that in a very short time, when the tide rose, they would inevitably perish. The boatmen were too busy, labouring in their vocation of picking up portable property, to think of saving life. The mayor of Deal, an humble slopseller, but a man of extraordinary humanity for the period, went to the custom-house, and begged that the boats belonging to that establishment might be sent out to save some, at least, of the poor men. The custom-house officers refused, on the ground that this was not the service for which their boats were provided. The mayor then collected a few fellow-tradesmen, and in a short speech so inspired them with his generous emotions, that they seized the customhouse boats by force, and, going off to the sands, rescued as many persons as they could from certain death. The shipwrecked men being brought to land, naked, cold, and hungry, what was to be done with them? The navy agent at Deal refused to assist them, his duties being, he said, to aid seamen wounded in battle, not shipwrecked men.

THE GREAT STORM.

The worthy mayor, whose name was Powell, had therefore to clothe and feed these poor fellows, provide them with lodgings, and bury at his own expense some that died. Subsequently, after a long course of petitioning, he was reimbursed for his outlay by government; and this concession was followed by parliament requesting the queen to place shipwrecked seamen in the same category as men killed or wounded in action. The widows and children of men who had perished in the Great Storm, were thus placed on the pension list.

The most remarkable of the many edifices destroyed during that dreadful night was the first Eddystone light-house, erected four years previously by an enterprising but incompetent individual, named Winstanley. He had been a mercer in London, and, having acquired wealth, retired to Littlebury, in Essex, where he amused himself with the curious but useless mechanical toys that preceded our modern machinery and engineering, as

alchemy and astrology preceded chemistry and astronomy. As a specimen of these, it is related that, in one room of his house, there lay an old slipper, which, if a kick were given it, immediately raised a ghost from the floor; in another room, if a visitor sat down in a seemingly comfortable armchair, the arms would fly round his body, and detain him a close prisoner, till released by the ingenious inventor. The light-house was just such a specimen of misapplied ingenuity as might have been expected from such an intellect. It was built of wood, and deficient in every element of stability. Its polygonal form rendered it peculiarly liable to be swept away by the waves. It was no less exposed to the action of the wind, from the upper

part being ornamented with large wooden candlesticks, and supplied with useless vanes, cranes, and other top-hamper,' as a sailor would say. It is probable that the design of this singular edifice had been suggested to Winstanley by a drawing of a Chinese pagoda. And this light-house, placed on a desolate rock in the sea, was painted with representations of suns and compasses, and mottoes of various kinds; such as PoST TENEBRAS LUX, GLORY BE TO GOD, PAX IN BELLO. The last was probably in allusion to the building's fancied security, amidst the wild war of waters. And that such peace might be properly enjoyed, the lighthouse contained, besides a kitchen and accommo dation for the keepers, a state-room, finely carved

CIRCUMSTANCES AT THE DEATH OF

and painted, with a chimney, two closets, and two windows. There was also a splendid bedchamber, richly gilded and painted. This is Winstanley's own description, accompanying an engraving of the light-house, in which he complacently represents himself fishing from the state-room window. One would suppose he had designed the building for an eccentric ornament to a garden or a park, were it not that, in his whimsical ingenuity, he had contrived a kind of movable shoot on the top, by which stones could be showered down on any side, on an approaching enemy. Men, who knew by experience the aggressive powers of sea-waves, remonstrated with Winstanley, but he declared that he was so well assured of the strength of the building, that he would like to be in it during the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of heaven. The confident architect had, a short time previous to the Great Storm, gone to the light-house to superintend some repairs. When the fatal tempest came, it swept the flimsy structure into the ocean, and with it the unfortunate Winstanley, and five other persons who were along with him in the building.

There is a curious bit of literary history indirectly connected with the Great Storm. Addison, 'distressed by indigence,' wrote a poem on the victory of Blenheim, in which he thus compares the Duke of Marlborough, directing the current of the great fight, to the Spirit of the Storm

'So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene, he drives the furious blast.
And pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.'

Lord Godolphin was so pleased with this simile, that he immediately appointed Addison to the Commissionership of Appeals, the first public employment conferred on the essayist.

CIRCUMSTANCES AT THE DEATH OF THOMAS,

LORD LYTTELTON.

Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, who died November 27, 1779, at the age of thirty-five, was as remarkable for his reckless and dissipated life not to speak of impious habits of thought-as his father had been for the reverse. One of the wicked actions attributed to him, was the seduction of three Misses Amphlett, who resided near his country residence in Shropshire. He had just returned from Ireland-where he left one of these ladies when, residing at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, he was attacked with suffocating fits of a threatening character. According to one account, he dreamed one night that a fluttering bird came to his window, and that presently after a woman appeared to him in white apparel, who told him to prepare for death, as he would not outlive three days. He was much alarmed, and called for his servant, who found him in a profuse perspiration, and to whom he related the circumstance which had occurred.* According to another account, from a relative of his lordship, he was

*T. J., the subsequent proprietor of Lord Lyttelton's house, Pit Place, gives this (Gent. Mag. 1816, ii. 421), as from a narrative in writing, left in the house as an heirloom, and 'which may be depended on.'

92

THOMAS, LORD LYTTELTON.

still awake when the noise of a bird fluttering at the window called his attention; his room seemed filled with light, and he saw in the recess of the window a female figure, being that of a lady whom he had injured, who, pointing to the clock on the mantel-piece, then indicating twelve o'clock, said in a severe tone that, at that hour on the third day after, his life would be concluded, after which she vanished and left the room in darkness.

That some such circumstance, in one or other of these forms, was believed by Lord Lyttelton to have occurred, there can be no reasonable doubt, for it left him in a depression of spirits which caused him to speak of the matter to his friends. On the third day, he had a party with him at breakfast, including Lord Fortescue, Lady Flood, and two Misses Amphlett, to whom he remarked: If I live over to-night, I shall have jockeyed the ghost, for this is the third day.' The whole party set out in the forenoon for his lordship's country-house, Pit Place, near Epsom, where he had not long arrived when he had one of his suffocating fits. Nevertheless, he was able to dine with his friends at five o'clock. By a friendly trick, the clocks throughout the house, and the watches of the whole party, including his lordship's, were put forward half an hour. The evening passed agreeably; the ghostly warning was never alluded to; and Lord Lyttelton seemed to have recovered his usual gaiety. At half-past eleven, he retired to his bedroom, and soon after got into bed, where he was to take a dose of rhubarb and mint-water. According to the report afterwards given by his valet, he kept every now and then looking at his watch. He ordered his curtains to be closed at the foot. It was now within a minute or two of twelve

:

by his watch he asked to look at mine, and seemed pleased to find it nearly keep time with his own. himself that they went. When it was more than a His lordship then put both to his ear, to satisfy quarter after twelve by our watches, he said :

This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find." When it was near the real hour of twelve, he said: "Come, I'll wait no longer; get me my medicine; I'll take it, and try to sleep." Perceiving the man stirring the medicine with a toothpick, Lord Lyttelton scolded him, and sent him away for a tea-spoon, with which he soon after returned. He found his master in a fit, with his chin, owing to the elevation of the pillow, resting hard upon his neck. Instead of trying to relieve him, he ran for assistance, and when he came back with the alarmed party of guests, Lord Lyttelton

was dead.

Amongst the company at Pit Place that day, was Mr Miles Peter Andrews, a companion of Lord Lyttelton. Having business at the Dartford powder-mills, in which he was a partner, he left the house early, but not before he had been pleasingly assured that his noble friend was restored to his usual good spirits. So little did the ghost-adventure rest in Mr Andrews's mind, that he did not even recollect the time when it was predicted the event would take place. He had been half an hour in bed at his partner, Mr Pigou's house at the mill,+ when suddenly his curtains were pulled open, and Lord Lyttelton

* Gentleman's Magazine, 1815, i. 597.

+ J. W. Croker (Notes to Boswell's Life of Johnson). 625

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.

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 have almost inevitably taken place, sooner or later. At the present day, indeed, when more

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.

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 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

was

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

aid of a candle they made a survey of the burial-place and its tenant; 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

author visited him in 1820, he wrote to thank Campbell, 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