposed so
magnanimous a spirit would only deign to possess himself of by direct
and open methods.

Since the present article was written, a letter, hitherto unpublished,
appears in the recent edition of Shakspeare which curiously and minutely
records one of those artifices of the kind which I am about to narrate
at length. When, under Elizabeth, Rawleigh was once in confinement, it
appears that seeing the queen passing by, he was suddenly seized with a
strange resolution of combating with the governor and his people,
declaring that the mere _sight_ of the queen had made him desperate, as
a confined lover would feel at the sight of his mistress. The letter
gives a minute narrative of Sir Walter's astonishing conduct, and
carefully repeats the warm romantic style in which he talked of his
royal mistress, and his formal resolution to die rather than exist out
of her presence.[68] This extravagant scene, with all its cunning, has
been most elaborately penned by the ingenious letter-writer, with a hint
to the person whom he addresses, to suffer it to meet the eye of their
royal mistress, who could not fail of admiring our new "Orlando
Furioso," and soon after released this tender prisoner! To me it is
evident that the whole scene was got up and concerted for the occasion,
and was the invention of Rawleigh himself; the romantic incident he well
knew was perfectly adapted to the queen's taste. Another similar
incident, in which I have been anticipated in the disclosure of the
fact, though not of its nature, was what Sir Toby Matthews obscurely
alludes to in his letters, of "the guilty blow he gave himself in the
Tower;" a passage which had long excited my attention, till I discovered
the curious incident in some manuscript letters of Lord Cecil. Rawleigh
was then confined in the Tower for the Cobham conspiracy; a plot so
absurd and obscure that one historian has called it a "state-riddle,"
but for which, so many years after, Rawleigh so cruelly lost his life.

Lord Cecil gives an account of the examination of the prisoners involved
in this conspiracy. "One afternoon, whilst divers of us were in the
Tower examining some of these prisoners, Sir Walter _attempted to murder
himself_; whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him, and found
him in some agony to be unable to endure his misfortunes, and protesting
innocency, with carelessness of life; and in that humour _he had wounded
himself under the right pap, but no way mortally, being in truth rather
a_ CUT _than a_ STAB, and now very well cured both in body and
mind."[69] This feeble attempt at suicide, this "cut rather than stab,"
I must place among those scenes in the life of Rawleigh so
incomprehensible with the genius of the man. If it were nothing but one
of those

  Fears of the Brave!

we must now open another of the

  Follies of the Wise!

Rawleigh returned from the wild and desperate voyage of Guiana, with
misery in every shape about him.[70] His son had perished; his devoted
Keymis would not survive his reproach; and Rawleigh, without fortune and
without hope, in sickness and in sorrow, brooded over the sad thought,
that in the hatred of the Spaniard, and in the political pusillanimity
of James, he was arriving only to meet inevitable death. With this
presentiment, he had even wished to give up his ship to the crew, had
they consented to land him in France; but he was probably irresolute in
this decision at sea, as he was afterwards at land, where he wished to
escape, and refused to fly: the clearest intellect was darkened, and
magnanimity itself became humiliated, floating between the sense of
honour and of life.

Rawleigh landed in his native county of Devon: his arrival was the
common topic of conversation, and he was the object of censure or of
commiseration: but his person was not molested, till the fears of James
became more urgent than his pity.

The Cervantic Gondomar, whose "quips and quiddities" had concealed the
cares of state, one day rushed into the presence of James, breathlessly
calling out for "audience!" and compressing his "ear-piercing" message
into the laconic abruptness of "piratas! piratas! piratas!" There was
agony as well as politics in this cry of Gondomar, whose brother, the
Spanish governor, had been massacred in this predatory expedition.[71]
The timid monarch, terrified at this tragical appearance of his
facetious friend, saw at once the demands of the whole Spanish cabinet,
and vented his palliative in a gentle proclamation. Rawleigh having
settled his affairs in the west, set off for London to appear before
the king, in consequence of the proclamation. A few miles from Plymouth
he was met by Sir Lewis Stucley, vice-admiral of Devon, a kinsman and a
friend, who, in communication with government, had accepted a sort of
_surveillance_ over Sir Walter. It is said (and will be credited, when
we hear the story of Stucley), that he had set his heart on the _ship_,
as a probable good purchase; and on the _person_, against whom, to
colour his natural treachery, he professed an old hatred. He first
seized on Rawleigh more like the kinsman than the vice-admiral, and
proposed travelling together to London, and baiting at the houses of the
friends of Rawleigh. The warrant which Stucley in the meanwhile had
desired was instantly despatched, and the bearer was one Manoury, a
French empiric, who was evidently sent to act the part he did--a part
played at all times, and the last title, in French politics, that so
often had recourse to this instrument of state, is a _Mouton_!

Rawleigh still, however, was not placed under any harsh restraint: his
confidential associate, Captain King, accompanied him; and it is
probable, that if Rawleigh had effectuated his escape, he would have
conferred a great favour on the government.

They could not save him at London. It is certain that he might have
escaped; for Captain King had hired a vessel, and Rawleigh had stolen
out by night, and might have reached it, but irresolutely returned home;
another night, the same vessel was ready, but Rawleigh never came! The
loss of his honour appeared the greater calamity.

As he advanced in this eventful journey, everything assumed a more
formidable aspect. His friends communicated fearful advices; a
pursuivant, or king's messenger, gave a more menacing appearance; and
suggestions arose in his own mind, that he was reserved to become a
victim of state. When letters of commission from the Privy Council were
brought to Sir Lewis Stucley, Rawleigh was observed to change
countenance, exclaiming with an oath, "Is it possible my fortune should
return upon me thus again?" He lamented, before Captain King, that he
had neglected the opportunity of escape; and which, every day he
advanced inland, removed him the more from any chance.

Rawleigh at first suspected that Manoury was one of those instruments of
state who are sometimes employed when open measures are not to be
pursued, or when the cabinet have not yet determined on the fate of a
person implicated in a state crime; in a word, Rawleigh thought that
Manoury was a spy over him, and probably over Stucley too. The first
impression in these matters is usually the right one; but when Rawleigh
found himself caught in the toils, he imagined that such corrupt agents
were to be corrupted. The French empiric was sounded, and found very
compliant; Rawleigh was desirous by his aid to counterfeit sickness, and
for this purpose invented a series of the most humiliating stratagems.
He imagined that a constant appearance of sickness might produce delay,
and procrastination, in the chapter of accidents, might end in pardon.
He procured vomits from the Frenchman, and, whenever he chose, produced
every appearance of sickness; with dimness of sight, dizziness in his
head, he reeled about, and once struck himself with such violence
against a pillar in the gallery, that there was no doubt of his malady.
Rawleigh's servant one morning entering Stucley's chamber, declared that
his master was out of his senses, for that he had just left him in his
shirt upon all fours, gnawing the rushes upon the floor. On Stucley's
entrance, Rawleigh was raving, and reeling in strong convulsions.
Stucley ordered him to be chafed and fomented, and Rawleigh afterwards
laughed at this scene with Manoury, observing that he had made Stucley a
perfect physician.

But Rawleigh found it required some more visible and alarming disease
than such ridiculous scenes had exhibited. The vomits worked so slowly,
that Manoury was fearful to repeat the doses. Rawleigh inquired whether
the empiric knew of any preparation which could make him look ghastly,
without injuring his health. The Frenchman offered a harmless ointment
to act on the surface of the skin, which would give him the appearance
of a leper. "That will do!" said Rawleigh, "for the lords will be afraid
to approach me, and besides it will move their pity." Applying the
ointment to his brows, his arms, and his breast, the blisters rose, the
skin inflamed, and was covered with purple spots. Stucley concluded that
Rawleigh had the plague. Physicians were now to be called in; Rawleigh
took the black silk ribbon from his poniard, and Manoury tightened it
strongly about his arm, to disorder his pulse; but his pulse beat too
strong and regular. He appeared to take no food, while Manoury secretly
provided him. To perplex the learned doctors still more, Rawleigh had
the urinal coloured by a drug of a strong scent. The physicians
pronounced the disease mortal, and that the patient could not be removed
into the air without immediate danger. Awhile after, being in his
bed-chamber undressed, and no one present but Manoury, Sir Walter held a
looking-glass in his hand to admire his spotted face,[72] and observed
in merriment to his new confidant, "how they should one day laugh for
having thus cozened the king, council, physicians, Spaniards, and all."
The excuse Rawleigh offered for this course of poor stratagems, so
unworthy of his genius, was to obtain time and seclusion for writing his
Apology, or Vindication of his Voyage, which has come down to us in his
"Remains." "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered
spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his
enemies," said Rawleigh in his last speech. Brutus, too, was another
example. But his discernment often prevailed over this mockery of his
spirit. The king licensed him to reside at his own house on his arrival
in London; on which Manoury observed that the king showed by this
indulgence that his majesty was favourably inclined towards him; but
Rawleigh replied, "They used all these kinds of flatteries to the Duke
of Biron, to draw him fairly into prison, and then they cut off his
head. I know they have concluded among them that it is expedient that a
man should die, to re-assure the traffick which I have broke with
Spain." And Manoury adds, from whose narrative we have all these
particulars, that Sir Walter broke out into this rant: "If he could but
save himself for this time, he would plot such plots as should make the
king think himself happy to send for him again, and restore him to his
estate, and would force the King of Spain to write into England in his
favour."

Rawleigh at length proposed a flight to France with Manoury, who
declares it was then he revealed to Stucley what he had hitherto
concealed, that Stucley might double his vigilance. Rawleigh now
perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they
were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley
through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh
presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered
with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his
kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which
had cost him six hundred pounds, in case he suffered Rawleigh to escape;
Rawleigh solemnly assured him that he should be no loser, and that his
lady should give him one thousand pounds when they got into France or
Holland. About this time the French quack took his leave: the part he
had to act was performed: the juggle was complete: and two wretches had
triumphed over the sagacity and magnanimity of a sage and a hero, whom
misfortune had levelled to folly; and who, in violating the dignity of
his own character, had only equalled himself with vulgar knaves; men who
exulted that the circumventer was circumvented; or, as they expressed
it, "the great cozener was cozened." But our story does not here
conclude, for the treacheries of Stucley were more intricate. This
perfect villain had obtained a warrant of indemnity to authorise his
compliance with any offer to assist Rawleigh in his escape; this wretch
was the confidant and the executioner of Rawleigh; he carried about him
a license to betray him, and was making his profit of the victim before
he delivered him to the sacrifice. Rawleigh was still plotting his
escape; at Salisbury he had despatched his confidential friend Captain
King to London, to secure a boat at Tilbury; he had also a secret
interview with the French agent. Rawleigh's servant mentioned to Captain
King, that his boatswain had a ketch[73] of his own, and was ready at
his service for "thirty pieces of silver;" the boatswain and Rawleigh's
servant acted Judas, and betrayed the plot to Mr. William Herbert,
cousin to Stucley, and thus the treachery was kept among themselves as a
family concern. The night for flight was now fixed, but he could not
part without his friend Stucley, who had promised never to quit him; and
who indeed, informed by his cousin Herbert, had suddenly surprised
Rawleigh putting on a false beard. The party met at the appointed place;
Sir Lewis Stucley with his son, and Rawleigh disguised. Stucley, in
saluting King, asked whether he had not shown himself an honest man?
King hoped he would continue so. They had not rowed twenty strokes,
before the watermen observed, that Mr. Herbert had lately taken boat,
and made towards the bridge, but had returned down the river after them.
Rawleigh instantly expressed his apprehensions, and wished to return
home; he consulted King--the watermen took fright--Stucley acted his
part well; damning his ill-fortune to have a friend whom he would save,
so full of doubts and fears, and threatening to pistol the watermen if
they did not proceed. Even King was overcome by the earnest conduct of
Stucley, and a new spirit was infused into the rowers. As they drew near
Greenwich a wherry crossed them. Rawleigh declared it came to discover
them. King tried to allay his fears, and assured him that if once they
reached Gravesend, he would hazard his life to get to Tilbury. But in
these delays and discussions, the tide was failing; the watermen
declared they could not reach Gravesend before morning; Rawleigh would
have landed at Purfleet, and the boatswain encouraged him; for there it
was thought he could procure horses for Tilbury. Sir Lewis Stucley too
was zealous; and declared he was content to carry the cloak-bag on his
own shoulders, for half-a-mile, but King declared that it was useless,
they could not at that hour get horses to go by land.

They rowed a mile beyond Woolwich, approaching two or three ketches,
when the boatswain doubted whether any of these were the one he had
provided to furnish them. "We are betrayed!" cried Rawleigh, and ordered
the watermen to row back: he strictly examined the boatswain; alas! his
ingenuity was baffled by a shuffling villain, whose real answer appeared
when a wherry hailed the boat: Rawleigh observed that it contained
Herbert's crew. He saw that all was now discovered. He took Stucley
aside; his ingenious mind still suggesting projects for himself to
return home in safety, or how Stucley might plead that he had only
pretended to go with Rawleigh, to seize on his private papers. They
whispered together, and Rawleigh took some things from his pocket, and
handed them to Stucley; probably more "rubies powdered with
diamonds."--Some effect was instantaneously produced; for the tender
heart of his friend Stucley relented, and he not only repeatedly
embraced him with extraordinary warmth of affection, but was voluble in
effusions of friendship and fidelity. Stucley persuaded Rawleigh to land
at Gravesend, the strange wherry which had dogged them landing at the
same time; these were people belonging to Mr. Herbert and Sir William
St. John, who, it seems, had formerly shared in the spoils of this
unhappy hero. On Greenwich bridge, Stucley advised Captain King that it
would be advantageous to Sir Walter, that King should confess that he
had joined with Stucley to betray his master; and Rawleigh lent himself
to the suggestion of Stucley, of whose treachery he might still be
uncertain; but King, a rough and honest seaman, declared that he would
not share in the odium. At the moment he refused, Stucley arrested the
captain in the king's name, committing him to the charge of Herbert's
men. They then proceeded to a tavern, but Rawleigh, who now viewed the
monster in his true shape, observed, "Sir Lewis, these actions will not
turn out to your credit;" and on the following day, when they passed
through the Tower-gate, Rawleigh, turning to King, observed, "Stucley
and my servant Cotterell have betrayed me. You need be in no fear of
danger, but as for me, it is I who am the mark that is shot at." Thus
concludes the narrative of Captain King. The fate of Rawleigh soon
verified the prediction.

This long narrative of treachery will not, however, be complete, unless
we wind it up with the fate of the infamous Stucley. Fiction gives
perfection to its narratives, by the privilege it enjoys of disposing of
its criminals in the most exemplary manner; but the labours of the
historian are not always refreshed by this moral pleasure. Retribution
is not always discovered in the present stage of human existence, yet
history is perhaps equally delightful as fiction, whenever its perfect
catastrophes resemble those of romantic invention. The present is a
splendid example.

I have discovered the secret history of Sir Lewis Stucley, in several
manuscript letters of the times.

Rawleigh, in his admirable address from the scaffold, where he seemed to
be rather one of the spectators than the sufferer, declared he forgave
Sir Lewis, for he had forgiven all men; but he was bound in charity to
caution all men against him, and such as he is! Rawleigh's last and
solemn notice of the treachery of his "kinsman and friend" was
irrevocably fatal to this wretch. The hearts of the people were open to
the deepest impressions of sympathy, melting into tears at the pathetic
address of the magnanimous spirit who had touched them; in one moment
Sir Lewis Stucley became an object of execration throughout the nation;
he soon obtained a new title, that of "Sir Judas," and was shunned by
every man. To remove the Cain-like mark, which God and men had fixed on
him, he published an apology for his conduct; a performance which, at
least for its ability, might raise him in our consideration; but I have
since discovered, in one of the manuscript letter-writers, that it was
written by Dr. Sharpe, who had been a chaplain to Henry Prince of Wales.
The writer pleads in Stucley's justification, that he was a state-agent;
that it was lawful to lie for the discovery of treason; that he had a
personal hatred towards Rawleigh, for having abridged his father of his
share of some prize-money; and then enters more into Rawleigh's
character, who "being desperate of any fortune here, agreeable to the
height of his mind, would have made up his fortune elsewhere, upon any
terms against his sovereign and his country. Is it not marvel,"
continues the personifier of Stucley, "that he was angry with me at his
death for bringing him back? Besides, being a man of so great a wit, it
was no small grief that a man of mean wit as I should be thought to go
beyond him. No? _Sic ars deluditur arte. Neque enim lex justior ulla est
quam necis artifices arte perire suâ._ [This apt latinity betrays Dr.
Sharpe.] But why did you not execute your commission bravely
[openly]?--Why? My commission was to the contrary, to discover his
pretensions, and to seize his secret papers," &c.[74]

But the doctor, though no unskilful writer, here wrote in vain; for what
ingenuity can veil the turpitude of long and practised treachery? To
keep up appearances, Sir Judas resorted more than usually to court;
where, however, he was perpetually enduring rebuffs, or avoided, as one
infected with the plague of treachery. He offered the king, in his own
justification, to take the sacrament, that whatever he had laid to
Rawleigh's charge was true, and would produce two unexceptionable
witnesses to do the like. "Why, then," replied his majesty, "the more
malicious was Sir Walter to utter these speeches at his death." Sir
Thomas Badger, who stood by, observed, "Let the king take off Stucley's
head, as Stucley has done Sir Walter's, and let him at his death take
the sacrament and his oath upon it, and I'll believe him; but till
Stucley loses his head, I shall credit Sir Walter Rawleigh's bare
affirmative before a thousand of Stucley's oaths." When Stucley, on
pretence of giving an account of his office, placed himself in the
audience chamber of the lord admiral, and his lordship passed him
without any notice, Sir Judas attempted to address the earl; but with a
bitter look his lordship exclaimed--"Base fellow! darest thou, who art
the scorn and contempt of men, offer thyself in my presence? Were it not
in my own house, I would cudgel thee with my staff for presuming on this
sauciness." This annihilating affront Stucley hastened to convey to the
king; his majesty answered him--"What wouldst thou have me do? Wouldst
thou have me hang him? Of my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill
of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the
number!"

One of the frequent crimes of that age, ere the forgery of bank-notes
existed, was the clipping of gold; and this was one of the private
amusements suitable to the character of our Sir Judas. Treachery and
forgery are the same crime in a different form. Stucley received out of
the exchequer five hundred pounds, as the reward of his _espionnage_ and
perfidy. It was the price of blood, and was hardly in his hands ere it
was turned into the fraudulent coin of "the cheater!" He was seized on
in the palace of Whitehall, for diminishing the gold coin. "The manner
of the discovery," says the manuscript-writer, "was strange, if my
occasions would suffer me to relate the particulars." On his examination
he attempted to shift the crime to his own son, who had fled; and on his
man, who, being taken, in the words of the letter-writer, was "willing
to set the saddle upon the right horse, and accused his master."
Manoury, too, the French empiric, was arrested at Plymouth for the same
crime, and accused his worthy friend. But such was the interest of
Stucley with government, bought, probably, with his last shilling, and,
as one says, with his last shirt, that he obtained his own and his son's
pardon, for a crime that ought to have finally concluded the history of
this blessed family.[75] A more solemn and tragical catastrophe was
reserved for the perfidious Stucley. He was deprived of his place of
vice-admiral, and left destitute in the world. Abandoned by all human
beings, and most probably by the son whom he had tutored in the arts of
villany, he appears to have wandered about, an infamous and distracted
beggar. It is possible that even so seared a conscience may have
retained some remaining touch of sensibility.

                All are men,
    Condemned alike to groan;
  The tender for another's pain,
    THE UNFEELING FOR HIS OWN.

And Camden has recorded, among his historical notes on James the First,
that in August, 1620, "Lewis Stucley, who betrayed Sir Walter Rawleigh,
died in a manner mad." Such is the catastrophe of one of the most
perfect domestic tales; an historical example, not easily paralleled, of
moral retribution.

The secret practices of the "Sir Judas" of the court of James the First,
which I have discovered, throw light on an old tradition which still
exists in the neighbourhood of Affeton, once the residence of this
wretched man. The country people have long entertained a notion that a
hidden treasure lies at the bottom of a well in his grounds, guarded by
some supernatural power: a tradition no doubt originating in this man's
history, and an obscure allusion to the gold which Stucley received for
his bribe, or the other gold which he clipped, and might have there
concealed. This is a striking instance of the many historical facts
which, though entirely unknown or forgotten, may be often discovered to
lie hid, or disguised, in popular traditions.

FOOTNOTES:

  [66] Rawleigh, as was much practised to a much later period, wrote
    his name various ways. I have discovered at least how it was
    pronounced in his time--thus, _Rawly_. This may be additionally
    confirmed by the Scottish poet Drummond, who spells it (in his
    conversations with Ben Jonson) _Raughley_. The translation of
    Ortelius' "Epitome of the Worlde," 1603, is dedicated to Sir Walter
    _Rawleigh_. See vol. ii. p. 261, art. "Orthography of Proper Names."
    It was also written _Rawly_ by his contemporaries. He sometimes
    wrote it _Ralegh_, the last syllable probably pronounced _ly_, or
    _lay_. _Ralegh_ appears on his official seal.

  [67] I shall give in the article "Literary Unions" a curious account
    how "Rawleigh's History of the World" was composed, which has
    hitherto escaped discovery.

  [68] It is narrated in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil from Mr.
    (afterwards Sir) Arthur Gorges, and runs as follows:--"Upon a report
    of her majesty's being at Sir George Carew's, Sir W. Ralegh having
    gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he
    might discern the barges and boats about the Blackfriars stairs,
    suddenly brake out into a great distemper, and sware that his
    enemies had on purpose brought her majesty thither to break his gall
    in sunder with Tantalus's torments, that when she went away he might
    see death before his eyes; with many such like conceits. And, as a
    man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew that he
    would disguise himself, and get into a pair of oars to ease his mind
    but with a sight of the queen, or else he protested his heart would
    break." This of course the gaoler refused, and so they fell to
    fighting, "scrambling and brawling like madmen," until parted by
    Gorges. Sir Walter followed up his absurdity by another letter to
    Cecil, couched in the language of romance, in which he declares
    that, while the queen "was yet near at hand, that I might hear of
    her once in two or three days my sorrows were the less, but now my
    heart is cast into the depth of all misery."

  [69] These letters were written by Lord Cecil to Sir Thomas Parry,
    our ambassador in France, and were transcribed from the copy-book of
    Sir Thomas Parry's correspondence which is preserved in the Pepysian
    library at Cambridge.

  [70] He had undertaken the expedition immediately upon his release
    from the Tower in 1617. The king had never pardoned him, and his
    release was effected by bribing powerful court favourites, who
    worked upon the avarice of James I. by leading him to hope for the
    possession of Guiana, which, though discovered by the Spaniards, had
    never been conquered by them; and which Rawleigh promised to
    colonise.

  [71] This occurred during the attack on the town of St. Thomas; a
    settlement of the Spaniards near the gold mines. It ended
    disastrously to Rawleigh: his ships mutinied; and he never recovered
    his ill-fortune; but sailed to Newfoundland, and thence, after a
    second mutiny, returned to Plymouth.

  [72] A friend informs me, that he saw recently at a print-dealer's a
    _painted portrait of Sir Walter Rawleigh, with the face thus
    spotted_. It is extraordinary that any artist should have chosen
    such a subject for his pencil; but should this be a portrait of the
    times, it shows that this strange stratagem had excited public
    attention.

  [73] A small coasting-vessel, made round at stem and stern like the
    Dutch boats. The word is still used in some English counties to
    denote a _tub_.

  [74] Stucley's Humble Petition, touching the bringing up Sir W.
    Rawleigh, 4to. 1618; republished in Somers' Tracts, vol. iii. 751.

  [75] The anecdotes respecting Stucley I have derived from manuscript
    letters, and they were considered to be of so dangerous a nature,
    that the writer recommends secrecy, and requests, after reading,
    that "they may be burnt." With such injunctions I have generally
    found that the letters were the more carefully preserved.

AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH.

The close of the life of Sir Walter Rawleigh was as extraordinary as
many parts of his varied history; the promptitude and sprightliness of
his genius, his carelessness of life, and the equanimity of this great
spirit in quitting the world, can only be paralleled by a few other
heroes and sages. Rawleigh was both! But it is not simply his dignified
yet active conduct on the scaffold, nor his admirable speech on that
occasion, circumstances by which many great men are judged, when their
energies are excited for a moment to act so great a part, before the
eyes of the world assembled at their feet; it is not these only which
claim our notice.

We may pause with admiration on the real grandeur of Rawleigh's
character, not from a single circumstance, however great, but from a
tissue of continued little incidents, which occurred from the moment of
his condemnation till he laid his head on the block. Rawleigh was a man
of such mark, that he deeply engaged the attention of his
contemporaries; and to this we owe the preservation of several
interesting particulars of what he did and what he said, which have
entered into his life; but all has not been told in the published
narratives. Contemporary writers in their letters have set down every
fresh incident, and eagerly caught up his sense, his wit, and, what is
more delightful, those marks of the natural cheerfulness of his
invariable presence of mind: nor could these have arisen from any
affectation or parade, for we shall see that they served him even in his
last tender farewell to his lady, and on many unpremeditated occasions.

I have drawn together into a short compass all the facts which my
researches have furnished, not omitting those which are known,
concerning the feelings and conduct of Rawleigh at these solemn moments
of his life; to have preserved only the new would have been to mutilate
the statue, and to injure the whole by an imperfect view.

Rawleigh one morning was taken out of his bed, in a fit of fever, and
unexpectedly hurried, not to his trial, but to a sentence of death. The
story is well known.--Yet pleading with "a voice grown weak by sickness
and an ague he had at that instant on him," he used every means to avert
his fate: he did, therefore, value the life he could so easily part
with. His judges, there, at least, respected their state criminal, and
they addressed him in a tone far different from that which he had
fifteen years before listened to from Coke. Yelverton, the
attorney-general, said--"Sir Walter Rawleigh hath been as a star at
which the world have gazed; but stars may fall, nay, they must fall,
when they trouble the sphere where they abide." And the lord
chief-justice noticed Rawleigh's great work:--"I know that you have been
valiant and wise, and I doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for
now you shall have occasion to use them. Your book is an admirable work;
I would give you counsel, but I know you can apply unto yourself far
better than I am able to give you." But the judge ended with saying,
"execution is granted." It was stifling Rawleigh with roses! the heroic
sage felt as if listening to fame from the voice of death.

He declared that now being old, sickly, and in disgrace, and "certain
were he allowed to live, to go to it again, life was wearisome to him,
and all he entreated was to have leave to speak freely at his farewell,
to satisfy the world that he was ever loyal to the king, and a true
lover of the commonwealth; for this he would seal with his blood."

Rawleigh, on his return to his prison, while some were deploring his
fate, observed that "the world itself is but a larger prison, out of
which some are daily selected for execution."

That last night of his existence was occupied by writing what the
letter-writer calls "a remembrancer to be left with his lady, to
acquaint the world with his sentiments, should he be denied their
delivery from the scaffold, as he had been at the bar of the King's
Bench." His lady visited him that night, and amidst her tears acquainted
him that she had obtained the favour of disposing of his body; to which
he answered smiling, "It is well, Bess, that thou mayst dispose of that,
dead, thou hadst not always the disposing of when it was alive." At
midnight he entreated her to leave him. It must have been then, that,
with unshaken fortitude, Rawleigh sat down to compose those verses on
his death, which being short, the most appropriate may be repeated.

  Even such is Time, that takes on trust
    Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
  And pays us but with age and dust;
    Who in the dark and silent grave,
  When we have wandered all our ways,
  Shuts up the story of our days!

He has added two other lines expressive of his trust in his
resurrection. Their authenticity is confirmed by the writer of the
present letter, as well as another writer, enclosing "half a dozen
verses, which Sir Walter made the night before his death, to take his
farewell of poetry, wherein he had been a scribbler even from his
youth." The enclosure is not now with the letter. Chamberlain, the
writer, was an intelligent man of the world, but not imbued with any
deep tincture of literature. On the same night Rawleigh wrote this
distich on the candle burning dimly:--

  Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
  Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

At this solemn moment, before he lay down to rest, and at the instant of
parting from his lady, with all his domestic affections still warm, to
express his feelings in verse was with him a natural effusion, and one
to which he had long been used. It is peculiar in the fate of Rawleigh,
that having before suffered a long imprisonment with an expectation of a
public death, his mind had been accustomed to its contemplation, and had
often dwelt on the event which was now passing. The soul, in its sudden
departure, and its future state, is often the subject of his few poems;
that most original one of "The Farewell,"

  Go, soul! the body's guest,
  Upon a thankless errand, &c.

is attributed to Rawleigh, though on uncertain evidence. But another,
entitled "The Pilgrimage," has this beautiful passage:--

  Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
    My staff of truth to walk upon,
  My scrip of joy immortal diet;
    My bottle of salvation;
  My gown of glory, Hope's true gage,
  And thus I'll take my pilgrimage--

  Whilst my soul, like a quiet palmer,
    Travelleth towards the land of Heaven--

Rawleigh's cheerfulness was so remarkable, and his fearlessness of death
so marked, that the Dean of Westminster, who attended him, at first
wondering at the hero, reprehended the lightness of his manner, but
Rawleigh gave God thanks that he had never feared death, for it was but
an opinion and an imagination; and as for the manner of death, he would
rather die so than of a burning fever; and that some might have made
shows outwardly, but he felt the joy within. The dean says, that he made
no more of his death than if he had been to take a journey: "Not," said
he, "but that I am a great sinner, for I have been a soldier, a seaman,
and a courtier." The writer of a manuscript letter tells us, that the
dean declared he died not only religiously, but he found him to be a man
as ready and as able to give as to take instruction.

On the morning of his death he smoked, as usual, his favourite tobacco,
and when they brought him a cup of excellent sack, being asked how he
liked it, Rawleigh answered--"As the fellow, that, drinking of St.
Giles's bowl, as he went to Tyburn, said, 'that was good drink if a man
might tarry by it.'"[76] The day before, in passing from Westminster
Hall to the Gate-house, his eye had caught Sir Hugh Beeston in the
throng, and calling on him, Rawleigh requested that he would see him die
to-morrow. Sir Hugh, to secure himself a seat on the scaffold, had
provided himself with a letter to the sheriff, which was not read at the
time, and Sir Walter found his friend thrust by, lamenting that he could
not get there. "Farewell!" exclaimed Rawleigh, "I know not what shift
you will make, but I am sure to have a place." In going from the prison
to the scaffold, among others who were pressing hard to see him, one old
man, whose head was bald, came very forward, insomuch that Rawleigh
noticed him, and asked "whether he would have aught of him?" The old man
answered--"Nothing but to see him, and to pray God for him." Rawleigh
replied--"I thank thee, good friend, and I am sorry I have no better
thing to return thee for thy good will." Observing his bald head, he
continued, "but take this night-cap (which was a very rich wrought one
that he wore), for thou hast more need of it now than I."

His dress, as was usual with him, was elegant, if not rich.[77] Oldys
describes it, but mentions, that "he had a wrought nightcap under his
hat;" this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black
wrought velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a
black wrought waistcoat; black cut taffety breeches, and ash-coloured
silk stockings.

He ascended the scaffold with the same cheerfulness as he had passed to
it; and observing the lords seated at a distance, some at windows, he
requested they would approach him, as he wished that they should all
witness what he had to say. The request was complied with by several.
His speech is well known; but some copies contain matters not in others.
When he finished, he requested Lord Arundel that the king would not
suffer any libels to defame him after death.--"And now I have a long
journey to go, and must take my leave." "He embraced all the lords and
other friends with such courtly compliments, as if he had met them at
some feast," says a letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called
to the headsman to show him the axe, which not being instantly done, he
repeated, "I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of
it?" He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed
to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all
diseases," and kissing it laid it down. Another writer has, "This is
that that will cure all sorrows." After this he went to three several
corners of the scaffold, and kneeling down, desired all the people to
pray for him, and recited a long prayer to himself. When he began to fit
himself for the block, he first laid himself down to try how the block
fitted him; after rising up, the executioner kneeled down to ask his
forgiveness, which Rawleigh with an embrace gave, but entreated him not
to strike till he gave a token by lifting up his hand, "_and then, fear
not, but strike home!_" When he laid his head down to receive the
stroke, the executioner desired him to lay his face towards the east.
"It was no great matter which way a man's head stood, so that the heart
lay right," said Rawleigh; but these were not his last words. He was
once more to speak in this world with the same intrepidity he had lived
in it--for, having lain some minutes on the block in prayer, he gave the
signal; but the executioner, either unmindful, or in fear, failed to
strike, and Rawleigh, after once or twice putting forth his hands, was
compelled to ask him, "Why dost thou not strike? Strike! man!" In two
blows he was beheaded; but from the first his body never shrunk from the
spot by any discomposure of his posture, which, like his mind, was
immovable.

"In all the time he was upon the scaffold, and before," says one of the
manuscript letter-writers, "there appeared not the least alteration in
him, either in his voice or countenance; but he seemed as free from all
manner of apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a
spectator than a sufferer; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible
than did he, so that he hath purchased here in the opinion of men such
honour and reputation, as it is thought his greatest enemies are they
that are most sorrowful for his death, which they see is like to turn so
much to his advantage."

The people were deeply affected at the sight, and so much, that one said
that "we had not such another head to cut off;" and another "wished the
head and brains to be upon Secretary Naunton's shoulders." The observer
suffered for this; he was a wealthy citizen, and great newsmonger, and
one who haunted Paul's Walk. Complaint was made, and the citizen was
summoned to the Privy Council. He pleaded that he intended no disrespect
to Mr. Secretary, but only spoke in reference to the old proverb, that
"two heads were better than one!" His excuse was allowed at the moment;
but when afterwards called on for a contribution to St. Paul's
Cathedral, and having subscribed a hundred pounds, the Secretary
observed to him, that "two are better than one, Mr. Wiemark!" Either
from fear or charity, the witty citizen doubled his subscription.[78]

Thus died this glorious and gallant cavalier, of whom Osborne says, "His
death was managed by him with so high and religious a resolution, as if
a Roman had acted a Christian, or rather a Christian a Roman."[79]

After having read the preceding article, we are astonished at the
greatness, and the variable nature of this extraordinary man and this
happy genius. With Gibbon, who once meditated to write his life, we may
pause, and pronounce "his character ambiguous;" but we shall not
hesitate to decide that Rawleigh knew better how to die than to live.
"His glorious hours," says a contemporary, "were his arraignment and
execution;" but never will be forgotten the intermediate years of his
lettered imprisonment; the imprisonment of the learned may sometimes be
their happiest leisure.

FOOTNOTES:

  [76] In the old time, when prisoners were conveyed from Newgate to
    Tyburn, they stopped about midway at the "Old Hospital," at St.
    Giles's-in-the-fields, "and," says Stow, "were presented with a
    great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be
    their last refreshment in this life."

  [77] Rawleigh's love of dress is conspicuous in the early portraits
    of him we possess, and particularly so in the one engraved by Lodge.

  [78] The general impression was so much in disfavour of this
    judicial murder, that James thought it politic to publish an 8vo
    pamphlet, in 1618, entitled, "A Declaration of the Demeanor and
    Cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, as well in his Voyage, as in
    and sithence his Returne: and of the true motives and inducements
    which occasioned his Maiestie to proceed in doing justice upon him,
    as hath beene done." It takes the whole question apologetically of
    the licence given him to Guiana, "as his Majestie's honour was in a
    manner engaged, not to deny unto his people the adventure and hope
    of such great riches" as the mines of that island might yield. It
    afterwards details his proceedings there, which are declared
    criminal, dangerous to his Majesty's allies, and an abuse of his
    commission. It ends by defending his execution, "because he could
    not by law be judicially called in question, for that his former
    attainder of treason is the highest and last worke of the law
    (whereby hee was _civiliter mortuus_) his Maiestie was enforced
    (except attainders should become priviledges for all subsequent
    offences) to resolve to have him executed upon his former
    attainder."

  [79] The chief particulars in this narrative are drawn from two
    manuscript letters of the day, in the Sloane Collection, under their
    respective dates, Nov. 3, 1618, Larkin to Sir Thos. Pickering; Oct.
    13, 1618, Chamberlain's letters.

LITERARY UNIONS.

SECRET HISTORY OF RAWLEIGH'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD, AND VASARI'S LIVES.

A union of talents, differing in their qualities, might carry some
important works to a more extended perfection. In a work of great
enterprise, the aid of a friendly hand may be absolutely necessary to
complete the labours of the projector, who may have neither the courage,
the leisure, nor all necessary acquisitions for performing the favourite
task which he has otherwise matured. Many great works, commenced by a
master-genius, have remained unfinished, or have been deficient for want
of this friendly succour. The public would have been grateful to
Johnson, had he united in his dictionary the labours of some learned
etymologist. Speed's Chronicle owes most of its value, as it does its
ornaments, to the hand of Sir Robert Cotton, and other curious
researchers, who contributed entire portions. Goguet's esteemed work of
the "Origin of the Arts and Sciences" was greatly indebted to the
fraternal zeal of a devoted friend. The still valued books of the Port
Royal Society were all formed by this happy union. The secret history of
many eminent works would show the advantages which may be derived from
that combination of talents, differing in their nature. Cumberland's
masterly versions of the fragments of the Greek dramatic poets would
never have been given to the poetical world, had he not accidentally
possessed the manuscript notes of his relative, the learned Bentley.
This treasure supplied that research in the most obscure works, which
the volatile studies of Cumberland could never have explored; a
circumstance which he concealed from the world, proud of the Greek
erudition which he thus cheaply possessed. Yet by this literary union,
Bentley's vast erudition made those researches which Cumberland could
not; and Cumberland gave the nation a copy of the domestic drama of
Greece, of which Bentley was incapable.

There is a large work, which is still celebrated, of which the
composition has excited the astonishment even of the philosophic Hume,
but whose secret history remains yet to be disclosed. This extraordinary
volume is "The History of the World by Rawleigh." I shall transcribe
Hume's observations, that the reader may observe the literary
phenomenon. "They were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who
being educated amidst naval and military enterprises, _had surpassed in
the pursuits of literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary
lives_; and they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which at his age, and
under his circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so
great a work, as his History of the World." Now when the truth is known,
the wonderful in this literary mystery will disappear, except in the
eloquent, the grand, and the pathetic passages interspersed in that
venerable volume. We may, indeed, pardon the astonishment of our calm
philosopher, when we consider the recondite matter contained in this
work, and recollect the little time which this adventurous spirit, whose
life was passed in fabricating his own fortune, and in perpetual
enterprise, could allow to such erudite pursuits. Where could Rawleigh
obtain that familiar acquaintance with the rabbins, of whose language he
was probably entirely ignorant? His numerous publications, the effusions
of a most active mind, though excellent in their kind, were evidently
composed by one who was not abstracted in curious and remote inquiries,
but full of the daily business and the wisdom of human life. His
confinement in the Tower, which lasted several years, was indeed
sufficient for the composition of this folio volume, and of a second
which appears to have occupied him. But in that imprisonment it
singularly happened that he lived among literary characters with most
intimate friendship. There he joined the Earl of Northumberland, the
patron of the philosophers of his age, and with whom Rawleigh pursued
his chemical studies; and Serjeant Hoskins, a poet and a wit, and the
poetical "father" of Ben Jonson, who acknowledged that "It was Hoskins
who had polished him;" and that Rawleigh often consulted Hoskins on his
literary works, I learn from a manuscript. But however literary the
atmosphere of the Tower proved to Rawleigh, no particle of Hebrew, and
perhaps little of Grecian lore, floated from a chemist and a poet. The
truth is, that the collection of the materials of this history was the
labour of several persons, who have not all been discovered. It has been
ascertained that Ben Jonson was a considerable contributor; and there
was an English philosopher from whom Descartes, it is said even by his
own countrymen, borrowed largely--Thomas Hariot, whom Anthony Wood
charges with infusing into Rawleigh's volume philosophical notions,
while Rawleigh was composing his History of the World. But if
Rawleigh's _pursuits surpassed even those of the most recluse and
sedentary lives_, as Hume observes, we must attribute this to a "Dr.
Robert Burrel, Rector of Northwald, in the county of Norfolk, who was a
great favourite of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and had been his chaplain. All,
or the greatest part of the drudgery of Sir Walter's History for
criticisms, chronology, and reading Greek and Hebrew authors, was
performed by him for Sir Walter."[80] Thus a simple fact, when
discovered, clears up the whole mystery; and we learn how that knowledge
was acquired, which, as Hume sagaciously detected, required "a recluse
and sedentary life," such as the studies and the habits of a country
clergyman would have been in a learned age.

The secret history of another work, still more celebrated than the
History of the World, by Sir Walter Rawleigh, will doubtless surprise
its numerous admirers.

Without the aid of a friendly hand, we should probably have been
deprived of the delightful History of Artists by Vasari: although a mere
painter and goldsmith, and not a literary man, Vasari was blessed with
the nice discernment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly
what was to be done, when the idea of the work was suggested by the
celebrated Paulus Jovius as a supplement to his own work of the
"Eulogiums of Illustrious Men." Vasari approved of the project; but on
that occasion judiciously observed, not blinded by the celebrity of the
literary man who projected it, that "It would require the assistance of
an artist to collect the materials, and arrange them in their proper
order; for although Jovius displayed great knowledge in his
observations, yet he had not been equally accurate in the arrangement of
his facts in his book of Eulogiums." Afterwards, when Vasari began to
collect his information, and consulted Paulus Jovius on the plan,
although that author highly approved of what he saw, he alleged his own
want of leisure and ability to complete such an enterprise; and this was
fortunate: we should otherwise have had, instead of the rambling spirit
which charms us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose babble of a
declaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance he wanted; a
circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noticed: like Hogarth, he required
a literary man for his scribe. I have discovered the name of the chief
writer of the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of
Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and conveyed to
us those reflections which surely come from their source. I shall give
the passage, as a curious instance where the secret history of books is
often detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could have
imagined that in a collection of the lives _de' Santi e Beati dell'
Ordine de' Predicatori_, we are to look for the writer of Vasari's
lives? Don Serafini Razzi, the author of this ecclesiastical biography,
has this reference: "Who would see more of this may turn to the Lives of
the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, _written for the greater part
by Don Silvano Razzi_, my brother, for the Signor Cavaliere M. Giorgio
Vasari, his great friend."[81]

The discovery that Vasari's volumes were not entirely written by
himself, though probably under his dictation, and unquestionably, with
his communications, as we know that Dr. Morell wrote the "Analysis of
Beauty" for Hogarth, will perhaps serve to clear up some unaccountable
mistakes or omissions which appear in that series of volumes, written
at long intervals, and by different hands. Mr. Fuseli has alluded to
them in utter astonishment; and cannot account for Vasari's "incredible
dereliction of reminiscence, which prompted him to transfer what he had
rightly ascribed to Giorgione in one edition to the elder Parma in the
subsequent ones." Again: "Vasari's memory was either so treacherous, or
his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his account of the
Capella Sistina, and the stanze of Raffaello, is a mere heap of errors
and unpardonable confusion." Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a
loss how to account for his mistakes. Mr. Fuseli finely observes--"He
has been called the Herodotus of our art; and if the main simplicity of
his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle
him in some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the
information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek
historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to question the credibility
of the Tuscan." All this strongly confirms the suspicion that Vasari
employed different hands at different times to write out his work. Such
mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always conversant with the
subject he was composing on, and the disjointed materials of which were
often found in a disordered state. It is, however, strange that neither
Bottari nor Tiraboschi appears to have been aware that Vasari employed
others to write for him; we see that from the first suggestion of the
work he had originally proposed that Paulus Jovius should hold the pen
for him.

The principle illustrated in this article might be pursued; but the
secret history of two great works so well known is as sufficient as
twenty others of writings less celebrated. The literary phenomenon which
had puzzled the calm inquiring Hume to cry out "a miracle!" has been
solved by the discovery of a little fact on Literary Unions, which
derives importance from this circumstance.[82]

FOOTNOTES:

  [80] I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the
    Lansdowne collection, which I think has been mistaken for a boy's
    ciphering book, of which it has much the appearance, No. 741, fo.
    57, as it stands in the auctioneer's catalogue. It appears to be a
    collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood's papers;
    and as I have discovered in the manuscript numerous notices not
    elsewhere preserved, I am inclined to think that the transcriber
    copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood's papers, of which more
    than one sackful was burnt at his desire before him when dying. If
    it be so, this MS. is the only register of many curious facts.

    Ben Jonson has been too freely censured for his own free censures,
    and particularly for one he made on Sir Walter Rawleigh, who, he
    told Drummond, "esteemed more fame than conscience. _The best wits
    in England were employed in making his History_; Ben himself had
    written a piece to him of the Punic War, which he altered and set in
    his book." Jonson's powerful advocate, Mr. Gifford, has not alleged
    a word in the defence of our great bard's free conversational
    strictures; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never
    been discovered; on this occasion, however, Jonson only spoke what
    he knew to be true--and there may have been other truths, in those
    conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may
    have chiefly recollected the satirical touches.

  [81] I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural
    philosophy, entitled "Saggio di Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del
    Secolo XVII. da Giovanne Clemente Nelli," Lucca, 1759, p. 58. Nelli
    also refers to what he had said on this subject in his _Piante ad
    alzati di S.M. del Fiore_, p. vi. e vii.; a work on architecture.
    See Brunet; and Haym, _Bib. Ital. de Libri rari_.

  [82] MR. PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, in his recent biography of Sir
    Walter Rawleigh, a work of vigorous research and elegant
    composition, has dedicated to me a supernumerary article in his
    Appendix, entitled _Mr. D'Israeli's Errors_!

    He has inferred from the present article, that I denied that
    Rawleigh was the writer of his own great work!--because I have shown
    how great works may be advantageously pursued by the aid of
    "Literary Union." It is a monstrous inference! The chimera which
    plays before his eyes is his own contrivance; he starts at his own
    phantasmagoria, and leaves me, after all, to fight with his shadow.

    Mr. Tytler _has not contradicted a single statement of mine_. I have
    carefully read his article and my own, and I have made no
    alteration.

    I may be allowed to add that there is much redundant matter in the
    article of Mr. Tytler; and, to use the legal style, there is much
    "impertinence," which, with a little candour and more philosophy, he
    would strike his pen through, as sound lawyers do on these
    occasions.

OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED.

There are objects connected with literary curiosity, whose very history,
though they may never gratify our sight, is literary; and the
originality of their invention, should they excite imitation, may serve
to constitute a class. I notice a book-curiosity of this nature.

This extraordinary volume may be said to have contained the travels and
adventures of Charles Magius, a noble Venetian; and this volume, so
precious, consisted only of eighteen pages, composed of a series of
highly-finished miniature paintings on vellum, some executed by the hand
of Paul Veronese. Each page, however, may be said to contain many
chapters; for, generally, it is composed of a large centre-piece,
surrounded by ten small ones, with many apt inscriptions, allegories,
and allusions; the whole exhibiting romantic incidents in the life of
this Venetian nobleman. But it is not merely as a beautiful production
of art that we are to consider it; it becomes associated with a more
elevated feeling in the occasion which produced it. The author, who is
himself the hero, after having been long calumniated, resolved to set
before the eyes of his accusers the sufferings and adventures he could
perhaps have but indifferently described: and instead of composing a
tedious volume for his justification, invented this new species of
pictorial biography. The author minutely described the remarkable
situations in which fortune had placed him; and the artists, in
embellishing the facts he furnished them with to record, emulated each
other in giving life to their truth, and putting into action, before the
spectator, incidents which the pen had less impressively exhibited. This
unique production may be considered as a model to represent the actions
of those who may succeed more fortunately by this new mode of
perpetuating their history; discovering, by the aid of the pencil,
rather than by their pen, the forms and colours of an extraordinary
life.

It was when the Ottomans (about 1571) attacked the Isle of Cyprus, that
this Venetian nobleman was charged by his republic to review and repair
the fortifications. He was afterwards sent to the pope to negociate an
alliance: he returned to the senate to give an account of his
commission. Invested with the chief command, at the head of his troops,
Magius threw himself into the island of Cyprus, and after a skilful
defence, which could not prevent its fall, at Famagusta he was taken
prisoner by the Turks, and made a slave. His age and infirmities induced
his master, at length, to sell him to some Christian merchants; and
after an absence of several years from his beloved Venice, he suddenly
appeared, to the astonishment and mortification of a party who had never
ceased to calumniate him; while his own noble family were compelled to
preserve an indignant silence, having had no communications with their
lost and enslaved relative. Magius now returned to vindicate his honour,
to reinstate himself in the favour of the senate, and to be restored to
a venerable parent amidst his family; to whom he introduced a fresh
branch, in a youth of seven years old, the child of his misfortunes,
who, born in trouble, and a stranger to domestic endearments, was at one
moment united to a beloved circle of relations.

I shall give a rapid view of some of the pictures of this Venetian
nobleman's life. The whole series has been elaborately drawn up by the
Duke de la Vallière, the celebrated book-collector, who dwells on the
detail with the curiosity of an amateur.[83]

In a rich frontispiece, a Christ is expiring on the cross; Religion,
leaning on a column, contemplates the Divinity, and Hope is not distant
from her. The genealogical tree of the house of Magius, with an
allegorical representation of Venice, its nobility, power, and riches:
the arms of Magius, in which is inserted a view of the Holy Sepulchre of
Jerusalem, of which he was made a knight; his portrait, with a Latin
inscription: "I have passed through arms and the enemy, amidst fire and
water, and the Lord conducted me to a safe asylum, in the year of grace
1571." The portrait of his son, aged seven years, finished with the
greatest beauty, and supposed to have come from the hand of Paul
Veronese; it bears this inscription: "Overcome by violence and artifice,
almost dead before his birth, his mother was at length delivered of him,
full of life, with all the loveliness of infancy; under the divine
protection, his birth was happy, and his life with greater happiness
shall be closed with good fortune."

A plan of the Isle of Cyprus, where Magius commanded, and his first
misfortune happened, his slavery by the Turks.--The painter has
expressed this by an emblem of a tree shaken by the winds and scathed by
the lightning; but from the trunk issues a beautiful green branch
shining in a brilliant sun, with this device--"From this fallen trunk
springs a branch full of vigour."

The missions of Magius to raise troops in the province of La Puglia.--In
one of these Magius is seen returning to Venice; his final departure,--a
thunderbolt is viewed falling on his vessel--his passage by Corfu and
Zante, and his arrival at Candia.

His travels to Egypt.--The centre figure represents this province
raising its right hand extended towards a palm-tree, and the left
leaning on a pyramid, inscribed "Celebrated throughout the world for her
wonders." The smaller pictures are the entrance of Magius into the port
of Alexandria; Rosetta, with a caravan of Turks and different nations;
the city of Grand Cairo, exterior and interior, with views of other
places; and finally, his return to Venice.

His journey to Rome.--The centre figure an armed Pallas seated on
trophies, the Tyber beneath her feet, a globe in her hands, inscribed
_Quod rerum victrix ac domina_,--"Because she is the Conqueress and
Mistress of the World." The ten small pictures are views of the cities
in the pope's dominion. His first audience at the conclave forms a
pleasing and fine composition.

His travels into Syria.--The principal figure is a female, emblematical
of that fine country; she is seated in the midst of a gay orchard, and
embraces a bundle of roses, inscribed _Mundi deliciæ_--"The delight of
the universe." The small compartments are views of towns and ports, and
the spot where Magius collected his fleet.

His pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight of the Holy
Sepulchre.--The principal figure represents Devotion, inscribed
_Ducit_--"It is she who conducts me." The compartments exhibit a variety
of objects, with a correctness of drawing which is described as
belonging to the class, and partaking of the charms of the pencil of
Claude Lorraine. His vessel is first viewed in the roadstead at Venice
beat by a storm; arrives at Zante to refresh; enters the port of Simiso;
there having landed, he and his companions are proceeding to the town on
asses, for Christians were not permitted to travel in Turkey on horses.
In the church at Jerusalem the bishop, in his pontifical habit, receives
him as a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, arraying him in the armour of
Godfrey of Bouillon, and placing his sword in the hands of Magius. His
arrival at Bethlehem, to see the cradle of the Lord--and his return by
Jaffa with his companions, in the dress of pilgrims; the groups are
finely contrasted with the Turks mingling amongst them.

The taking of the city of Famagusta, and his slavery.--The middle
figure, with a dog at its feet, represents Fidelity, the character of
Magius, who ever preferred it to his life or his freedom, inscribed
_Captivat_--"She has reduced me to slavery." Six smaller pictures
exhibit the different points of the island of Cyprus where the Turks
effected their descents. Magius retreating to Famagusta, which he long
defended, and where his cousin, a skilful engineer, was killed. The
Turks compelled to raise the siege, but return with greater forces--the
sacking of the town and the palace, where Magius was taken.--One picture
exhibits him brought before a bashaw, who has him stripped, to judge of
his strength and fix his price, when, after examination, he is sent
among other slaves. He is seen bound and tied up among his companions in
misfortune--again he is forced to labour, and carries a cask of water on
his shoulders.--In another picture, his master, finding him weak of
body, conducts him to a slave-merchant to sell him. In another we see
him leading an ass loaded with packages; his new master, finding him
loitering on his way, showers his blows on him, while a soldier is seen
purloining one of the packages from the ass. Another exhibits Magius
sinking with fatigue on the sands, while his master would raise him up
by an unsparing use of the bastinado. The varied details of these little
paintings are pleasingly executed.

The close of his slavery.--The middle figure kneeling to Heaven, and a
light breaking from it, inscribed, "He breaks my chains," to express
the confidence of Magius. The Turks are seen landing with their pillage
and their slaves.--In one of the pictures are seen two ships on fire; a
young lady of Cyprus preferring death to the loss of her honour and the
miseries of slavery, determined to set fire to the vessel in which she
was carried; she succeeded, and the flames communicated to another.

His return to Venice.--The painter for his principal figure has chosen a
Pallas, with a helmet on her head, the ægis on one arm, and her lance in
the other, to describe the courage with which Magius had supported his
misfortunes, inscribed _Reducit_--"She brings me back." In the last of
the compartments he is seen at the custom-house at Venice; he enters the
house of his father; the old man hastens to meet him, and embraces him.

One page is filled by a single picture, which represents the senate of
Venice, with the Doge on his throne; Magius presents an account of his
different employments, and holds in his hand a scroll, on which is
written, _Quod commisisti perfeci; quod restat agendum, pare fide
complectar_--"I have done what you committed to my care; and I will
perform with the same fidelity what remains to be done." He is received
by the senate with the most distinguished honours, and is not only
justified, but praised and honoured.

The most magnificent of these paintings is the one attributed to Paul
Veronese. It is described by the Duke de la Vallière as almost
unparalleled for its richness, its elegance, and its brilliancy. It is
inscribed _Pater meus et fratres mei dereliquerunt me; Dominus autem
assumpsit me!_--"My father and my brothers abandoned me; but the Lord
took me under his protection." This is an allusion to the accusation
raised against him in the open senate when the Turks took the Isle of
Cyprus, and his family wanted either the confidence or the courage to
defend Magius. In the front of this large picture, Magius leading his
son by the hand, conducts him to be reconciled with his brothers and
sisters-in-law, who are on the opposite side; his hand holds this
scroll, _Vos cogitastis de me malum; sed Deus convertit illud in
bonum_--"You thought ill of me; but the Lord has turned it to good." In
this he alludes to the satisfaction he had given the senate, and to the
honours they had decreed him. Another scene is introduced, where Magius
appears in a magnificent hall at a table in the midst of all his family,
with whom a general reconciliation has taken place: on his left hand
are gardens opening with an enchanting effect, and magnificently
ornamented, with the villa of his father, on which flowers and wreaths
seem dropping on the roof, as if from heaven. In the perspective, the
landscape probably represents the rural neighbourhood of Magius's early
days.

Such are the most interesting incidents which I have selected from the
copious description of the Duke de la Vallière. The idea of this
production is new: an autobiography in a series of remarkable scenes,
painted under the eye of the describer of them, in which, too, he has
preserved all the fulness of his feelings and his minutest
recollections; but the novelty becomes interesting from the character of
the noble Magius, and the romantic fancy which inspired this elaborate
and costly curiosity. It was not, indeed, without some trouble that I
have drawn up this little account; but while thus employed, I seemed to
be composing a very uncommon romance.

FOOTNOTE:

  [83] The Duke's description is not to be found, as might be
    expected, in his own valued catalogue, but was a contribution to
    Gaignat's, ii. 16, where it occupies fourteen pages. This singular
    work sold at Gaignat's sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden
    age of literary curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous;
    and that price was even then considered extraordinary, though the
    work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by
    Italian artists.

CAUSE AND PRETEXT.

It is an important principle in morals and in politics, not to mistake
the cause for the pretext, nor the pretext for the cause, and by this
means to distinguish between the concealed and the ostensible motive. On
this principle, history might be recomposed in a new manner; it would
not often describe _circumstances_ and _characters_ as they usually
appear. When we mistake the characters of men, we mistake the nature of
their actions; and we shall find in the study of secret history, that
some of the most important events in modern history were produced from
very different motives than their ostensible ones. Polybius, the most
philosophical writer of the ancients, has marked out this useful
distinction of _cause_ and _pretext_, and aptly illustrates the
observation by the facts which he explains. Amilcar, for instance, was
the first author and contriver of the second Punic war, though he died
ten years before the commencement of it. "A statesman," says the wise
and grave historian, "who knows not how to trace the origin of events,
and discern the different sources from whence they take their rise, may
be compared to a physician who neglects to inform himself of the causes
of those distempers which he is called in to cure. Our pains can never
be better employed than in searching out the causes of events; for the
most trifling incidents give birth to matters of the greatest moment and
importance." The latter part of this remark of Polybius points out
another principle which has been often verified by history, and which
furnished the materials of the little book of "Grands Evénemens par les
petites Causes."

Our present inquiry concerns "cause and pretext."

Leo X. projected an alliance of the sovereigns of Christendom against
the Turks. The avowed object was to oppose the progress of the Ottomans
against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were more friendly to the
Christians; but the concealed motive with his holiness was to enrich
himself and his family with the spoils of Christendom, and to aggrandise
the papal throne by war; and such, indeed, the policy of these pontiffs
had always been in those mad crusades which they excited against the
East.

The Reformation, excellent as its results have proved in the cause of
genuine freedom, originated in no purer source than human passions and
selfish motives: it was the progeny of avarice in Germany, of novelty in
France, and of love in England. The latter is elegantly alluded to by
Gray--

  And gospel-light first beam'd from Bullen's eyes.

The Reformation is considered by the Duke of Nevers, in a work printed
in 1590, as it had been by Francis I., in his Apology in 1537, as a
_coup-d'état_ of Charles V. towards universal monarchy. The duke says,
that the emperor silently permitted Luther to establish his principles
in Germany, that they might split the confederacy of the elective
princes, and by this division facilitate their more easy conquest, and
play them off one against another, and by these means to secure the
imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria. Had Charles V. not
been the mere creature of his politics, and had he felt any zeal for the
Catholic cause, which he pretended to fight for, never would he have
allowed the new doctrines to spread for more than twenty years without
the least opposition.

The famous League in France was raised for "religion and the relief of
public grievances;" such was the pretext! After the princes and the
people had alike become its victims, this "league" was discovered to
have been formed by the pride and the ambition of the Guises, aided by
the machinations of the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of
Condé to dislodge them from their "seat of power." While the Huguenots
pillaged, burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes that they
were only fighting to _release the king_, whom they asserted was a
prisoner of the Guises, the Catholics repaid them with the same
persecution and the same manifestoes, declaring that they only wished
_to liberate the Prince of Condé_, who was the prisoner of the
Huguenots. The people were led on by the cry of "religion;" but this
civil war was not in reality so much Catholic against Huguenot, as Guise
against Condé. A parallel event occurred between our Charles I. and the
Scotch Covenanters; and the king expressly declared, in "a large
declaration, concerning the late tumults in Scotland," that "religion is
only _pretended_, and used by them as a cloak to palliate their
_intended rebellion_," which he demonstrated by the facts he alleged.
There was a revolutionary party in France, which, taking the name of
_Frondeurs_, shook that kingdom under the administration of Cardinal
Mazarin, and held out for their pretext the public freedom. But that
faction, composed of some of the discontented French princes and the
mob, was entirely organized by Cardinal de Retz, who held them in hand,
to check or to spur them as the occasion required, from a mere personal
pique against Mazarin, who had not treated that vivacious genius with
all the deference he exacted. This appears from his own Memoirs.

We have smiled at James I. threatening the States-general by the English
ambassador, about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, who had espoused the
doctrines of Arminius against those of the contra-remonstrants, or
Calvinists; the ostensible subject was religious, or rather
metaphysical-religious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle
for predominance between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the
French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English.
"These were the real sources," says Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a
man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public history, and a
far more able judge than Diodati the Swiss divine, and Brandt the
ecclesiastical historian, who in the synod of Dort could see nothing but
what appeared in it, and gravely narrated the idle squabbles on phrases
concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton, who was secretary
to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly accords with the
account of Lord Hardwicke. "Our synod," writes that judicious observer,
"goes on like a watch; the main wheels upon which the whole business
turns are least in sight; for all things of moment are acted in private
sessions; _what is done in public is only for show and entertainment_."

The _cause_ of the persecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the
Jesuits; the _pretext_ was _la grace suffisante_. The learned La Croze
observes, that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius
and the church of Alexandria; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was
the jealousy of the church of Alexandria, or rather the fiery and
turbulent Cyril, who personally hated Nestorius. The opinions of
Nestorius, and the council which condemned them, were the same in
effect. I only produce this remote fact to prove that ancient times do
not alter the truth of our principle.

When James II. was so strenuous an advocate for _toleration_ and
_liberty of conscience_ in removing the Test Act, this enlightened
principle of government was only a _pretext_ with that monk-ridden
monarch; it is well known that the _cause_ was to introduce and make the
Catholics predominant in his councils and government. The result, which
that eager and blind politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore
did not take place, would have been that "liberty of conscience" would
soon have become an "overt act of treason" before an inquisition of his
Jesuits!

In all political affairs drop the _pretexts_ and strike at the _causes_;
we may thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal.

POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS.

A writer, whose learning gives value to his eloquence, in his Bampton
Lectures has censured, with that liberal spirit so friendly to the cause
of truth, the calumnies and rumours of parties, which are still
industriously retailed, though they have been often confuted. Forged
documents are still referred to, or tales unsupported by evidence are
confidently quoted. Mr. Heber's subject confined his inquiries to
theological history; he has told us that "Augustin is not ashamed, in
his dispute with Faustus, to take advantage of the popular slanders
against the followers of Manes, though his own experience (for he had
himself been of that sect) was sufficient to detect this falsehood."
The Romanists, in spite of satisfactory answers, have continued to urge
against the English protestant the romance of Parker's consecration;[84]
while the protestant persists in falsely imputing to the catholic public
formularies the systematic omission of the second commandment. "The
calumnies of Rimius and Stinstra against the Moravian brethren are cases
in point," continues Mr. Heber. "No one now believes them, yet they once
could deceive even Warburton!" We may also add the obsolete calumny of
Jews crucifying boys--of which a monument raised to Hugh of Lincoln
perpetuates the memory, and which a modern historian records without any
scruple of doubt; several authorities, which are cited on this occasion,
amount only to the single one of Matthew Paris, who gives it as a
popular rumour. Such accusations usually happened when the Jews were too
rich and the king was too poor![85]

The falsehoods and forgeries raised by parties are overwhelming! It
startles a philosopher, in the calm of his study, when he discovers how
writers, who, we may presume, are searchers after truth, should, in
fact, turn out to be searchers after the grossest fictions. This alters
the habits of the literary man: it is an unnatural depravity of his
pursuits--and it proves that the personal is too apt to predominate over
the literary character.

I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the
one on "Political Nicknames." I have there shown how political calumny
appears to have been reduced into an art; one of its branches would be
that of converting forgeries and fictions into historical authorities.

When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two
governments connive at, and often encourage, the most atrocious libels
on each other, to madden the people to preserve their independence, and
contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England
formerly complained of Holland--the Athenians employed the same policy
against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast
number of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a
remote date, confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often
serve the purposes of the dishonest, with whom they become authorities.
The crude and suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity
in Cromwell's time against James the First have overloaded the character
of that monarch, yet are now eagerly referred to by party writers,
though in their own days they were obsolete and doubtful. During the
civil wars of Charles the First such spurious documents exist in the
forms of speeches which were never spoken; of letters never written by
the names subscribed; printed declarations never declared; battles never
fought, and victories never obtained! Such is the language of Rushworth,
who complains of this evil spirit of party forgeries, while he is
himself suspected of having rescinded or suppressed whatever was not
agreeable to his patron Cromwell. A curious, and perhaps a necessary
list might be drawn up of political forgeries of our own, which have
been sometimes referred to as genuine, but which are the inventions of
wits and satirists! Bayle ingeniously observes, that at the close of
every century such productions should be branded by a skilful
discriminator, to save the future inquirer from errors he can hardly
avoid. "How many are still kept in error by the satires of the sixteenth
century! Those of the present age will be no less active in future ages,
for they will still be preserved in public libraries."

The art and skill with which some have fabricated a forged narrative
render its detection almost hopeless. When young Maitland, the brother
to the secretary, in order to palliate the crime of the assassination of
the Regent Murray, was employed to draw up a pretended conference
between him, Knox, and others, to stigmatise them by the odium of
advising to dethrone the young monarch, and to substitute the regent for
their sovereign, Maitland produced so dramatic a performance, by giving
to each person his peculiar mode of expression, that this circumstance
long baffled the incredulity of those who could not in consequence deny
the truth of a narrative apparently so correct in its particulars! "The
fiction of the warming-pan enclosing the young Pretender brought more
adherents to the cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights," observes
Lord John Russell.

Among such party narratives, the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk
has been worked up by Hume with all his eloquence and pathos; and, from
its interest, no suspicion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it
concerns Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, or even English
history, it is, as Ritson too honestly expresses it, "an impudent and a
bare-faced lie!" The simple fact is told by Kennet in a few words: he
probably was aware of the nature of this political fiction. Hume was
not, indeed, himself the fabricator of the tale; but he had not any
historical authority. The origin of this fable was probably a pious
fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered himself odious; at
that moment stories still more terrifying were greedily swallowed, and
which, Ritson insinuates, have become a part of the history of England.
The original story, related more circumstantially, though not more
affectingly, nor perhaps more truly, may be found in Wanley's "Wonders
of the Little World,"[86] which I give, relieving it from the
tediousness of old Wanley.

A governor of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain
sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The
governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason; and when the
wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after no brief eloquence,
succeeded as a lover, on the plea that her husband's life could only be
spared by her compliance. The woman, in tears and in aversion, and not
without a hope of vengeance only delayed, lost her honour! Pointing to
the prison, the governor told her, "If you seek your husband, enter
there, and take him along with you!" The wife, in the bitterness of her
thoughts, yet not without the consolation that she had snatched her
husband from the grave, passed into the prison; there in a cell, to her
astonishment and horror, she beheld the corpse of her husband laid out
in a coffin, ready for burial! Mourning over it, she at length returned
to the governor, fiercely exclaiming, "You have kept your word! you have
restored to me my husband! and be assured the favour shall be repaid!"
The inhuman villain, terrified in the presence of his intrepid victim,
attempted to appease her vengeance, and more, to win her to his wishes.
Returning home, she assembled her friends, revealed her whole story,
and under their protection she appealed to Charles the Bold, a strict
lover of justice, and who now awarded a singular but an exemplary
catastrophe. The duke first commanded that the criminal governor should
instantly marry the woman whom he had made a widow, and at the same time
sign his will, with a clause importing that should he die before his
lady he constituted her his heiress. All this was concealed from both
sides, rather to satisfy the duke than the parties themselves. This
done, the unhappy woman was dismissed alone! The governor was conducted
to the prison to suffer the same death he had inflicted on the husband
of his wife; and when this lady was desired once more to enter the
prison, she beheld her second husband headless in his coffin as she had
her first! Such extraordinary incidents in so short a period overpowered
the feeble frame of the sufferer; she died--leaving a son, who inherited
the rich accession of fortune so fatally obtained by his injured and
suffering mother.

Such is the tale of which the party story of Kirk appeared to Ritson to
have been a _rifacimento_; but it is rather the foundation than the
superstructure. This critic was right in the general, but not in the
particular. It was not necessary to point out the present source, when
so many others of a parallel nature exist. This tale, universally told,
Mr. Douce considers as the origin of _Measure for Measure_, and was
probably some traditional event; for it appears sometimes with a change
of names and places, without any of incident. It always turns on a
soldier, a brother or a husband, executed; and a wife, a sister, a
deceived victim, to save them from death. It was, therefore, easily
transferred to Kirk, and Pomfret's poem of "Cruelty and Lust" long made
the story popular. It could only have been in this form that it reached
the historian, who, it must be observed, introduces it as a "story
_commonly told_ of him;" but popular tragic romances should not enter
into the dusty documents of a history of England, and much less be
particularly specified in the index! Belleforest, in his old version of
the tale, has even the circumstance of the "captain, who having seduced
the wife under the promise to save her husband's life, exhibited him
soon afterwards _through the window of her apartment suspended on a
gibbet_." This forms the horrid incident in the history of "the bloody
Colonel," and served the purpose of a party, who wished to bury him in
odium. Kirk was a soldier of fortune, and a loose liver, and a great
blusterer, who would sometimes threaten to decimate his own regiment,
but is said to have forgotten the menace the next day. Hateful as such
military men will always be, in the present instance Colonel Kirk has
been shamefully calumniated by poets and historians, who suffer
themselves to be duped by the forgeries of political parties![87]

While we are detecting a source of error into which the party feelings of
modern historians may lead them, let us confess that they are far more
valuable than the ancient; for to us at least the ancients have written
history without producing authorities! Modern historians must furnish
their readers with the truest means to become their critics, by providing
them with their authorities; and it is only by judiciously appreciating
these that we may confidently accept their discoveries. Unquestionably
the ancients have often introduced into their histories many tales
similar to the story of Kirk--popular or party forgeries! The mellifluous
copiousness of Livy conceals many a tale of wonder; the graver of Tacitus
etches many a fatal stroke; and the secret history of Suetonius too often
raises a suspicion of those whispers, _Quid rex in aurem reginæ dixerit,
quid Juno fabulata sit cum Jove_. It is certain that Plutarch has often
told, and varied too in the telling, the same story, which he has applied
to different persons. A critic in the Ritsonian style has said of the
grave Plutarch, _Mendax ille Plutarchus qui vitas oratorum, dolis et
erroribus consutas, olim conscribillavit_.[88] "That lying Plutarch, who
formerly scribbled the lives of the orators, made up of falsities and
blunders!" There is in Italian a scarce book, of a better design than
execution, of the Abbate Lancellotti, _Farfalloni degli Antichi
Historici_.--"Flim-flams of the Ancients." Modern historians have to
dispute their passage to immortality step by step; and however fervid be
their eloquence, their real test as to value must be brought to the
humble references in their margin. Yet these must not terminate our
inquiries; for in tracing a story to its original source we shall find
that fictions have been sometimes grafted on truths or hearsays, and to
separate them as they appeared in their first stage is the pride and
glory of learned criticism.

FOOTNOTES:

  [84] Absurdly reported to have taken place at a meeting in the
    Nag's-head Tavern, Cheapside.

  [85] M. Michel published in Paris, in 1834, a collection of poems
    and ballads concerning Hugh of Lincoln, which were all very popular
    at home and abroad in the Middle Ages. One of these, preserved in an
    Anglo-Norman MS. in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, was evidently
    constructed to be sung by the people soon after the event, which is
    stated to have happened in the reign of our Henry III.; but there
    are many ballads comparatively modern which show how carefully the
    story was kept before the populace; and may be seen in the
    collections of Bishop Percy, Jameson, Motherwell, &c.

  [86] Book iii. ch. 29, sec. 18.

  [87] A story still more absurd was connected with the name of
    Colonel Lunsford, a soldier who consistently defended Charles I.,
    and was killed in 1643. It is related by Echard as reported of him,
    that he would kill and eat the children of the opposite party. This
    horridly grotesque imputation has been preserved in the political
    ballads and poetry of the day. Cleveland ridicules it in one of his
    poems, where he makes a Roundhead declare--

      "He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell,
      A child's arm in his pocket."

  [88] Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam.

EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION.

A people denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left
some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses
itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give
vent to their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which
they could not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood,
or sculptured on stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed
their satire among the playful ornaments designed to amuse those of whom
they so fruitlessly complained! Such monuments of the suppressed
feelings of the multitude are not often inspected by the
historian--their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the
philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances always
considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found
to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of
the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such
dispersed efforts in every æra, would cast a new light of secret history
over many dark intervals.

Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless
have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of
venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the _Pileus_, or
cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance
contrary to what they were; and human nature, as well as human laws,
might be said to have been _parodied_. Among so many whimsical
regulations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which
forbad the circulation of money; if any one offered the coin of the
state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was
brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious
French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of wretched medals,
cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob
lords, who, to ridicule the idea of _money_, used the basest metals,
stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices--such as a sow; a
chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind him; or
an old woman's head, _Acca Laurentia_, either the traditional old nurse
of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the
fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in
mockery, this base metal is stamped with S. C., to ridicule the _Senatûs
consulto_, which our antiquary happily explains,[89] in the true spirit
of this government of mockery, _Saturnalium consulto_, agreeing with the
legend of the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four _tali_, or bones,
which they used as dice, _Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit_--"Let
them who play give a pledge, which will be sufficient." This mock-money
served not only as an expression of the native irony of the radical
gentry of Rome during their festival, but, had they spoken their mind
out, meant a ridicule of money itself; for these citizens of equality
have always imagined that society might proceed without this contrivance
of a medium which served to represent property in which they themselves
must so little participate.

A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed sentiments of the
populace as were these _Saturnalia_, had been nearly lost for us, had
not some notions been preserved by Lucian; for we glean but sparingly
from the solemn pages of the historian, except in the remarkable
instance which Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the
body of the Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a
similar one who accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph,
and who was allowed the unrestrained licentiousness of his tongue, were
both the organs of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble,
who were their real masters. On this occasion the arch-mime,
representing both the exterior personage and the character of Vespasian,
according to custom, inquired the expense of the funeral? He was
answered, "ten millions of sesterces!" In allusion to the love of money
which characterised the emperor, his mock representative exclaimed,
"Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my body into the Tiber!"

All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as
organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were
allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave
any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the
art which multiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the
people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared
the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular
indignation was confided not to books (for they could not read), but to
pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always
read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in
common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the
carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters
their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in
Wolfius[90] the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of
Æsop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the
corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life,
wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of
sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth--"God
is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!" And underneath was
inscribed--"This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the
Gospel, 'Beware of false prophets!'" Such exhibitions were often
introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old
abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding
in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of
the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves,
bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water,
crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as
old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant; and were
not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed
at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their
turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the
papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals
exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even indecent.[91]
At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a curious
instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is
conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the
carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated
manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical
allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several.
A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to
bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a
crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up; to satirise the
blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to
our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in
its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements
of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes
I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts: the sex marked
by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into
a cauldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These _ornaments_
must have been generally executed by the monks themselves; but these
more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have
sympathised with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied
the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Churchmen were the usual
objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days; but
the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the "curses
not loud, but deep," of their satirical pencils.

As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom
became so general, that in one of the dialogues of Erasmus, where two
Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such
satirical exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments
of inns. The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one
which he had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a
sick man's bed, dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one
hand, while with the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man's
pocket. Such are "the straws" by which we may always observe from what
corner the wind rises! Mr. Dibdin has recently informed us, that Geyler,
whom he calls "the herald of the Reformation," preceding Luther by
twelve years, had a stone chair or pulpit in the cathedral at Strasburg,
from which he delivered his lectures, or rather rolled the thunders of
his anathemas against the monks. This stone pulpit was constructed under
his own superintendence, and is covered with very indecent figures of
monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to expose their profligate
manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries had been done!

In the curious folios of Sauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious
chapter, entitled "_Hérétiques, leurs attentats_." In this enumeration
of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is
very remarkable that, _preceding the time of Luther_, the minds of many
were perfectly _Lutheran_ respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman
Church; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that
significant _Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem_, which was
formerly projected by continental writers.

Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till
1520--this was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for
hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty
years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having
snatched the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating
mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed,
trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a
counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval,
"corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the
increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that
the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most
resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of Virgins and little
Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which
were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the
scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images
were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and
disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal
edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings