ceited that she thinks herself fit to govern a college or a university." Quem bene prospiciens generi, natura, loquaci Cavit ut imberbis fæmina quæque foret! Nimirum linguam compescere nescia, radi Illæsis possit fæmina nulla genis. The task of translating these two P. 270. "Charles Lord Herbert, sarcastical pieces of Latin, is too eldest son of Henry, Marquis of unpleasant to be attempted. The Worcester, was matriculated as a editor will not be concerned in dis- member of Ch. Ch. Ætat 16 natus seminating illnatured reflections on Lond. I set this down here, because a sex which may justly expect the father and ancestors were all to be honoured, and not vilified, by chatholicks; but because the moany male being, except by these sour ther is a presbyterian, a Capel, she recluses, who may plead ignorance (against her father's will, as it is in excuse for their folly. said) will have him bred a Protes fair-sex; Antiquarians are by no means tant; so that by this change the apt to pay great attention to the catholicks will lose the considerablest family in England, and the richest subject the king has."t The learned Selden had left no good examples to antiquarians in Their Venus must be old, and want a nose." Foote. And among those who have set themselves most warmly against the point of gallantry. that elegant part of the creation, "It is a reason," says he, “ a must be reckoned Antony à Wood, man that will have a wife, should be whose diary affords some instances at the charge of her trinkets, and of his dislike, so grotesque that they pay all the scores she sets on him. claim attention. He that will keep a monkey, it is Page 167. "He" (Sir Thomas fit he should pay for the glasses he Clayton) "and his family, most of breaks " them womankind (which before The ladies can, if they please, were looked upon, if resident in retaliate severely on those who treat the college, a scandal and abomina- them not with that respect which tion thereunto), being no sooner they merit. A gentleman who had settled," &c. &c.-" The warden's married a second wife, indulged himgarden must be altered, new trees self in recurring too often, in conplanted, &c. &c. all which though versation, to the beauty and virtues unnecessary, yet the poor college of his first consort. He had, howmust pay for them, and all this to ever, barely discernment enough to please a woman! P. 168. " Frivolous expenses to pleasure his proud lady." discover that the subject was not an agreeable one to his present lady. "Excuse me, madam," said he, “I P. 173. "Yet the warden, by the cannot help expressing my regret motion of his lady, did put the col- for the dear deceased."" Upon lege to unnecessary charges, and my honour," said the lady, " I can very frivolous expenses. Among most heartily affirm, that I am as which were a very large looking- sincere a mourner for her as you glass for her to see her ugly face can be." and body to the middle, and perhaps lower." : † One cannot help remarking here, P. 257. "Dr. Bathurst took his that the violent dislike which old Antony place of vice chancellor, a man of à Wood had conceived to the idea of a good parts, and able to do good lady's doing any thing, whether good or things, but he has a wife that scorns bad, has drawn him into the absurdity that he should be in print. A scorn- of blaming the Marchioness of Worcester for an act which, at that very critical ful woman! Scorns that he was period (1677), was, most certainly, a Dean of Wells! No need of mar- service of consequence to the religion rying such a woman, who is so con- and constitution of her country. [91] VARIETIES. From the European Magazine, for March 1818. AMONG the "Two In the Thuana, we read of a whimsical, passionate old Judge, most eccentrick who was sent into Gascony, with whims of the last age, we may very considerable powers, to exareckon that of one of Queen Anne mine into many abuses which had of Denmark's maids of honour, crept into the administration of juswhich is recorded by the following tice in that part of France. Arrivpatent, which passed the Great ing late at Port St. Mary, he askSeal in the fifteenth year of James ed, "how near he was to the city the First, and is to be found in Ry- of Agen ?" They told him, " mer, "to allow to Mary Middle- leagues "-He then determined to more, one of the Maydes of Honor proceed that same evening, although to our deerest Consort, Queen they told him that the leagues were Anne, and her deputies, power and long, and the roads very bad. In authority to enter into the Abbies consequence of his obstinacy, the of Saint Albans, Glassenbury, Saint Judge was bemired, benighted, and Edmundsbury, and Ramsay, and almost shaken to pieces. He reachinto all lands, houses, and places ed Agen, however, by midnight, within a mile, belonging to said with tired horses and harassed spiAbbies;" there to dig, and search rits, and went to bed in a very ill after treasure, supposed to be hid- humour. The next morn he sumden in such places. moned the court of justice to meet; Nothing can exceed the followers and after having opened his comof cabalistical mysteries in point of mission in due form, his first decree fantastical conceits: the learned was, "That, for the future, the Godwin recounts some of them. distance from Agen to Port St. Ma"Abraham," they say, "wept but ry should be reckoned six leagues." little for Sarah, probably because And this decree he ordered to be she was old." They prove this by registered in the records of the proproducing the letter " Caph," which vince before he would proceed to being a remarkably small letter, any other business whatever. and being made use of in the HeSir Kenelm Dagby, in a discourse brew word which describes Abra- delivered by him at Montpellier, ham's tears, evinces, they affirm, on Sympathy (which, by the way, that his grief also was small. swarms with whimsical positions), The cabalists have discovered affirms, that the venison which is in likewise, that in the two Hebrew July and August put into earthen words signifying "man" and "wo- pots, to last the whole year, is very man" are contained two letters, difficult to be preserved during the which, together, form one of the space of those particular months names of God." But if these let- which are called fence months, but ters be taken away, there remain that when that period is passed, letters which signify " fire." nothing is so easy as to keep it gust"Hence," argue the cabalists, " we ful (as he words it) during the may find, that when man and wife whole year after. This the eccen agree together, and live in union, trick discourser reasons on, as a God is with them; but when they fact, and endeavours to find a cause separate themselves from God, fire attends their footseps." Such are ⚫the whimsical dogmas of the Jewish Cabala. for it from the sympathy between the potted meat and its friends and relations who are courting and capering about in its native park, "I have read of a bird," says Dr. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, "which hath a face like, and yet will prev upon, a man, who coming to the water to drink, and finding there, by reflexion, that he had kil. led one like himself, pineth away by degrees, and never afterwards enjoyeth itself." From the same. CHARLES THE FIRST. "It is said, King Charles seemed concerned at this accident, and that the Lord Falkland observing it, would likewise try his own forA paper among the Lansdowne tune in the same manner, hoping MSS. in the British Museum, re- he might fail upon some passage cords the following curious circum- that could have no relation to his stance respecting the unfortunate case, and thereby divert the King's Charles the First, and one of his thoughts from any impression the favourite Courtiers, the youthful and other might have upon him. But accomplished Lord Falkland, who the place that Falkland stumbled was slain in a skirmish in which he upon, was yet more suited to his had rashly and unnecessarily en- destiny than the other had been to gaged, the day before the first bat- the King's; being the following extle of Newbury: pressions of Evander upon the un "About this time, there befel the timely death of his son Pallas, as King an accident, which, though a they are translated by the same trifle in itself, and that no weight is hand: to be laid on any thing of that nature; yet since the best authors, both ancient and modern, have not thought it below the majesty of history to mention the like, it may be the more excusable to take no tice of. 'O Pallas! thou hast fail'd thy plighted word I warned thee, but in vain; for well I knew That boiling blood would carry thee too far; EXTRACTS FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF CURRAN, Alienated from the bustle of the "The King being at Oxford during the Civil Wars, went one day to see the publick Library, where he was shewn, among other books, a Virgil, nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his bar, and having resigned the occuMajesty make a trial of his fortune pations of the bench, Mr. Curran's by the Sortes Vigilianæ, which mind began to prey upon itself, and every body knows was an usual the dejection, to which even his kind of augury some ages past. youth had been subject, grew with Whereupon the King opening the his years into confirmed hypochonbook, the period which happened to come up was that part of Didos' imprecation against Æneas, which Mr. Dryden translates thus: Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes, His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose; Oppress'd with numbers in th'enequal field, His men discouraged and himself expeil'd, driasm. In the autumn of 1816, I accompanied him to Cheltenham, for the avowed purpose of consulting Sir Arthur Brooke Faulkener on the state of his health. Mr. Curran had the highest possible opinion of this gentleman's professional abılities, and indeed he could not have recourse to any one who, both as a Though at the hazard of turning friend and a physician, was more my volume into a jest-book I cancompetent to advise him. Sir Arthur not refrain from giving a remark of prescribed for him a regimen to his about this time, on an Irish genwhich I am afraid he did not very tleman, who certainly preserved strictly adhere. However, in the most patriotically all the richness of hospitable welcome of his home, his original pronunciation. He had "the mind diseased" found at visited Cheltenham, and during his least a temporary remedy. The stay there, acquired a most extraorvery appearance of friends who dinary habit of perpetually lolling were deservedly most dear to him his tongue out of his mouth! "What revived his spirits. I remember on can he mean by it?" said somebody the night of our arrival, the news of to Curran.-" Mean by it," said the victory at Algiers was just an- Curran; "why, he means, if he can, nounced at Cheltenham it was of to catch the English accent." course the universal topick of conversation-Lady F. expatiating on the barbarities of the pirates with all the feeling natural to a good heart and refined intellect, appeared to regret that the fortifications 1645) make slight of libels; had not been totally obliterated you may see by them how the wind From the European Magazine. SCANDAL. Though some (says Selden, refering to the state of Britain in vet sits. As, take a straw, and throw "Ah! my dear Madam," replied it up in the air, and you shall see Curran, who had been travelling for two days and a night without by that which way the wind is, intermission," ah! my dear Ma- which you shall not do by casting dam-they have had enough of it -sufficient unto the Dey has been the evil thereof." up a stone. More solid things do not shew the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libels. A blind man of Paris, retiring in the dusk to his hovel, after having spent the day in begging, with little I had introduced him to two very lovely and accomplished sisters, who have since gone to increase the treasures of the East. After spending an evening in the enjoy success, was accosted by a person, ment of conversation but rarely to who told him, that if he would go be met with, he said to me -" I home with him, he should find his never saw such creatures-even to account in it. The blind man joymy old eyes, it is quite refreshing fully consented to be conducted to to see the sunshine of genius flying his new friend's house, and was over their beautiful countenances." thus addressed by him: "I am not A few days after this, observing rich, and yet wish to shew charity a very pompous and solemn block- to the poor, which I have no other head, who endeavoured, with a possibility of doing, unless by givmost ludicrous gravity, to conceal ing them a parcel of tales and his insignificance, he suddenly stop- novels, which I compose to sell at ped short-" Observe that fellow," a very moderate price, for their said he: " if you dined and break- own benefit. Here, my friend, is fasted with him for an hundred a good parcel of them, which you years, you could not be intimate shall dispose of at the rate of twowith him.--By heavens! he wouldn't pence each, although they are ineven be seen to smile, lest the world trinsically worth thrice the money." should think he was too familiar The poor fellow, after loudly exwith himself." pressing his gratitude, groped his way home exulting, and sallied out prize. A domestick burst into her early the next morning, to enjoy room, while the pirates were actualthe profits of his benefactor's pro- ly scaling her walls, and snatching ductions. He cried his pamphlets her, naked as she was, from her bed, by the title of a new novel, as he conveyed her on horseback out of the had been directed, and for some reach of the assailants: when they time had no custom; but one of his had gained a place of security, the books having been purchased and lady's high sense of modesty obliged examined, the rest met with a most her to cause her honest, although rapid sale, and the blind man re- perhaps indelicate, preserver to be turned homewards with his pockets assassinated. Thus much is always well loaded. His pleasant ideas told: but it is very little known, were, however, soon checked, by although certainly true, that during his finding himself in the custody of their flight from the castle, the fugian officer of the police, who told tives fell in with one of those roving him, that the book which he had parties of banditti which Italy in sold was a most virulent and impu- those days abounded with. This dent satire against a person of rank. paragon of beauty was detained a The poor blind man protested his full week by the band of outlaws, innocence, and told his tale, which, before she had leave to pursue her luckily for him, was believed; but journey, and to execute her plan of he could give no information which vengeance on her deliverer. Had could lead to the contriver of this she been honoured by a La Fonvery ingenious and new way of taine for her historian, her adven-. spreading abroad scandal with im- tures might, perhaps, have eclipsed punity. those of the Princess of Garbes! Possibly she might not be sorry to one who had been a witness to the hospitality of her late entertainers. A lady well known in the literary world, having asked the great Lord Lyttleton, "why he did not insert in his life of Henry the Second the well-supported tradiThe present age, far from encoution, which makes that prince the raging obsolete defamation, seems offspring of an amour between the rather to indulge in the opposite Empress Matilda and her competior extreme. Sir John Falstaff has Stephen?" was answered by the found an ingenious advocate to noble biographer, "that his work affirm, that cowardice never formed should never become the vehicle of a part of his character. Richard antiquated scandal against a lady the Third, tyrant as he was, bas of rank and character." not been without a friend, who has exhausted the powers of every engine, which wit and reading could prevented our telling the following supply, to set his character and his anecdote; but the inhumanity of straight; and volumes upon the lady, whose beauty and ingrati- immaculate purity of Mary Queen The above delicacy might have had weight enough with us, to have tude it records, utterly destroys all her claim to forbearance. The story of Livia Gonzaga is weil known. Her exquisite and far-famed beauty tempted a corsair to fit out a small squadron, and to land near her castle, in order to make hiniself master of so rich a volumes are written, to prove the of Scots. To those who are well acquainted with the works of those authors who lived near that unfor tunate lady's time, it must appear, that one half of them would have 1 |