appeared before him at his bedside, in his robe-dechambre and night-cap. Mr Andrews looked at him some time, and thought it so odd a freak of his friend, that he began to reproach him for his folly in coming down to Dartford Mills without notice, as he could find no accommodation. "However," said he, "I'll get up, and see what can be done." He turned to the other side of the bed, and rang the bell, when Lord Lyttelton disappeared. His servant soon after coming in, he inquired: "Where is Lord Lyttelton ?" The servant, all astonishment, declared he had not seen anything of his lordship since they left Pit Place. "Pshaw! you fool, he was here this moment at my bedside." The servant persisted that it was not possible. Mr Andrews dressed himself, and with the assistance of the servants, searched every part of the house and garden; but no Lord Lyttelton was to be found. Still Mr Andrews could not help believing that Lord Lyttelton had played him this trick, till, about four o'clock the same day, an express arrived to inform him of his lordship's death, and the manner of it.' An attempt has been made to invalidate the truth of this recital, but on grounds more than usually weak. It has been surmised that Lord Lyttelton meant to take poison, and imposed the story of the warning on his friends; as if he would have chosen for a concealment of his design, a kind of imposture which, as the opinions of mankind go, is just the most hard of belief. This supposition, moreover, overlooks, and is inconsistent with, the fact that Lord Lyttelton was deceived as to the hour by the tampering with the watches; if he meant to destroy himself, he ought to have done it half an hour sooner. It is further affirmed-and the explanation is said to come from Lord Fortescue, who was of the party at Pit Place that the story of the vision took its rise in a recent chase for a lady's pet-bird, which Lord Lyttelton declared had been harassingly reproduced to him in his dreams. Lord Fortescue may have been induced, by the usual desire of escaping from a supra-natural theory, to surmise that the story had some such foundation; but it coheres with no other facts in the case, and fails to account for the impression on Lord Lyttelton's mind, that he had been warned of his coming death-a fact of which all his friends bore witness. On the other hand, we have the Lyttelton family fully of belief that the circumstances were as here related. Dr Johnson tells us, that he heard it from Lord Lyttelton's uncle, Lord Westcote, and he was therefore willing to believe it. There was, in the Dowager Lady Lyttelton's house, in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, a picture which she herself executed in 1780, expressly to commemorate the event; it hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing-room. The dove I appears at the window, * Scott's Letters on Demonology, 2d edition, p. 350, note. + Boswell. The circumstance of the bird is remarkable. James Howel, in one of his Familiar Letters, dated July 3, 1632, gives an account of a tombstone he had seen preparing in a stone-cutter's shop in Fleet Street, on which were stated the deaths of four persons of a family named Oxenham, who had been visited just before their demise by a white-breasted bird, which fluttered over their heads or about the bed on which they lay. At the bottom of the inscriptions were given the names of sundry persons, PITT AND HIS TAXES, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttelton his dissolution. Every part of the picture was faithfully designed, after the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all the circumstances.'* The evidence of Mr Andrews is also highly important. Mr J. W. Croker, in his notes on Boswell, attests that he had more than once heard Mr Andrews relate the story, with details substantially agreeing with the recital which we have quoted from the Gentleman's Magazine. He was unquestionably good evidence for what occurred to himself, and he may be considered as not a bad reporter of the story of the ghost of the lady which he had heard from Lord Lyttelton's own mouth. Mr Croker adds, that Mr Andrews always told the tale reluctantly, and with an evidently solemn conviction of its truth.' On the whole, then, the Lyttelton ghost-story may be considered as not only one of the most remarkable from its compound character-one spiritual occurrence supporting another-but also one of the best authenticated, and which it is most difficult to explain away, if we are to allow human testimony to be of the least value. 6 PITT AND HIS TAXES. The great increase in taxation subsequent to the conclusion of the first American war, is a wellknown circumstance in modern British history. The national debt, which, previous to the commencement of the Seven Years' War in 1755, fell short of £75,000,000, was, through the expenses entailed by that conflict, increased to nearly £129,000,000 at the peace of Paris in 1763, while, twenty years subsequently, at the peace of Versailles, in 1783, the latter amount had risen to upwards of £244,000,000, in consequence of the ill-judged and futile hostilities with the North American colonies. When William Pitt, the youngest premier and chancellor of exchequer that England had ever seen, and at the time only twenty-four years of age, came into office in December 1783, on the dismissal of the Coalition cabinet, he found the finances in such a condition as to necessitate the imposition of various new taxes, including, among others, the levying of an additional rate on windows, and also of duties on game-certificates, hackney-coaches, and saddle and race horses. This may be regarded as the commencement of a train of additional burdens on the British nation, which afterwards, during the French war, mounted to such a height, that at the present day it seems impossible to comprehend how our fathers could have supported so crushing a load on their resources. Opposite views prevail as to the expediency of the measures followed by England in 1793, when the country, under the leadership of such champions as Pitt and Burke, drifted into a war with the French republic; a war, however, which, in the conjuncture, of circumstances attending the relations between the two countries, must later. At the present day, indeed, when more have almost inevitably taken place, sooner or who attested the fact. This stone,' says Howel, 'is to be sent to a town hard-by Exeter, where this happened.' -Familiar Letters, 5th ed., p. 232. *Wraxall's Memoirs, i. 315. liberal and enlightened ideas prevail on international questions, and we have also had the benefit of our fathers' experience, such a consummation might possibly have been avoided. Of the straightforwardness and vigorous ability of Pitt throughout his career, there can be no doubt, however one-sided he may have been in his political sympathies; and a tribute of respect, though opinions will differ as to its grounds, is undoubtedly due to 'the pilot that weathered the storm.' THE REV. LANGTON FREEMAN. The taxes imposed by Pitt, as might have been anticipated, caused no inconsiderable amount of grumbling among the nation at large. This grumbling, in many instances, resolved itself into waggish jests and caricatures. The story of the Edinburgh wit, who wrote 'PITT'S WORKS, vol. i., vol. ii.,' &c., on the walls of the houses where windows had been blocked up by the proprietors in consequence of the imposition of an additional duty, is a wellknown and threadbare joke. Another jest, which A DEFIANCE TO PITT'S HORSE-TAX-A FARMER RIDING HIS COW TO STOCKPORT MARKET. took a practical form, was that concocted by a certain Jonathan Thatcher, who, on 27th November 1784, in defiance of the horse-tax, imposed a few months previously by Pitt, rode his cow to and from the market of Stockport. A contemporary caricature, representing that scene, is herewith presented to our readers as a historical curiosity. NOVEMBER 28. St Stephen, the Younger, martyr, 764. St James of La Marca of Ancona, confessor, 1476. Born.-Captain George William Manby, inventor of life-saving apparatus for shipwrecks, 1765, Hilgay, Norfolk; Victor Cousin, moral philosopher, 1792. Died.-Pope Gregory III., 741; Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, 1468; Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, beheaded, 1499; Cartouche, celebrated robber, executed at Paris, 1721; Charles Buller, statesman and writer, 1848, London; Washington Irving, eminent popular writer, 1859, Irvington, New York; Baron C. C. J. Bunsen, Prussian statesman, philosophical writer, 1860, Bonn THE REV. LANGTON FREEMAN AND HIS Among the numerous individuals who have rendered themselves conspicuous by eccentricities of character, few, perhaps, are more noteworthy than an English clergyman who died about eighty years ago. The Rev. Langton Freeman, whose baptism is registered on 28th November 1710, was rector of Bilton, in Warwickshire. He resided at the retired and somewhat secluded village of Whilton, in Northamptonshire, some ten or twelve miles distant, from which he rode on Sundays to Bilton, to perform his ministerial duties. He was a bachelor, which may, in some measure, account for the oddities which have rendered his name famous in the neighbourhood where he dwelt. Living, as he did, in an old manor-house, and occupying so honoured a position in society, few persons would suppose that a clergyman and gentleman could be guilty of such meanness as to beg his Sunday-dinner from a from the larder of a richer friend. But, to do him labouring-man, and occasionally also help himself justice, the reverend sorner remembered all these petty thefts, and in his will bequeathed a recompense to those whom, in his lifetime, he had robbed. His will is dated 16th September 1783, and his death took place the 9th of October in 1784. That portion of the testament relating to his burial is very curious, and runs thus : In the name of God, amen. I, the Reverend Langton Freeman, of Whilton, in the county of Northampton, clerk, being in a tolerable good state of bodily health, and of a perfect sound and disposing mind, memory, and understanding (praised be God for the same), and being mindful of my death, do therefore make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, as follows: And principally I commend my soul to the mercy of God through the merits of my Redeemer. And first, for four or five days after my decease, and until my body grows offensive, I would not be removed out of the place or bed I shall die on. And then I would be carried or laid in the same bed, decently and privately, in the summer-house now erected in the garden belonging to the dwelling-house, where I now inhabit in Whilton aforesaid, and to be laid in the same bed there, with all the appurtenances thereto belonging; and to be wrapped in a strong, double winding-sheet, and in all other respects to be interred as near as may be to the description we receive in Holy Scripture of our Saviour's burial. The doors and windows to be locked up and bolted, and to be kept as near in the same manner and state they shall be in at the time of my decease. And I desire that the building, or summer-house, shall be planted around with evergreen-plants, and fenced off with iron or oak pales, and painted of a dark-blue colour; and for the due performance of this, in manner aforesaid, and for keeping the building ever the same, with the evergreen-plants and rails in proper and decent repair, I give to my nephew, Thomas Freeman, the manor of Whilton, &c.' All these instructions appear to have been faithfully carried out, and Mr Freeman was duly deposited in the singular mausoleum which he had chosen. Till within the last few years, the summer-house was surrounded with evergreens; but now the palings are gone, the trees have been cut down, and the structure itself looks like a ruined hovel. There is a large hole in the roof, through which, about two years ago, some men effected an entrance. With the aid of a candle they made a survey of the burial-place and its tenant; WASHINGTON IRVING. in the parish register respecting the burial of the Rev. Langton Freeman. This may be accounted for, however, by the circumstance of his having been buried in unconsecrated ground. WASHINGTON IRVING. Were the fact not familiar to every one, most English readers of the Sketch-Book, Bracebridge Hall, and the lives of Goldsmith and Columbus, would be surprised to learn that they were written by an American; though, indeed, an American to whom England gave success and fame. Washington Irving's father was a Scotchman, and his mother an Englishwoman. William Irving went to New York about 1763, and was a merchant of that city during the revolution. His son, Washington, was born April 3, 1783, just as the War of Independence had been brought to a successful termination; and he received the name of its hero, of whom he was destined to be the, so far, most voluminous biographer. His best means of education was his father's excellent library, and his elder brothers were men of literary tastes and pursuits. At sixteen, he began to study law, but he never followed out the profession. He was too modest ever to address a jury, and in the height of his fame, he could never summon the resolution to make a speech, even when toasted at a public dinner. Irving was early a traveller. At the age of twenty-one, he visited the south of Europe on a tour of health and pleasure. On his return to New York, he wrote for his brother's newspaper; joined with Paulding, Halleck, and Bryant in the Salmagundi-papers in the fashion of the Spectator; and wrote a comic history of the early settlement of New York, purporting to be the production of a venerable Dutchman, Diedrich Knickerbocker. This work had a great success, and so delighted Sir Walter Scott, that when the author visited him in 1820, he wrote to thank Camp bell, who had given him a letter of introduction, for 'one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances he had met in many a day.' Sir Walter did not stop with compliments. Irving could not find a publisher for his Sketch-Book, being perhaps too modest to push his fortunes with the craft. He got it printed on his own account by a person named Miller, who failed shortly after. Sir Walter introduced the author to John Murray, who gave him £200 for the copyright, but afterwards increased the sum to £400. Irving then went to Paris, where he wrote Bracebridge Hall, and made the acquaintance of Thomas Moore and other literary celebrities. From thence RESIDENCE OF WASHINGTON IRVING. the latter, a dried up, skinny figure, having apparently the consistence of leather, with one arm laid across the chest, and the other hanging down the body, which, though never embalmed, seems to have remained perfectly incorrupted. It is rather singular that there is nothing whatever he proceeded to Dresden, and wrote the Tales of a Traveller; but he found his richest mine in Spain, where, for three months, he resided in the palace of the Alhambra, and employed himself in ransacking its ancient records. Here he wrote his Life and Voyages of Columbus (for which Murray paid him 3000 guineas), the Conquest of Granada, Voyages of the Companions of Columbus, &c. By this time America, finding that Irving had become famous abroad-as American authors and artists mostly do, if at all, according to an old proverb-begged him to accept the post of secretary of legation at London; a highly honourable office indeed, but, in point of emolument, worth only £500 a year. The Oxford University having conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L., and one of George IV.'s gold medals, the Americans, a modest people, always proud of European recognition, made him minister at the court of Spain. On his return to America, he retired to a beautiful country-seat, Sunnyside,' built in his own Sleepy Hollow, on the banks of the Hudson, where he lived with his brother and nieces, and wrote Astoria, Captain Bonneville, Goldsmith, Mahomet, and his last work, the life of his great namesake, Washington. He was never married. In his youth he loved one who died of consumption, and he was faithful to her memory. He died, November 28, 1859, sincerely mourned by the whole world of literature, and by his own countrymen, who have placed his name at the head of the list of authors whom they delight to honour. Born.-Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, and queen of James IV. of Scotland, 1489; Sir Philip Sidney, poet, 1554, Penshurst, Kent; Dr Peter Heylin, theological and historical writer, 1600, Burford, Oxfordshire ; John Ray, eminent naturalist, 1628, Black Notley, Essex. Died.-Pope Clement IV., 1268, Viterbo; Philippe le Bel, king of France, 1314, Fontainebleau; Roger Mortimer, paramour of Isabella, Edward II.'s queen, executed at Smithfield, 1330; Charles IV., Emperor of Germany, 1378, Prague; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, minister of Henry VIII., 1530, St Mary's Abbey, Leicester; Frederick, Elector Palatine, son-in-law of James I. of England, 1632, Metz; Brian Walton, bishop of Chester, editor of the Polyglot Bible, 1661, London; Prince Rupert, of Bavaria, cavalier-general, 1682, London; Marcello Malpighi, eminent anatomist, 1694, Rome; Anthony Wood or à Wood, antiquarian writer, 1695, Oxford; Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, 1780, Vienna. THE EARL OF MARCH: MORTIMER'S HOLE. To the traveller approaching Nottingham by rail from the Derby side, the commanding position of its ruined castle cannot but be an object of interest. Though commerce has completely surrounded the rock it stands upon with workshops, wharves, and modern dwelling-houses, the castle seems literally 'to dwell alone." Associations of a character peculiar to itself cluster round it. It has 'MORTIMER'S HOLE.' a distinctive existence-claims a distinct parentage from the puny, grovelling erections beneath it-and soars as much beyond them by the events it calls to mind, as by its proud and lofty position. Its history, in fact, is interwoven in the history of the nation; and part of the glory and shame of its country's deeds rests upon it. The old castle must have frowned with unusual gloominess when Isabella, queen of Edward II., and her unprincipled paramour, Mortimer, took up their abode in it. The queen had rebelled against and deposed her husband. Mortimer had accomplished his death. And with the young king, Edward III., in their tutelage, they tyrannised over the country, and squandered its treasures as they pleased. As a fresh instance of her favour, the frail princess had recently elevated Mortimer to the earldom of March. But the encroaching arrogance of the haughty minion was awakening in the minds of the barons a determination to curb his insolence and overgrown power. This spirit of revenge was still further excited by the execution of the king's uncle, the Earl of Kent, who appears to have been slain merely to shew that there was none too high to be smitten down if he dared to make himself obnoxious to the profligate rulers. The bow, however, was this time strained beyond its strength. The blow that was intended to quell the rising storm of indignation, rebounded, with increased force, on the guilty Mortimer, and proved his own destruction. For all parties, weary of his insolence and oppression, were forgetting their former feuds in the common anxiety to work his overthrow, and this last savage act of his government aroused them to a full sense of their danger, and gave increased intensity to their hatred and desire of vengeance. Besides which, they saw in the young king, now in his eighteenth year, signs of growing impatience of the yoke which Mortimer, as regent, had imposed on his authority. Daily they poured complaints into the royal ear of the profligacy, the exactions, and the illegal practices of the paramour, and found in Edward a willing listener. At length he was brought to see his own danger-to look upon Mortimer as the murderer of his father and uncle, the usurper of power which ought to be in his own hands, the spoiler of his people, and the man who was bringing daily dishonour to himself and the nation by an illicit connection with his royal mother. He determined, accordingly, to humble the pride of the arrogant chief, and redress the public grievances. ham, about Michaelmas 1330. A parliament was summoned to meet at NottingThe castle was occupied by the dowager-queen and the Earl of March, attended by a guard of a hundred and eighty knights, with their followers; while the king, with his queen, Philippa, and a small retinue, took up his abode in the town. The number of their attendants, and the jealous care with which the castle was guarded, implied suspicion in the minds of the guilty pair. Every night the gates of the fortress were locked, and the keys delivered to the queen, who slept with them under her pillow. But with all their precautions, justice was more than a match for their villany. Sir William Mountacute, under the sanction of his sovereign, summoned to his aid several nobles, on whose loyalty and good faith he could depend, and obtained the king's warrant for the apprehension of the Earl of March and others. The plot was now ripe for execution. For a time, however, the inaccessible nature of the castle-rock, and the vigilance with which the passes were guarded, appeared to present an insuperable obstacle to the accomplishment of their designs. Could Sir William Eland, the constable of the castle, be won over, and induced to betray the fortress into their hands? The experiment was worth a trial, and Mountacute undertook the delicate task. Sir William joyfully fell in with a proposition which enabled him at once to testify his loyalty to his sovereign and his detestation of the haughty tyrant. The result of the interview is thus quaintly described by one of the old chroniclers, whose manuscript is quoted by Deering: "Tho saide Sir William Montagu to the constabill in herynge of all them that were helpyng to the quarrel. "Now certis dere ffrendes us behoveth for to worche and done by your Queyntyse to take the Mortimer, sith ye be the keeper of the castell and have the kayes in 66 warde." your Sir," quod the constabill, "woll ye understoude that the yats of the castell beth loken with lokys, and Queen Isabell sent hidder by night for the kayes thereof, and they be layde under the chemsell of her beddis hede unto the morrow, and so I may not come into the castell by the yats no manner of wyse; but yet I know another weye by an aley that stretchith oute of the ward under the earthe into the castell that goeth into the west, which aley Queen Isabell, ne none of her meayne, ne the Mortimer, ne none 'MORTIMER'S HOLE.' of his companye knowith it not, and so I shall lede you through the aley, and so ye shall come into the castell without spyes of any man that beth your enemies." Everything being now arranged, on the night of Friday, October 19, 1330, Edward and his loyal associates were conducted by Sir William Eland through a secret passage in the rock to the interior of the castle. Proceeding at once to a chamber adjoining the queen's apartment, they found the object of their search in close consultation with the bishop of Lincoln and others of his party. The Earl of March was seized; Sir Hugh Turplinton and Sir John Monmouth, two of the state-guards, were slain in attempting to rescue him from the king's associates; and the queen, hearing the tumult, and suspecting the cause, rushed into the room in an agony of terror, exclaiming: Fair son, fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer!' Notwithstanding the cries and entreaties of the weeping Isabella, her beloved earl was torn from her presence, and hurried down the secret passage by which his captors entered, and which has ever since been designated Mortimer's Hole. With so much secrecy and despatch was this stratagem executed, that the guards on the ramparts of the castle were not disturbed, and the good people of Nottingham knew nothing of the enterprise till the following day, when the arrest of Mortimer's sons and several of his adherents by the royalists, gave a significant and acceptable indication that the luxurious and profligate usurpation of the Earl of March had at length been terminated by kingly authority. MORTIMER'S HOLE, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE-THE PASSAGE THROUGH WHICH MONTACUTE AND HIS PARTY ENTERED. Mortimer was conveyed by a strong guard to the Tower of London. Edward repaired to Leicester, whence he issued writs for the assembling of a new parliament at Westminster, for the purpose of hearing charges against the late administration, and redressing the grievances under which the kingdom had laboured. At this parliament Mortimer was impeached and convicted in a most summary manner of high treason, and other crimes. No proof in evidence of his guilt was heard, and he was condemned to die as a traitor, by being drawn and hanged on the common gallows; a sentence which was executed at The Elms,' in Smithfield, on the 29th of November 1330. His body was |