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 _UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL
                              KNOWLEDGE._




                                  THE
                         GALLERY OF PORTRAITS:
                                  WITH
                                MEMOIRS.

                              VOLUME III.


                                LONDON:
                  CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE-STREET.

                                 1834.

                  [PRICE ONE GUINEA, BOUND IN CLOTH.]




                                LONDON:
                       PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,
                         Duke-Street, Lambeth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       PORTRAITS, AND BIOGRAPHIES
                       CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME.


                           1. Erskine       1

                           2. Dollond      12

                           3. John Hunter  19

                           4. Petrarch     25

                           5. Burke        33

                           6. Henry IV.    41

                           7. Bentley      49

                           8. Kepler       59

                           9. Hale         66

                          10. Franklin     77

                          11. Schwartz     86

                          12. Barrow       94

                          13. D’Alembert  101

                          14. Hogarth     106

                          15. Galileo     113

                          16. Rembrandt   121

                          17. Dryden      127

                          18. La Perouse  135

                          19. Cranmer     141

                          20. Tasso       149

                          21. Ben Jonson  156

                          22. Canova      165

                          23. Chaucer     176

                          24. Sobieski    184

  ⁂ It should have been stated in the Life of D’Alembert, that that Life
 was mostly taken from the Penny Cyclopædia, with some alterations by the
                           Editor of this work.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by R. Woodman._

  ERSKINE.

  _From the original Picture by Hoppner
  in his Majesty’s Collection at Windsor._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                ERSKINE.


The Honourable Thomas Erskine was the third son of David Earl of Buchan,
a Scottish peer of ancient family and title, but reduced fortune. He was
born in January 1748, and received the rudiments of his education,
partly at the High School of Edinburgh, partly at the University of St.
Andrews. But the straitened circumstances of his family rendered it
necessary for him to embrace some profession at an early age; and he
accordingly entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764. Not thinking his
prospects of advancement sufficiently favourable to render his
continuance in that service expedient, he exchanged it in the year 1768
for that of the army. In 1770 he married his first wife, Frances, the
daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow; and soon after went with his
regiment to Minorca, where he remained three years. Soon after returning
to England he changed his profession again. It has been said that he
took this step against his own judgment, and on the pressing entreaties
of his mother, a woman of lofty and highly cultivated mind, the sister
of Sir James Stewart, whose scientific writings, especially upon
political philosophy, have rendered his name so famous, and the daughter
of a well known Scotch lawyer and Solicitor-General of the same name.
But it is certain that at this time he had acquired considerable
celebrity in the circles of London society; and it is hard to suppose
that he was not sensible of his own brilliant qualifications for
forensic success. Whatever the cause, he commenced his legal life in
1775, in which year he entered himself as a student of Lincoln’s Inn,
and also as a fellow commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge; not with a
view to university honours or emoluments, but to obtain the honorary
degree of M.A., to which he was entitled by his birth, and thereby to
shorten the period of probation, previous to his being called to the
bar. He gave an earnest, however, of his future eloquence, by gaining
the first declamation prize, annually bestowed in his college. The
subject which he chose was the Revolution of 1688. His professional
education was chiefly carried on in the chambers of Mr. Buller and Mr.
Wood, both subsequently raised to the bench. In Trinity term, 1778, he
was called to the bar.

Mr. Erskine’s course was as rapid as it was brilliant. In the following
term, Captain Baillie, Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, was
prosecuted for an alleged libel on other officers of that establishment,
contained in a pamphlet written to expose the abuses which existed
there, and bearing heavily on the character of the Earl of Sandwich,
then First Lord of the Admiralty. It is believed that on this occasion
Mr. Erskine made his first appearance in court. His speech was
characterized by great warmth and eloquence, and a most fearless
assertion of matters not likely to be palatable either to the Court or
the Government. And this is the more worthy of notice, because it shows
that the boldness which he afterwards displayed in causes more nearly
connected with the liberties of England, was not the safe boldness of a
man strong in professional reputation, and confident in his experience
and past success, but the result of a fixed determination to perform, at
all hazards, his whole duty to his client. The best testimony to the
effect of this speech is to be found in the anecdote, that thirty briefs
were presented to him by attorneys before he left the court.

We must hasten very briefly through the events of Mr. Erskine’s life to
make room for speaking at somewhat more length of a very few of his most
remarkable performances. He rose at once into first rate junior business
in the Court of King’s Bench, and received a patent of precedence in May
1783, having practised only for the short space of five years. He
belonged to the Home Circuit in the early part of his professional life;
but soon ceased to attend it, or any other, except on special retainers,
of which it is said that he received more than any man in his time or
since.

In his political life he was a firm adherent of Mr. Fox: but his success
in Parliament, which he entered in 1783 as member for Portsmouth, was
not commensurate with the expectations which had been raised upon the
brilliant powers of oratory which he had displayed at the bar. On
attaining his majority in 1783, the Prince of Wales appointed Mr.
Erskine, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy, to be his
Attorney-General. This office he was called on to resign in 1792, in
consequence of his refusing to abandon the defence of Paine, when he was
prosecuted for a libel, as author of the ‘Rights of Man:’ and his
removal, though not a solitary, is fortunately a rare instance in modern
times, of an advocate being punished for the honest discharge of his
professional duties. Five years afterwards he conducted the prosecution
of the ‘Age of Reason;’ and in 1802 he was appointed Chancellor of the
Duchy of Cornwall. On the formation of the Grenville administration, in
1806, he was appointed Chancellor of Great Britain, and raised to the
peerage, by the title of Baron Erskine, of Restormel Castle in Cornwall.
The short period during which he presided in the Court of Chancery,
makes it difficult to estimate how far his extraordinary powers of mind,
and in particular the eminently legal understanding which he possessed,
would have enabled him to overcome the difficulties of so new a
situation. But his judgments have, generally speaking, stood the test of
subsequent investigation; and his admirable conduct in the impeachment
of 1806, over which he presided as Lord High Steward, uniting the
greatest acuteness and readiness with singular firmness of purpose, and
all that urbanity which neither in public nor in private life ever
quitted him for an instant, may be said to have restored to life a mode
of trial essential to our constitution, though discredited by the
vexatious procrastination which had characterized the last instance of
its use.

On the dissolution of the Grenville ministry, which occurred about a
year after its formation, Lord Erskine retired in a great degree from
public life. In 1808 he took an active share in opposing the measure of
commercial hostility, so well known under the name of the Orders in
Council, and still so deeply felt: and his speech against the Jesuits’
Bark Bill, which was not reported, is said to have been worthy of his
most celebrated efforts, both for argument and eloquence. In 1809 he
introduced into the House of Lords a bill for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, which passed that branch of the legislature, but was thrown
out by the Commons. The part, too, which he took upon the memorable
proceedings of 1820, relative to the Queen’s trial, will long be
remembered, marked as it was by all the highest qualities of the
judicial character: and his arguments upon the Banbury case a few years
before, only leave a regret that he did not devote more of his leisure
to the legal business of the House of Lords.

After his retirement, Lord Erskine occupied himself occasionally in
literary pursuits. In this period he composed the Preface to Mr. Fox’s
Speeches, and the political romance of Armata. His only other written
work of importance is a pamphlet, entitled ‘View of the Causes and
Consequences of the War with France,’ which appeared in 1797, and ran
through the extraordinary number of forty-eight editions. But he is not
to be considered as a literary man: on the contrary, it is one of the
many singularities in his history, that with a scanty stock of what is
usually called literature, he should have been one of our most purely
classical speakers and writers. His study was confined to a few of the
greatest models; and these he almost knew by heart.

The later years of his life were harassed by pecuniary embarrassment,
arising partly from the loss of his large professional income,
inadequately replaced by a retiring pension of £4000; and partly from an
unfortunate investment of the fruits of his industry in land, which
yielded little return when the period of agricultural depression
arrived. His first wife died in 1805: and an ill-assorted second
marriage, contracted much later in life, is supposed to have increased
his domestic disquietudes, as it certainly injured his reputation, and
gave pain to his friends. He was seized with an inflammation of the
chest while travelling towards Scotland, and died at Almondale, his
brother’s seat, near Edinburgh, November 17, 1823. Immediately after his
decease, the members of that profession of which he had been at once the
ornament and the favourite, caused a statue of him to be executed. When
the marble was denied admittance within those walls which had so often
been shaken by the thunder of his eloquence, they placed it in the hall
of Lincoln’s Inn, where he had presided as chancellor; a lasting
monument to those who study the law, that subserviency is not necessary
to advancement, and that they will be held in grateful remembrance by
their professional brethren, who boldly uphold the liberties of their
country.

In speaking, which we can do very briefly, of Lord Erskine’s
professional merits, our attention is directed to those of his speeches
which bear on two great subjects, the Liberty of the Press, and the
doctrine of Constructive Treason, not merely because they embrace his
most laboured and most celebrated efforts, nor for the paramount
importance of these subjects in a constitutional point of view; but also
because we possess a collection of those speeches corrected by himself,
while of the numberless arguments and addresses delivered on other
subjects during a most active period of twenty-eight years, but very few
have been authentically reported. From those which are preserved, the
rising generation can form but an inadequate idea of this extraordinary
man’s power as an advocate; such is said, by those who yet remember him,
to have been the witchery of his voice, eye, and action; such his
intuitive perception of that which at the instant was likely to have
weight with a jury. His peculiar skill in this respect is thus described
by a distinguished writer in the Edinburgh Review, in commenting upon a
brilliant passage, which we shall presently have occasion to quote. “As
far as relates to the character of Lord Erskine’s eloquence, we would
point out as the most remarkable feature in this passage, that in no one
sentence is the subject, the business in hand, the case, the client, the
verdict, lost sight of; and that the fire of that oratory, or rather of
that rhetoric (for it was quite under discipline), which was melting the
hearts and dazzling the understandings of his hearers, had not the power
to touch for one instant the hard head of the _Nisi Prius_ lawyer, from
which it radiated; or to make him swerve, by one hair’s breadth even,
from the minuter details most befitting his purpose, and the alternate
admissions and disavowals best adapted to put his case in the safest
position. This, indeed, was the grand secret of Mr. Erskine’s
unparalleled success at the English bar. Without it he might have filled
Westminster Hall with his sentences, and obtained a reputation for
eloquence, somewhat like the fame of a popular preacher or a
distinguished actor: but his fortunes,—aye, and the liberties of his
country,—are built on the matchless skill with which he could subdue the
genius of a first rate orator to the uses of the most consummate
advocate of the age.”—(Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi. p. 116–7, 1810.)

Mr. Erskine’s speeches against the doctrine of Constructive Treason were
delivered in behalf of Lord George Gordon, when accused of high treason
as the ringleader of the riots in 1780, and in behalf of Messrs. Hardy
and Horne Tooke, when attacked by the whole weight of Government in
1794. In the first of these he begins by laying down broadly and
distinctly the law of treason, as defined by the celebrated statute of
Edward III. He proceeds, carefully avoiding to offend the probable
temper of the jury by asserting either the prudence or legality of Lord
George Gordon’s conduct, to show the total failure of evidence to bring
his intentions within the scope of the act; the utter want of pretence
for assuming that he had levied war on the King, the crime charged in
the indictment; and the utter want of proof to connect him, or the
Protestant Association, of which he was chairman, with the outrages
committed by a rabble, insignificant alike in numbers and character. He
enters into a minute examination of the crown evidence; lays bare the
infamy of one witness; exposes the forced constructions by which alone
any legal or moral guilt can be attached to his client; and, warming in
his subject, breaks out into an appeal to the jury, the effect of which
is said to have been electric. And it has been justly observed, that by
such an effect alone could the boldness of the attempt have been
justified: failure would have been destruction. The eloquence of this
speech is even less remarkable than the exquisite judgment and
professional skill by which that eloquence is controlled.

In the State Trials of 1794, the prisoners, it is well known, were
proceeded against separately. Hardy’s turn came first. They were charged
with compassing the death of the King, the evidence of this intention
being a conspiracy to subvert by force the constitution of the country,
under pretence of procuring, by legal means, a reform in the House of
Commons. It must be evident to every one that this was stretching the
doctrine of constructive treason to the utmost: yet Parliament had
passed a bill, declaring in the preamble that such a conspiracy did
actually exist; and this being asserted on such high authority, and no
doubt existing of the prisoners being deeply engaged in the design to
procure a reform in Parliament, they came to their trial under the most
serious disadvantages. On this occasion, as in defence of Lord George
Gordon, Mr. Erskine began by explaining the law of treason, under the
statute of Edward III. He showed the strictness with which it had been
defined and limited by the most eminent constitutional lawyers; and
argued, that granting the intention to hold a general convention, with
the view of obtaining by that means a reform in Parliament; granting
even that this amounted to a conspiracy to levy war for that purpose,
still the offence would not be the high treason charged by the
indictment, unless the conspiracy to levy war were directly pointed
against the King’s person. And that there was no want of affection for
the King himself, appeared fully even from the evidence for the
prosecution. He maintained that the clearest evidence should be required
of the evil intention, especially when so different from the open and
avowed object of the prisoners. He proceeded to show that their
ostensible object, so far from necessarily involving any evil designs,
was one which had been advocated by the Earl of Chatham, Mr. Burke, Mr.
Pitt himself; and that the very measures of reform which it was sought
to introduce, had been openly avowed and inculcated by the Duke of
Richmond, then holding office in the ministry of which Mr. Pitt was
chief. Mr. Hardy, Mr. Tooke, and Mr. Thelwall were severally and
successively acquitted, and all men now confess that to the powers and
the courage of this matchless advocate in that day of its peril, the
preservation of English liberty must be mainly ascribed. The other
prosecutions were then abandoned.

Mr. Erskine’s powerful and fearless support of the liberty of the
subject on all occasions rendered him especially sought after by all
persons accused of political libels; and a large proportion of his most
important speeches are on these subjects. The earliest reported, and for
their consequences the most remarkable, are the series of speeches which
he delivered in behalf of the Dean of St. Asaph, in 1784. Of the merits
of the case we have not room to speak: but it is important for the
influence which it had in determining the great question, whether in
prosecutions for libel, the jury is to judge of fact alone, or of law
and fact conjointly. For many years it had been the doctrine of the
courts, that juries had no cognizance of the nature of an imputed libel,
beyond ascertaining how far the meaning ascribed in the indictment to
passages charged as libellous was borne out by evidence; the truth of
these, and the fact of the publication being ascertained, it was for the
judge to determine whether the matter were libellous or no. This
doctrine was controverted by Mr. Erskine in his speech for the Dean of
St. Asaph, and maintained by the judge who tried the case; and on the
ground of misdirection, Mr. Erskine moved for a new trial. On this
occasion he went into an elaborate argument to prove that it was the
office of the jury, not of the judges, to pronounce upon the intention
and tendency of an alleged libel; and to him is ascribed the honour of
having prepared the way for the Libel Bill, introduced by Mr. Fox in
1792, and seconded by himself, in which the rights and province of the
jury are clearly defined, and the position established, for which he, in
a small minority of his professional brethren, had contended. This was a
triumph of which the oldest, and most practised lawyer might have been
proud; it is doubly honourable to one young in years, and younger in
professional experience.

Equal perhaps to those in importance, for it bore directly on the
liberty of the press, and superior in brilliance of execution, is the
speech in behalf of Stockdale, the bookseller, who was prosecuted for a
libel on the House of Commons, in consequence of having published a
pamphlet commenting on the articles of impeachment brought against Mr.
Hastings, and containing some passages by no means complimentary to some
portion of that honourable body. The fact of the publication being
admitted, Mr. Erskine, agreeably to the provisions of the Libel Act,
proceeded to address the jury on the merits of the work. It was his
argument, that the tenor of the whole, and the intentions of the writer,
were to be regarded; and that if these should be found praiseworthy, or
innocent, the presence of a few detached passages, which, taken
separately, might seem calculated to bring the House of Commons into
contempt, were altogether insufficient to justify conviction. This
speech may be selected as one of the finest examples of Mr. Erskine’s
oratory, whether for the skill displayed in managing the argument, the
justness of the principles, the exquisite taste with which they are
illustrated and enforced, or the powerful eloquence in which they are
embodied; and from this, in conclusion, we would extract one passage as
a specimen of his powers. It is sufficient to state in introduction,
that the pamphlet in question was a defence of Mr. Hastings, and that,
among other topics, it urged the nature of his instructions from his
constituents. Commenting on this, the orator proceeds in a strain which
few persons, not hardened by long converse in affairs of state, will
read without emotion, or without a deep sense of the justice of the
sentiments, the gravity of the topics introduced.

“If this be a wilfully false account of the instructions given to Mr.
Hastings for his government, and of his conduct under them, the author
and publisher of this defence deserve the severest punishment, for a
mercenary imposition on the public. But if it be true, that he was
directed to ‘make the safety and prosperity of Bengal the first object
of his attention,’ and that under his administration it has been safe
and prosperous; if it be true that the security and preservation of our
possessions and revenues in Asia were marked out to him as the great
leading principle of his government, and that those possessions and
revenues amidst unexampled dangers have been secured and preserved; then
a question may be unaccountably mixed with your consideration, much
beyond the consequence of the present prosecution, involving perhaps the
merit of the impeachment itself which gave it birth; a question which
the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. Hastings, should in common prudence
have avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length of their
prosecution against him, they wished to afford him the opportunity of
this strange anomalous defence. For although I am neither his counsel,
nor desire to have any thing to do with his guilt or innocence, yet in
the collateral defence of my client I am driven to state matter which
may be considered by many as hostile to the impeachment. For if our
dependencies have been secured, and their interests promoted, I am
driven in the defence of my client to remark, that it is mad and
preposterous to bring to the standard of justice and humanity, the
exercise of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. It may, and
must be true, that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly offended against the
rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if he was the faithful
deputy of a power which could not maintain itself for an hour without
trampling upon both; he may and must have offended against the laws of
God and nature, if he was the faithful Viceroy of an empire wrested in
blood from the people to whom God and nature had given it; he may and
must have preserved that unjust dominion over timorous and abject
nations by a terrifying, overbearing, insulting superiority, if he was
the faithful administrator of your government, which, having no root in
consent or affection, no foundation in similarity of interests, nor
support from any one principle which cements men together in society,
could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The unhappy
people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of
their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery
and strength of civilization, still occasionally start up in all the
vigour and intelligence of insulted nature. When governed at all, they
must be governed with a rod of iron; and our empire in the east would
long since have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and military
prowess had not united their efforts, to support an authority which
Heaven never gave, by means which it never can sanction.

“Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are touched with this way of
considering the subject, and I can account for it. I have not been
considering it through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking
of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of
them myself among reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know
what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have
heard them in my youth, from a naked savage, in the indignant character
of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the Governor of a
British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of
his unlettered eloquence. ‘Who is it,’ said the jealous ruler over the
desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure; ‘who
is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty
itself into the ocean? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of
winter, and that calms them again in the summer? Who is it that rears up
the shade of these lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick
lightning at his pleasure? The same Being, who gave to you a country on
the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we
will defend it,’ said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk on the
ground, and raising the war-cry of his nation. These are the feelings of
subjugated man all round the globe; and depend upon it, nothing but fear
will control, where it is vain to look for affection.

“These reflections are the only antidotes to those anathemas of
superhuman eloquence which have lately shaken these walls that surround
us; but which it unaccountably falls to my province, whether I will or
no, a little to stem the torrent of, by reminding you that you have a
mighty sway in Asia which cannot be maintained by the finer sympathies
of life, or the practice of its charities and affections. What will they
do for you when surrounded by two hundred thousand men with artillery,
cavalry, and elephants, calling upon you for their dominions which you
have robbed them of? Justice may, no doubt, in such a case forbid the
levying of a fine to pay a revolting soldiery; a treaty may stand in the
way of increasing a tribute to keep up the very existence of the
government; and delicacy for women may forbid all entrance into a zenana
for money, whatever may be the necessity for taking it. All these things
must ever be occurring. But under the pressure of such constant
difficulties, so dangerous to national honour, it might be better
perhaps to think of effectually securing it altogether, by recalling our
troops and merchants, and abandoning our Oriental empire. Until this be
done, neither religion nor philosophy can be pressed very far into the
aid of reformation and punishment. If England, from a lust of ambition
and dominion, will insist on maintaining despotic rule over distant and
hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and extended than
herself, and gives commission to her Viceroys to govern them, with no
other instructions than to preserve them, and to secure permanently
their revenues; with what colour of consistency or reason can she place
herself in the moral chair, and affect to be shocked at the execution of
her own orders; adverting to the exact measure of wickedness and
injustice necessary to their execution, and complaining only of the
excess as the immorality; considering her authority as a dispensation
for breaking the commands of God, and the breach of them only punishable
when contrary to the ordinances of man.

“Such a proceeding, Gentlemen, begets serious reflections. It would be
better perhaps for the masters and the servants of all such governments
to join in supplication, that the great Author of violated humanity may
not confound them together in one common judgment.”

These speeches, on constructive treason, and on subjects relating to the
liberty of the press, fill four octavo volumes. A fifth was subsequently
published, containing speeches on miscellaneous subjects; among which
those in behalf of Hadfield and for Mr. Bingham are especially worthy of
attention. The latter is one of the most affecting appeals to the
feelings ever uttered. Hadfield is notorious for having discharged a
pistol at George III. in Drury Lane Theatre. He was a soldier, who had
been dreadfully wounded in the head, and other parts of the body; and no
doubt could be entertained but that he was of unsound mind. Whether his
insanity was of such a nature, that it could be pleaded in excuse for an
attempt to murder, was a harder question to decide; and the speech in
his behalf, besides many passages of much power and pathos, contains a
masterly exposition of the principles by which a court of law should be
guided in examining the moral responsibility of a person labouring under
alienation of mind. Hadfield, we need hardly say, was acquitted.

No life of Lord Erskine has yet been written on a scale calculated to do
justice to the subject. The fullest which we have seen is contained in
the ‘Lives of British Lawyers,’ in Lardner’s Cyclopædia: there is also a
scanty memoir in the Annual Biography and Obituary, from which the facts
contained in this sketch are principally derived.

[Illustration: Statue of Lord Erskine in Lincoln’s Inn Hall.]




[Illustration]

                                DOLLOND.


The parents of this eminent discoverer in optics, to whom we are chiefly
indebted for the high perfection of our telescopes, were French
Protestants resident in Normandy, whence they were driven by the
revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. With many others of their
class, they took up their residence in Spitalfields, where John Dollond,
the subject of this memoir[1], was born, June 10, 1706. It has been
supposed, and among others by Lalande, that the name is not French; if
we were to hazard a conjecture, we should say that it might have been an
English corruption of _D’Hollande_. While yet very young, John Dollond
lost his father; and he was obliged to gain his livelihood by the loom,
though his natural disposition led him to devote all his leisure hours
to mathematics and natural philosophy. Notwithstanding the cares
incumbent upon the father of a family (for he married early) he
contrived to find time, not only for the above-mentioned pursuits, but
for anatomy, classical literature, and divinity. He continued his quiet
course of life until his son, Peter Dollond, was of age to join him in
his trade of silk-weaving, and they carried on that business together
for several years. The son, however, who was also of a scientific turn,
and who had profited by his father’s instructions, quitted the silk
trade to commence business as an optician. He was tolerably successful,
and after some years his father joined him, in 1752.

Footnote 1:

  For the details of this life, we are mostly indebted to the Memoir of
  Dr. Kelly, his son-in-law, from which all the existing accounts of
  Dollond are taken. This book has become very scarce, and we are
  indebted for the opportunity of perusing it to the kindness of G.
  Dollond, Esq.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

  DOLLOND.

  _From an original Picture
  in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

The first improvement made by the elder Dollond in the telescope, was
the addition of another glass to the eye-piece, making the whole number
of glasses in the instrument (the object-glass included) six instead of
five. This he communicated to the Royal Society in 1753, through his
friend James Short, well known as an optician and astronomer, who also
communicated all his succeeding papers. By his new construction, an
increase in the field of view was procured, without any corresponding
augmentation of the unavoidable defects of the instrument. In May, 1753,
Dollond communicated to the Royal Society his improvement of the
micrometer. In 1747 Bouguer proposed to measure the distance of two very
near objects (the opposite edges of a planet, for example) by viewing
them through a conical telescope, the larger end of which had two
object-glasses placed side by side, the eye-glass being common to both.
The distance of the objects was determined by observing how far it was
necessary to separate the centres of the object-glasses, in order that
the centre of each might show an image of one of the objects. Mr.
Dollond’s improvement consisted in making use of the same object-glass,
divided into two semicircular halves sliding on one another, as
represented in the diagrams in page 18; the first of which is an oblique
perspective view of the divided glass, and the second a side view of the
same, in such a position, that the images of the stars A and B coincide
at C.

If the whole of an object-glass were darkened, except one small portion,
that portion would form images similarly situated to those formed by the
whole glass, but less illuminated. Each half of the object-glass, when
separated from the other, forms an image of every object in the field;
and the two images of the same object coincide in one of double
brightness, when the halves are brought together so as to restore the
original form. By placing the divided diameter in the line of two near
objects, A and B, whose distance is to be measured, and sliding the
glasses until the image of one formed by one half comes exactly into
contact with the image of the other formed by the other half, the
angular distance of the two objects may be calculated, from observation
of the distance between the centres of the two halves. This last
distance is measured on a scale attached to the instrument; and when
found, is the base of the triangle, the vertex of which is at C, and the
equal sides of which are the focal lengths of the glasses. This
micrometer Dollond preferred to apply to the reflecting telescope; his
son afterwards adapted it to the refracting telescope; and it is now,
under the name of the _divided object-glass micrometer_, one of the most
useful instruments for measuring small angles.

But the fame of Dollond principally rests upon his invention of
_achromatic_, or colourless telescopes, in which the surrounding fringe
of colours was destroyed, which had rendered indistinct the images
formed in all refracting telescopes previously constructed. He was led
to this practical result by the discovery of a principle in optics, that
the _dispersion_ of light in passing through a refracting medium, that
is, the greater or less length through which the coloured _spectrum_ is
scattered, is not in proportion to the _refraction_, or angle through
which the rays are bent out of their course. Newton asserted that he had
found by experiments, made with water and glass, that if a ray of light
be subjected to several refractions, some of which correct the rest, so
that it emerges parallel to its first direction, the dispersion into
colours will also be corrected, so that the light will be restored to
whiteness. This is not generally true: it is true if one substance only
be employed, or several which have the same, or nearly the same,
_dispersive power_[2]. Mr. Peter Dollond afterwards satisfactorily
explained the reason of Newton’s mistake, by performing the same
experiment with Venetian glass, which, in the time of the latter, was
commonly used in England; from which he found that the fact stated by
Newton was true, as far as regarded that sort of glass. Had Newton used
flint glass, he would have discovered that dispersion and refraction are
not necessarily corrected together: he would then have been led to the
difference between refractive and dispersive power, and would have
concluded from his first experiment that Venetian glass and water have
their dispersive powers very nearly equal. As it was, he inferred that
the refracting telescope could never be entirely divested of colour,
without entirely destroying the refraction, that is, rendering the
instrument no telescope at all; and, the experiment being granted, the
conclusion was inevitable. It is well known that he accordingly turned
his attention entirely to the reflecting telescope.

Footnote 2:

  See Penny Cyclopædia, article Achromatic, for this and other terms
  employed in this life.

In 1747, Euler, struck by the fact that the human eye is an achromatic
combination of lenses, or nearly so, imagined that it might be possible
to destroy colour by employing compound object-glasses, such as two
lenses with an intermediate space filled with water. In a memoir
addressed to the Academy of Berlin, he explained his method of
constructing such achromatic glasses, and proposed a new law of
refrangibility, different from that of Newton. He could not, however,
succeed in procuring a successful result in practice. Dollond, impressed
with the idea that Newton’s experiment was conclusive, objected to
Euler’s process in a letter to Mr. Short; which the latter persuaded the
author to communicate, first to Euler, and then, with his answer, to the
Royal Society. Assuming Newton’s law, Dollond shows that Euler’s method
would destroy all refraction as well as dispersion. The latter replies,
that it is sufficient for his purpose that Newton’s law should be
_nearly_ true; that the theory propounded by himself does not differ
much from it; and that the structure of the eye convinces him of the
possibility of an achromatic combination. Neither party contested the
general truth of Newton’s conclusion.

A new party to the discussion appeared in the field in the person of M.
Klingenstierna, a Swedish astronomer, who advanced some mathematical
reasoning against the law of Newton, and some suspicions as to the
correctness of his experiment. The latter being thus formally attacked,
Mr. Dollond determined to repeat it, with a view of settling the
question, and his result was communicated to the Royal Society in 1758.
By placing a prism of flint glass inside one of water, confined by glass
planes, so that the refractions from the two prisms should be in
contrary directions, he found that when their angles were so adjusted,
that the refraction of one should entirely destroy that of the other,
the colour was far from being destroyed; “for the object, though not at
all refracted, was yet as much infested with prismatic colours, as if it
had been seen through a glass wedge only, whose refracting angle was
near thirty degrees.” It was thus proved that the correction of
refraction, and the correction of dispersion, are not necessarily
consequent the one on the other. Previously to communicating this
result, Dollond had, in 1757, applied it to the construction of
achromatic glasses, consisting of spherical lenses with water between
them: but finding that the images, though free from colour, were not
very distinct, he tried combinations of different kinds of glass; and
succeeded at last in forming the achromatic object-glass now used,
consisting of a convex lens of crown, and a concave of flint glass. His
son afterwards, in 1765, constructed the triple object-glass, having a
double concave lens of flint glass in the middle of two double convex
lenses of crown glass. The right of Dollond to the invention has been
attacked by various foreign writers, but the point seems to have been
decided in his favour by the general consent of later times. His conduct
certainly appears more philosophical than that of either of his
opponents. So long as he believed that Newton’s experiment was correct,
he held fast by it, not allowing any mathematical reasoning to shake his
belief, and in this respect he was more consistent than Euler, who seems
to have thought that an achromatic combination might be made out of the
joint belief of an experiment, and of an hypothesis utterly at variance
with it. And the manner in which the distinguished philosopher just
mentioned received the news of Dollond’s invention, appears singular,
considering the side which each had taken in the previous discussion.
Euler, who had asserted the possibility of an achromatic lens, against
Dollond, who appeared to doubt it, says, “I am not ashamed frankly to
avow that the first accounts which were published of it, appeared so
suspicious, and even so contrary to the best established principles,
that I could not prevail upon myself to give credit to them.” Dollond
was the first who actually resorted to experiment, and he thus became
the discoverer of a remarkable law of optics; while his tact in the
application of his principles, and the selection of his materials, is
worthy of admiration. The reputation of Dollond rests upon the discovery
of the law, and its application to the case in point; for it has since
been proved that he was not absolutely the first who had constructed an
achromatic lens. On the occasion of an action brought for the invasion
of the patent, the defendant proved that about the year 1750, Dr. Hall,
an Essex gentleman, was in the possession of a secret for constructing
achromatic telescopes of twenty inches focal length: and a writer in the
Gentleman’s Magazine for 1790, has advanced his claim with considerable
circumstantial detail. It is difficult to get any account of that trial,
as it is not reported in any of the books. At least we presume so, from
not finding any reference to it either in the works of Godson or Davis
on Patents, though the case is frequently mentioned; or in H.
Blackstone’s report of Boulton and Watt v. Bull, in which Dollond’s case
forms a prominent feature of the argument. But, from the words of Judge
Buller in the case just cited, it is difficult to suppose that the
account given by Lalande (Montucla, Histoire des Mathématiques, vol.
iii. p. 448, note) can be correct. Lalande asserts that it was proved
that Dollond received the invention from a workman who bad been employed
by Dr. Hall, and that the latter had shown it to many persons. Judge
Buller says, “The objection to Dollond’s patent was, that he was not the
inventor of the new method of making object-glasses, but that Dr. Hall
had made the same discovery before him. But it was holden that as Dr.
Hall had _confined it to his closet_, and the public were not acquainted
with it, Dollond was to be considered as the inventor.” The
circumstances connected with the discovery, particularly the previous
investigation of the phenomenon on which the result depends,
independently of the words of Judge Buller, quoted in italics, appear to
us to render the anonymous account very improbable: nor, as far as we
know, is there any other authority for it. That Dr. Hall did construct
achromatic telescopes is pretty certain; but we are entirely in the dark
as to whether he did it on principle, or whether he could even construct
more than one sort of lens: and the assertion that he, or any one
instructed by him, had communicated with Dollond, is unsupported by any
thing worthy the name of evidence. We may add, that the accounts of this
discovery, written by Dollond himself, possess a clearness and power of
illustration, which can result only from long and minute attention to
the subject under consideration.

After this great discovery, for which he received the Copley medal of
the Royal Society, Mr. Dollond devoted himself to the improvement of the
achromatic telescope, in conjunction with his other pursuits. We are
informed by G. Dollond, Esq., that his grandfather, at the latter end of
his life, was engaged in calculating almanacs for various parts of the
world; one of which, for the meridian of Barbadoes, and the year 1761,
is now in his possession.

Mr. Dollond was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1761. In the
same year, November 30, he was struck with apoplexy, while attentively
engaged in reading Clairaut’s Theory of the Moon, which had then just
appeared. He died in a few hours afterwards, in the fifty-sixth year of
his age. His son Peter Dollond, already mentioned, continued the
business in partnership with a younger brother; and it is now most ably
carried on by his daughter’s son, who has, by permission, assumed the
name of Dollond.

The following extract is from the memoir written by Dr. Kelly, in which
we find nothing to regret, except that so few traits of character are
related in it. Those who write memoirs of remarkable men from personal
knowledge, should remember that details of their habits and conversation
will be much more valuable to posterity, than disquisitions upon their
scientific labours and discussions, which, coming from the pens of
friends or relations, will always be looked upon as _ex parte_
statements. Had the learned author borne this in mind, we should have
been able to give a better personal account of Dollond than the
following; which is absolutely the only information relative to his
private character which we can now obtain. “He was not content with
private devotion, as he was always an advocate for social worship; and
with his family regularly attended the public service of the French
Protestant church, and occasionally heard Benson and Lardner, whom he
respected as men, and admired as preachers. In his appearance he was
grave, and the strong lines of his face were marked with deep thought
and reflection; but in his intercourse with his family and friends he
was cheerful and affectionate; and his language and sentiments are
distinctly recollected as always making a strong impression on the minds
of those with whom he conversed. His memory was extraordinarily
retentive, and amidst the variety of his reading he could recollect and
quote the most important passages of every book which he had at any time
perused.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by W. Holl._

  JOHN HUNTER..

  _From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds
  in the Royal College of Surgeons, London._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]




[Illustration]

                              JOHN HUNTER.


A life and character like that of John Hunter has many claims upon the
honourable remembrance of society; the more, because, for meritorious
members of his profession, there is no other public reward than the
general approbation of good men. We look upon him with that interest
which genius successfully directed to good ends invariably excites; as
one whose active labours in the service of mankind have been attended
with useful consequences of great extent; and whose character it is
important to describe correctly, as a valuable example to his
profession.

John Hunter was the son of a small proprietor in the parish of Kilbride
in Lanarkshire, and was born February 13, 1728. His father died while he
was a child; his brothers were absent from home; and, being left to the
care of his mother and aunt, he was spoiled by indulgence, and remained
uneducated, until his natural good sense urged him to redeem himself in
some degree from this reproach. When a boy he continued to cry like a
child for whatever he wanted. There is a letter extant from an old
friend of the family, which has this curious postscript, “Is Johnny aye
greeting yet?” presenting an unexpected picture to those who are
familiar only with the manly sense, and somewhat caustic manners, of the
great physiological and surgical authority. But the influence of
feelings and opinions, proceeding from respected persons, and
accompanied by offices of affection, is powerful upon the young mind;
and the circumstances of Mr. Hunter’s family were calculated to give
such feelings their full power over such a character as his. They lived
retired, in that state of independence which a small landed property
confers on the elder members, while the young men are compelled to seek
their fortunes at a distance from home. John Hunter neglected books, but
he was not insensible to the pride and gratification expressed by every
member of the family on hearing of his elder brother William’s success,
and the pleasure which that brother’s letters gave to all around him.
These feelings made him ashamed of his idleness, and inclined him to go
to London, and become an assistant to Dr. William Hunter in his
anatomical inquiries. William consented to this arrangement; and the
subject of our memoir quitted his paternal home in 1748; certainly
without that preparation of mind which should lead us to expect a very
quick proficiency in medical pursuits. At an earlier age he had
displayed a turn for mechanics, and a manual dexterity, which led to his
being placed with a cabinet-maker in Glasgow to learn the profession:
but the failure of his master had obliged him to return home.

Dr. William Hunter had at this time obtained celebrity as a teacher of
anatomy. He won his way by very intelligible modes. His upright conduct
and high mental cultivation gained him friends; and his professional
merits were established by his lectures, which in extent and depth, as
well as eloquence, surpassed any that had yet been delivered. There was
a peculiar ingenuity in his demonstrations, and he had a happy manner
exactly suited to his subject. The vulgar portion of the public saw no
marks of genius in the successful exertions of Dr. Hunter; his eminence
was easily accounted for, and excited no wonder. They saw John Hunter’s
success, without fully comprehending the cause; and it fell in with
their notions of great genius that he was somewhat abrupt and uncourtly.

Dr. Hunter immediately set his brother to work upon the dissection of
the arm. The young man succeeded in producing an admirable preparation,
in which the mechanism of the limb was finely displayed. This at once
showed his capacity, and settled the relation between the two brothers.
John Hunter became the best practical anatomist of the age, and proved
of the greatest use in forming Dr. Hunter’s splendid museum, bequeathed
by the owner to the University of Glasgow. He continued to attend his
brother’s lectures; was a pupil both at St. Bartholomew’s, and St.
George’s Hospitals; and had the farther advantage of attending the
celebrated Cheselden, then retired to Chelsea Hospital. And here we must
point out the advantage which John Hunter possessed in the situation and
character of his elder brother, lest his success should encourage a
laxity in the studies of those who think they are following his
footsteps. It would indeed have been surprising that his efforts for the
advancement of physiology commenced at the precise point where Haller’s
stopped, if he had really been ignorant of the state of science at home
and abroad. But he could not have been so, unless he had shut his eyes
and stopped his ears. In addition to his anatomical collection Dr.
Hunter had formed an extensive library, and possessed the finest cabinet
of coins in Europe. Students crowded around him from all countries, and
every one distinguished in science desired his acquaintance. John Hunter
lived in this society, and at the same time had the advantage of being
familiar with the complete and systematic course of lectures delivered
by his brother. He was thus furnished with full information as to the
actual state of physiology and pathology, and knew in what directions to
push inquiry, whilst the natural capacity of his fine mind was
untrammelled.

In 1755 John Hunter assisted his brother in delivering a course of
lectures; but through life the task of public instruction was a painful
one to him, and he never attained to fluency and clearness of
expression. In 1760 his health seems to have been impaired by his
exertions: and in the recollection that one brother had already died
under similar circumstances, his friends procured him a situation in the
army, as being less intensely laborious than his mode of life. He served
as a staff surgeon in Portugal and at the siege of Bellisle. On
returning to London he recommenced the teaching of practical anatomy.

In 1767 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, having already
gained the good opinion of its members by several papers on most
interesting subjects. There is this great advantage in the pursuit of
science in London, that a man remarkable for success in any branch can
usually select associates the best able to assist him by their
experience and advice. It was through John Hunter’s influence that a
select club was formed out of the fellows of the Royal Society. They met
in retirement and read and criticised each others papers before
submitting them to the general body. This club originally consisted of
Mr. Hunter, Dr. Fordyce, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, Dr. Maskelyne,
Sir George Shuckburgh, Sir Henry Englefield, Sir Charles Blagden, Mr.
Ramsden, and Mr. Watt. To be the associate of such men could not but
have a good effect on a mind like Hunter’s, active and vigorous, but
deficient in general acquirement, and concentrated upon one pursuit.

At this time, and for many years afterwards, he was employed in the most
curious physiological inquiries; and at the same time forming that
museum, which remains the most surprising proof both of his genius and
perseverance. It is strange that Sir Everard Home should have considered
this collection as a proof of the patronage Hunter received. He had many
admirers, and many persons were grateful for his professional
assistance; but he had no patrons. The extent of his museum is to be
attributed solely to his perseverance; a quality which is generally the
companion of genius, and which he displayed in every condition of life.
Whether under the tuition of his brother, or struggling for independence
by privately teaching anatomy, or amidst the enticements to idleness in
a mess-room, or as an army surgeon in active service, he never seems to
have forgotten that science which was the chief end of his life. Hence
the amazing collection which he formed of anatomical preparations; hence
too the no less extraordinary accumulation of important pathological
facts, on which his principles were raised.

It was only towards the close of life that Hunter’s character was duly
appreciated. His professional emoluments were small, until a very few
years before his death, when they amounted to £6000 a year. When this
neglect is the portion of a man of distinguished merit, it has sometimes
an unhappy influence on his profession. Men look for prosperity and
splendour as the accompaniments of such merit; and missing it, they turn
aside from the worthiest models, to follow those who are gaining riches
in the common routine of practice. Dr. Darwin said, that he rejoiced in
Hunter’s late success as the concluding act of a life well spent: as
poetical justice. But throughout life he spent all his gains in the
pursuit of science, and died poor.

His museum was purchased by government for £15,000. It was offered to
the keeping of the College of Physicians, which declined the trust. It
is now, committed to the College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields;
where it is open to the inspection of the public during the afternoons
of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The corporation has enlarged the
museum, instituted professorships for the illustration of it, and is now
forming a library. The most valuable part of the collection is that in
the area of the great room, consisting of upwards of 2000 preparations,
which were the results of Mr. Hunter’s experiments on the inferior
animals, and of his researches in morbid human anatomy. All these were
originally arranged as illustrative of his lectures. The first division
alone, in support of his theory of inflammation, contains 602
preparations. Those illustrative of specific diseases amount to 1084.
There are besides 652 dried specimens, consisting of diseased bones,
joints, and arteries. On the floor there is a very fine collection of
the skeletons of man and other animals; and if the Council of the
College continue to augment this collection with the same liberal spirit
which they have hitherto shown, it will be creditable to the nation. The
osteological specimens amount to 1936. But the most interesting portion,
we might say one of the most interesting exhibitions in Europe to a
philosophical and inquiring mind, is that which extends along the whole
gallery. Mr. Hunter found it impossible to explain the functions of life
by the investigation of human anatomy, unaided by comparison with the
simpler organization of brutes; and therefore he undertook the amazing
labour of examining and preparing the simplest animals, gradually
advancing from the lower to the higher, until, by this process of
synthesis, the structure of the human body was demonstrated and
explained. Let us take one small compartment in order to understand the
effect of this method. Suppose it is wished to learn the importance of
the stomach in the animal economy. The first object presented to us is a
hydatid, an animal, as it were, all stomach; being a simple sac with an
exterior absorbing surface. Then we have the polypus, with a stomach
opening by one orifice, and with no superadded organ. Next in order is
the leech, in which we see the beginning of a complexity of structure.
It possesses the power of locomotion, and has brain, and nerves, and
muscles, but as yet the stomach is simple. Then we advance to creatures
in which the stomach is complex: we find the simple membraneous
digesting stomach; then the stomach with a crop attached to macerate and
prepare the food for digestion; then a ruminating stomach with a
succession of cavities, and with the gizzard in some animals for
grinding the food, and performing the office of teeth; and finally, all
the appended organs necessary in the various classes of animals; until
we find that all the chylopoietic viscera group round this, as
performing the primary and essential office of assimilating new matter
to the animal body.

Mr. Hunter’s papers and greater works exhibit an extraordinary mind: he
startles the reader by conclusions, the process by which they were
reached being scarcely discernible. We attribute this in part to that
defective education, which made him fail in explaining his own thoughts,
and the course of reasoning by which he had arrived at his conclusions.
The depth of his reflective powers may be estimated by the perusal of
his papers on the apparently drowned, and on the stomach digested after
death by its own fluids. The importance of discovering the possibility
of such an occurrence as the last is manifest, when we consider its
connexion with medical jurisprudence, and the probability of its giving
rise to unfounded suspicions of poisoning. His most important papers
were those on the muscularity of arteries; a fine piece of experimental
reasoning, the neglect of which by our continental neighbours threw them
back an age in the treatment of wounded arteries and aneurisms. But the
grand discovery of Mr. Hunter was that of the life of the blood. If this
idea surprise our readers, it did no less surprise the whole of the
medical profession when it was first promulgated. Yet there is no doubt
of the fact. It was demonstrated by the closest inspection of natural
phenomena, and a happy suite of experiments, that the coagulation of the
blood is an act of life. From this one fact, the pathologist was enabled
to comprehend a great variety of phenomena, which, without it, must ever
have remained obscure.

Mr. Hunter died of that alarming disease, _angina pectoris_: alarming,
because it comes in paroxysms, accompanied with all the feelings of
approaching death. These sensations are brought on by exertion or
excitement. In St. George’s Hospital, the conduct of his colleagues had
provoked him; he made no observations, but retiring into another room,
suddenly expired, October 16, 1793.

After these details no man will deny that John Hunter possessed high
genius, and that he employed his talents nobly. He was indeed of a
family of genius: his younger brother was cut off early, but not until
he had given promise of eminence. Dr. Hunter was, in our opinion, equal
in talents to John, the subject of this memoir, though his mind received
early a different bias. And in the next generation the celebrated Dr.
Baillie, nephew to these brothers, contributed largely to the
improvement of pathology, and afforded an instance of the most active
benevolence joined to a plainness of manner most becoming in a
physician. Joanna Baillie, his sister, still lives, honoured and
esteemed, and will survive in her works as one of our most remarkable
female writers.

The portrait from which the annexed engraving is made was painted at the
suggestion of the celebrated engraver Sharpe, by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and was among his last works. There could not indeed be a more
picturesque head, nor one better suited to the burin. The original
picture is in the College of Surgeons. It exhibits more mildness than we
see in the engraving of Sharpe.

[Illustration: Surgeons’ Hall in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._

  PETRARCH.

  _From a Print by Raffaelle Morghen,
  after a Picture by Tofanelli._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                               PETRARCH.


Francesco Petrarca, whose real name is said to have been Petracco, was
born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, July 20, 1304. His father was a notary at
Florence, who had been employed in the service of the state; but in the
civil strife excited by Corso Donati, chief of the faction of the Neri,
he, with the rest of the Bianchi, including Dante, whose friend he is
recorded to have been, was banished from the Republic in 1302. When the
death of the Emperor Henry VII. deprived the exiles of all hope of
return, Petracco took his family to Avignon, at that period the seat of
the Pontifical Court. The boy Francesco then saw for the first time
scenes and objects, with which his destiny was irrevocably connected;
and he has left on record the impression which at ten years of age the
fountain and wild solitude of Vaucluse had made upon his imagination. He
was sent to study the canon law at the University of Montpellier, where
he remained four years, devoting his time to Cicero, Virgil, and the
Provençal writers, much more than to the doctors of jurisprudence. From
Montpellier he went to Bologna; and formed an acquaintance with the
celebrated Cino da Pistoia, from whom, although distinguished no less as
a jurist than as a poet, Petrarch learned more poetry than law. On his
father’s death, which occurred when he was about twenty years old, he
returned to Avignon. His mother died soon after; and the moderate
patrimony which he inherited was so much diminished by the dishonesty of
his guardians, that at the age of twenty-two, he found himself without
fortune or profession, and with no resource, but that of entering the
church.

Avignon was then the chosen abode of fashion, luxury, and vice. Petrarch
mingled in its gay society, without yielding to its corruptions, or
withdrawing himself from the philosophical studies which interested him
above all other pursuits. A great conformity of tastes, and a common
superiority to the low objects of ambition with which they were
surrounded, made him the friend of Jacopo Colonna, afterwards Bishop of
Lombez. This prelate introduced Petrarch to his brother, the Cardinal
Colonna, who resided at Avignon; and in whose palace, in 1331, the poet
acquired the friendship of old Stefano Colonna, the illustrious head of
that family, and drew from his discourse a stronger love of Italy, of
freedom, and of glory. But his affectionate, enthusiastic temper was not
to be exhausted even by these objects: soon, without ever being entirely
diverted from the interest of friendship or patriotism, he became the
vassal of that long and illustrious passion to which he owes the
immortality of his name. April 6, 1327, on Easter Monday, in the church
of the Nuns of Santa Clara, Petrarch, being then twenty-three years of
age, saw for the first time, and loved at sight, Laura de Noves, the
bride of Hugo de Sade, a young patrician of Avignon. From this time his
life was passed in wandering from place to place, sometimes at the
several courts of Italian princes; sometimes in solitary seclusion at
Vaucluse; often at Avignon itself, where from the lofty rock on which
stands the old Pontifical Palace, he could see Laura walking in the
gardens below, which with all the adjacent part of the town belonged to
the family of de Sade.

Few subjects have been discussed more largely, with greater minuteness
of examination, or with greater licence of conjecture, than the history
of the love of Petrarch. Some have chosen to treat with ridicule the
idea of a passion, subsisting through a long and eventful life, without
gratification, and nearly without hope; others have thought the
difficulty obviated by supposing, in defiance of all apparent evidence,
that Laura was not so insensible as the laws of morality required. A few
have wished to rescue the character of the poet from the imputation of
having loved a married woman, and have dragged certain obscure spinsters
out of doubtful epitaphs and registers, to dispute the claim of Laura de
Sade. A few more, and but a few, although the race is not extinct, have
denied the existence of Laura altogether; either considering her as a
mere poetical fancy, or still more boldly resolving her into some
allegory, political or religious. But none of these theories, maintained
at various times, and with various degrees of ingenuity, almost from the
age of Petrarch until the present day, have shaken the received opinion
on the four main points of the question; namely, that Laura was no
creation of the poet’s brain, but a woman; that she was married; that
Hugo de Sade was her husband; and that her virtue was proof against the
passion of Petrarch. When all the circumstances of the case, including
the peculiarities of sentiment which characterize the time, are fairly
taken into consideration, there will appear no such miraculous
improbability as has been presumed in the duration of Petrarch’s
attachment. That it partook of the vehement character of true passion,
is evident from many passages in his epistles and philosophical works,
where he may be supposed to speak with less disguise than in his
Canzoniere; but a natural vanity, the habit of refining his feelings
into intellectual notions, and the then prevalent fashion of poetical
constancy to a real object, may have contributed more than he could
himself be aware to the durability of the sentiment. It is not to be
forgotten, however, that at different periods of his life he had two
natural children, a son and a daughter: still he maintained that
notwithstanding these irregularities, he never loved any one but Laura.
The Sonnets and Canzones, which, separately published, now together form
the Canzoniere, soon elevated their author to the highest rank among
living poets, and gave him in the eyes of his admirers a place beside
the “creator della lingua,” the author of the Divina Commedia. Petrarch,
however, whose mind was full of veneration for antiquity, and who was
ardently desirous to recover all the monuments of classic literature
that still preserved a hazardous existence in convents and other
receptacles of the little learning of an ignorant age, for a long time,
if not to the end of life, prided himself more on his Latin
compositions, than on being the founder of a school of poetry in his
native language. At one time he had commenced a Latin history of Rome,
from the foundation of the city to the reign of Titus. But he was
diverted from this work, by conceiving the idea of an epic poem,
entitled ‘Africa,’ founded on the events which marked the close of the
second Punic war, of which Scipio was the hero. For a year he laboured
on it with enthusiasm; and it was received with admiration: but like
most works of imagination composed in languages not rendered familiar to
the writer in all their delicacy by vernacular and hourly use, and on
subjects not consecrated by any feelings of national and domestic
interest, they have long since been forgotten by all but the learned.

On one and the same day, August 23, 1340, he received at Vaucluse a
letter from the Roman Senate, inviting him to accept the honour of a
public coronation in the Capitol, and one from the Chancellor of the
University of Paris, offering the same distinction. It has been said,
and there is at least negative evidence in favour of the assertion, that
this last invitation was unauthorized by any corporate decision of the
university: if so, it probably resulted from the personal enthusiasm of
the chancellor, Roberto Bardi, who was a Florentine, and a private
friend of the poet. Either from a knowledge of this, or from a natural
preference of the Imperial City, Petrarch decided at once in favour of
Rome; and embarked for Naples, to demand a preliminary examination from
Robert of Anjou, the reigning prince, himself devotedly attached to
literature. The King and the Poet conferred on poetical and historical
subjects: during three days questions were formally proposed, and
triumphantly answered; after which Robert pronounced solemnly that
Petrarch was worthy of the honour offered to him, and taking off his own
royal robe, entreated the poet to wear it at the ceremony of his
coronation. On Easter-day, April 8, 1341, Petrarch ascended the stairs
of the Capitol, surrounded by the most illustrious citizens of Rome, and
preceded by twelve young men chosen from the highest families, who
repeated at intervals various passages of his poetry. After a short
oration, he received the crown from the hands of the senator, Orso,
Count of Anguillara, and recited a sonnet on those heroes of the ancient
city, whose triumphal honours, after a cessation of centuries, he first
was come to share, and to renew. Then, amidst the acclamations of the
multitude, he was conducted to the church of St. Peter’s, where, taking
from his head the laurel, he deposited it with religious care on the
altar. After this ceremony he returned by land to Avignon, carrying with
him letters patent of the King of Naples and of the senate and people of
Rome, conferring on him by their joint authorities the full and free
power of reading, discussing, and explaining all ancient books,
composing new works (especially poems), and wearing on all occasions, as
he might prefer, a crown of laurel, of ivy, or of myrtle. Shortly
afterwards he was again at Naples, under very different circumstances.
Appointed by Clement VI. to urge the claims of the Holy See to the
Regency of that state, during the minority of Joanna, the grand-daughter
of Robert of Anjou, he was treated with no less distinction and kindness
than on the former visit; but, unsuccessful in his mission, and
scandalized by the debauchery and cruelty which prevailed in the
dissolute court, he soon quitted Naples and Italy for his beloved
Vaucluse. There, however, at no great distance of time, a new excitement
awaited him. In 1347, Rienzi, the famous demagogue, who began his career
so nobly, and closed it with such circumstances of disgrace, obtained
his brief and singular dominion. All the hopes of Italian independence,
all the reverence for antiquity which had ever animated the spirit of
Petrarch, now strongly impelled him to admire the restorer of those
ancient names, which he trusted would realize his visions of ancient
freedom and majesty. Even the massacre of the Colonna family, which
Petrarch heard at Genoa as he was hastening to join the tribune at Rome,
did not destroy these feelings, although it materially weakened them.
But the fabric of Rienzi’s power was sapped by his own extravagances in
less than a year; and nearly at the same time a more severe affliction
fell upon Petrarch even than the disappointment of his hopes for the
restoration of Italian liberty.

In April, 1348, Laura expired of the dreadful malady which then ravaged
Europe, and which is described by Boccaccio in the introduction to the
Decameron. The second half of the Canzoniere is the monument of his
glorious sorrow; which is however more calmly, and, to the apprehensions
of many, more convincingly expressed, in the pathetic note to his own
MS. of Virgil, now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It would be unjust
to him not to relate this event in his own words. “Laura, illustrious
for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, was seen by me
for the first time in my early manhood, in the year 1327, April 6, at
six in the morning, in the church of S. Clara, at Avignon. In the same
city, in the same month of April, on the same sixth day, and at the same
hour, in 1348, this light was taken from the world, while I was at
Verona, alas! ignorant of my unhappy lot. The melancholy news reached me
in a letter from my friend Louis: it found me at Parma the same year,
May 19, in the morning. That body, so chaste, so fair, was laid in the
church of the Minor Friars on the evening of the day of her death. Her
soul, I doubt not, is returned, as Seneca says of Scipio Africanus, to
heaven, whence it came. To preserve the grievous memory of this loss, I
write this with a sort of pleasure mixed with bitterness; and I write by
choice upon this book, which often comes before my eyes, that hereafter
there may be nothing for me to delight in in this life, and that, my
strongest chain being broken, I may be reminded by the frequent sight of
these words, and by the just appreciation of a fugitive life, that it is
time to go forth from Babylon; which, by the help of God’s grace, will
become easy to me by vigorous and bold contemplation of the needless
cares, the vain hopes, the unexpected events which have agitated me
during the time I have spent on earth.” The authenticity of this note
has been contested: to us it bears internal evidence of being genuine,
not merely in the unpretending pathos of the conclusion, but in the
minuteness of the earlier details. It is the luxury of grief to connect
the memory of the dead with our thoughts, and employments, and even
abodes at the moment of their death; and the pen of the literary forger
is not likely to trace so simple and unpretending a statement.

The jubilee of 1350 led Petrarch again to Rome. When he passed through
Arezzo, the principal citizens of the town led him with pride to the
house in which he was born; declaring that nothing had been changed
there, and that the municipal authorities had enforced this scrupulous
respect for the great poet’s birth-place by injunctions to the
successive proprietors of the mansion. Not long afterwards, Boccaccio,
his friend and his compeer in the great literary triumvirate of Italy,
came to him at Padua, to announce in the name of the senate at Florence
that he was restored to his rights of citizenship, and to offer him the
superintendence of the recently established university. Petrarch did not
accept the proposal. Twice in the course of his remaining life his name
is found connected with great events. Admitted to the counsels of Gian
Visconti, he accepted the mission of reconciling the republic of Genoa,
which had yielded to that prince, with the state of Venice, elated by
recent victories. But Petrarch was destined to be unsuccessful as a
statesman. This embassy had no effect; nor were his subsequent efforts
to infuse into the mind of Charles IV. the lessons of magnanimity, when
that weak and avaricious emperor entered Italy, more beneficial either
to Charles or to his country. Once, however, when employed by Galeazzo
Visconti in a subsequent mission to the same prince, he was able to
dissuade him from recrossing the Alps: unless we suppose that the
distracted state of Germany had more to do with keeping the emperor at
home, than the eloquence of the poet, or the skill of the politician.
The second plague in 1362 deprived the now aged poet of the few early
friends who remained to him, Azo of Correggio, and the two who in his
letters are usually denominated Lælius and Socrates, and had, like
himself, been intimate with Jacopo Colonna. He was then resident in
Venice; where, in 1363, Boccaccio came to visit him in company with
Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, who had instructed the Florentine
novelist in Greek. At a former period Petrarch had commenced the study
of that language under a Grecian monk named Barlaam; and though now
sixty years of age, he returned to the task with enthusiasm and with
perseverance. He was hospitably and honourably received by the republic,
to which he presented his valuable collection of manuscripts.

After some more adventures and wanderings the old man fixed his
residence at Arquà, a village situated on the Euganean hills, at four
leagues distance from Padua. Here he led a life of abstinence and study,
reposing from the toilsome vicissitudes to which he had been subjected,
but not from his thirst for knowledge and desire of glory. His last
years were solaced by his intimacy with Boccaccio, who seemed to supply
the place of those numerous and valued early friends whom he had
survived, and by the filial attentions of his daughter Francesca. The
last important act of his life was his appearance before the Senate of
Venice, in behalf of Francesco of Carrara, who had been forced to
conclude a humiliating peace with the republic in 1373. It is said that
he was so much awed by the majesty of the assembly, that on the first
day on which he appeared before it, he was unable to deliver his
address. The next day he recovered his spirits, or more probably his
strength, and his speech in behalf of Carrara was loudly applauded. He
returned to his retirement in a failing state of health, and his
complaints were aggravated by imprudence, and disregard of medical
advice. July 18, 1374, he was found dead in his library, his head
resting on an open book. A stroke of apoplexy had thus suddenly
terminated his life. All Padua assisted at his obsequies, and Francesco
of Carrara led the funeral pomp. A marble tomb, which still exists, was
raised to him before the door of the church of Arquà.

Such was the death and such the life of Francesco Petrarca, than whom
few men have exerted more influence over their own times; have
contributed more to form and polish the language of their native land;
or have given a more decided tone to the literature of succeeding
generations. This is not the place to enter into a minute analysis of
his merits as a poet. If he did not create the kind of poetry in which
he excelled, at least he carried it to perfection: if he could not save
his style from being disfigured by feeble imitators, at least he left it
in itself a noble work: if he did not avoid the false conceits and
strained illustrations, which at the rise of a new literature are almost
always found to possess irresistible attractions, he redeemed and even
ennobled them by strains of simple passion, imagination, and melody,
which will live as long as the language in which they are composed. His
Latin writings, on which he wished his reputation to rest, are now much
neglected. They are not indeed calculated for general reading; but they
are highly valuable as records of the time and of the man. His letters
form the most interesting, because the most personal, portion of them.
Few men have laid bare their hearts so completely as Petrarch. His
vanity, his dependence on the sympathy of others, led him to commit to
writing every incident of his life, every turn in the troubled course of
his feelings. But he gains rather than loses by this voluntary exposure.
His Christian faith and Christian principles of philosophy, however
swayed by occasional currents of passion, stand out beautifully amidst
the corruptions of that age. It is as impossible to rise from a perusal
of Petrarch’s poetry, and even more perhaps of his prose, without a
feeling of love for the man, as of admiration for the author.

In early life he was distinguished for beauty, of which he was himself
not insensible; for he left, in his ‘Letter to Posterity,’ a description
of his own person, which we quote from Ugo Foscolo’s translation.
“Without being uncommonly handsome, my person had something agreeable in
it in my youth. My complexion was a clear and lively brown; my eyes were
animated; my hair had grown grey before twenty-five, and I consoled
myself for a defect which I shared in common with many of the great men
of antiquity (for Cæsar and Virgil were grey-headed in youth), and I had
a venerable air, which I was by no means very proud of.” He was then
miserable, Foscolo continues, if a lock of his hair was out of order; he
was studious of ornamenting his person with the nicest clothes; and to
give a graceful form to his feet, he pinched them in shoes that put his
nerves and sinews to the rack. These traits are taken from his own
familiar letters.

The life and writings of Petrarch have been repeatedly illustrated at
great length. The ‘Petrarcha Redivivus’ of Tomasini; the voluminous
‘Mémoires sur Petrarque’ of the Abbé de Sade, who has taken up the
subject as a matter of family history; and the works of Tiraboschi and
Baldelli, are among the best authorities for our author’s history. To
the English, and indeed to every reader, we must recommend the ‘Essays
on Petrarch,’ by Ugo Foscolo; at the end of which there are some
exquisite translations by Lady Dacre. The most complete edition of
Petrarch’s works is the folio published at Bâsle in 1581. Among the
numerous editions of his Italian poems, we may particularize that of
Biagioli, 1822, as containing the notes of Alfieri; and that of Marsard,
printed at Padua, as distinguished alike for its correctness and beauty
of execution.

[Illustration: Tomb of Petrarch at Arquà.]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

  BURKE.

  _From a Picture after Sir Joshua Reynolds
  in the possession of T. H. Burke Esq^r._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                 BURKE.


The six and thirty years which have elapsed since the death of Edmund
Burke are not sufficient to secure a right and impartial sentence on his
character. We are still within the heated temperature of the same
political agitations in which he lived and struggled. We are not,
perhaps our children will not be, qualified to judge him and his
contemporaries, with that calmness with which men weigh the merits of
things and persons who have exerted no perceptible influence over their
own times. It is fortunate, therefore, that the limits of this brief
memoir prescribe rather a succinct statement of unquestioned facts, than
a disputable adjudication between opposite opinions.

Edmund Burke, son of Richard Burke, an attorney in extensive practice in
Dublin, was born in that city, January 1, 1730. Of his early life little
is known with certainty. He appears to have distinguished himself at
Trinity College, Dublin, by his acquirements and talents, especially by
a decided taste and ability for the discussion of subjects relating to
English history and politics. His first literary effort of any
importance was made before he quitted that university, in some letters
directed against a factious writer called Lucas, at that time the
popular idol. These are not preserved. In 1750 he came to London, and
was entered a student of the Middle Temple. It is singular that the idle
rumour, expressly contradicted by himself, of his having completed his
education at St. Omer’s, should be still in some degree accredited by
the author of the article ‘Burke,’ in the Biographie Universelle.
Whether, in 1752 or 1753, he became a candidate for the chair of Logic
at Glasgow, is a more doubtful question: the opinions of Dugald Stewart
and Adam Smith, who took some pains to ascertain the truth, were in the
negative. It is certain, however, that the extraordinary talents of
Burke soon began to attract attention: he wrote in many political and
literary miscellanies, and formed an acquaintance with some
distinguished characters of the time. Among these should be mentioned
Lord Charlemont, Gerard Hamilton, Soame Jenyns, and somewhat later,
Goldsmith, Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Hume. His first avowed work, the
‘Vindication of Natural Society,’ was published in 1756, and excited
very general admiration. The imitation of Bolingbroke’s style in this
essay was so perfect, that some admirers of the deceased philosopher are
said to have overlooked the evident signs of irony, and to have believed
it to be a genuine posthumous work. This may appear strange; but it is
surely more strange, that forty years afterwards this ‘Vindication’
should have been republished by the French party, with a view of serving
democratic interests. Before the close of 1756, appeared the
‘Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful,’ which added largely to Burke’s reputation, and procured him
the valuable friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Shortly afterwards, the
public attention being at that time much directed to the American
colonies, was published ‘An Account of the European Settlements in
America,’ of which Burke was probably not the sole, but the principal
author. It was much read, as well on the Continent as in England; and
indeed no inconsiderable portion of it has been incorporated into the
celebrated work of the Abbé Raynal. About this time Burke married the
daughter of Dr. Nugent, an intelligent physician, who had invited him to
his house while suffering under an illness, the result of laborious
application. This union was a source of uninterrupted comfort to him
through life. “Every care vanishes,” he was in the habit of saying,
“when I enter my own home.” A confined income, however, rendered
literary exertion still more indispensable to him than before: and in
1759 ‘The Annual Register,’ that most useful work, for many years
entirely composed by Burke, or under his immediate superintendence, was
undertaken by him in conjunction with Dodsley. At length, in 1765, with
the first Rockingham administration, he entered on a more extensive
sphere of action: being appointed private secretary to the Marquis of
Rockingham, through the recommendation of his friend Mr. Fitzherbert.

Coming now into Parliament as member for Wendover in Buckinghamshire,
Burke became an eminent supporter of the Whig party. The situation of
affairs was critical. Mr. Grenville’s stamp act, a fatal departure from
the policy on which the colonies had been previously governed, had
excited much discontent in America. A strong party, supported by the
evident favour of the court and the general feeling of the country,
urged the necessity of perseverance in this coercive policy. Lord
Chatham and his adherents no less strenuously denied the right of the
Imperial Legislature to impose taxes on America without her own consent.
The Rockingham Whigs adopted a middle course between these extremes.
They repealed the stamp act, declaring at the same time that the right
of taxation resided inalienably in Parliament. Their administration was
short-lived. Lord Chatham succeeded them in power, at the head of that
“dovetailed” cabinet which Burke has so admirably satirised in his
‘Speech on American Taxation.’ His influence was little more than
nominal, and in spite of it, schemes for raising a revenue in America
were soon revived. From these measures, the public attention was for a
short time diverted by the domestic agitation caused by the proceedings
against Wilkes, the disputed election in Middlesex, and the mysterious
letters of Junius. The shadow of that name was at the time believed by
many to rest on Burke: a supposition long since rejected, and supported
by scarce any evidence; though his power as a writer, and his known
facility in disguising his style, gave some degree of plausibility to
the supposition. In his own name, and without any disguise, he came
forward to attack the ministry of the Duke of Grafton, in a political
treatise, entitled, ‘Thoughts on the Present Discontents.’ This has been
termed the Whig Manual, and certainly contains the ablest exposition
ever given of the principles held by that party for a long series of
years. Shaken by this and other attacks, the Duke retired, and left the
state under the guidance of a minister, whose merits have been
overshadowed by the disastrous circumstances in which he was involved.
From this time commenced that long and brilliant opposition, which, from
a very low condition of numbers and influence, gradually worked its way
through the most momentous parliamentary struggles; and by a continued
display of powers the most accomplished, and union the most effective,
gained an ultimate victory, first over popular prepossessions, and then
over royal obstinacy. The court party were so inferior in eloquence and
genius, that their arguments are little remembered, while the speeches
of the Whigs are in every body’s hands. They felt the importance of the
contest deeply, or they would not have been animated to their
extraordinary exertions. But the wisest of them could not foresee the
prodigious extent of those consequences, which, within the duration of
their own lives, resulted from their endeavours. It was much for them to
look forward to the independence of America. What would it have been to
contemplate the spread of popular principles in Europe, and that mighty
revolution which has changed the balance of society? No member of the
opposition contributed so largely as Burke to their final triumph.
During the latter years of the war, indeed, his fame as a debater was
eclipsed by the rising genius of Charles Fox, to whom he willingly
yielded the office of leader of the Whig party. But the talents of Fox
had been trained and nourished by the wisdom of Burke; and in the
speeches published at different periods by the latter, on American
taxation [1774], and on conciliation with America [1775], and his Letter
to the Sheriffs of Bristol [1777], (written on the occasion of a
temporary secession of the Rockingham party from Parliament,) the
friends of freedom found a magazine of invaluable weapons. In 1774 Burke
was elected member of Parliament for Bristol; but six years afterwards
he was unable to procure his reelection for that borough, the people
being displeased with his recent votes in favour of Irish trade and of
the Roman Catholics. His popularity was in a great measure restored by
the famous Bill of Economical Reform, brought forward by him in 1782,
when paymaster of the forces under the second Rockingham ministry, after
the overthrow of Lord North. The death of the Marquis of Rockingham
produced a schism among the Whigs; Lord Shelburne was appointed his
successor, and the Rockingham division resigned their places. They soon
returned to them, by means of that strange junction of force with Lord
North, emphatically termed _The Coalition_, which raised a general cry
of indignation throughout the country. Burke always vindicated this
step, both at the time, and when the state of things which led to it had
long passed away; but it is generally supposed that he did not counsel
it, and was only induced to give in his adhesion by the urgent
entreaties of his political friends.

The celebrated East-India Bill, of which Burke is said to have been
partly the author, and upon which he pronounced one of his most
magnificent orations, was fatal to the coalition. William Pitt, called
at the age of twenty-four to occupy the first place in the counsels of
his sovereign, fought an arduous but finally victorious fight against
the Whig majority in the Commons. A dissolution followed; the new House
supported the new Ministers; and a second long period of Whig opposition
began, during which Fox was the acknowledged leader of the party, and
was warmly supported in that capacity by Burke. The most important event
of this second great division of Burke’s parliamentary life is
undoubtedly the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Throughout the long
debates on the accusations brought against the Governor of India, and
afterwards throughout the trial itself, which began in 1788 and was not
concluded until 1795, Burke was indefatigable. Never, perhaps, has
greater oratorical genius been displayed than by that combination of
great men who were appointed managers of the impeachment. Yet all their
efforts failed to establish their case on a secure foundation. History
still hesitates to decide with confidence on the guilt or innocence of
Hastings. It is agreed, however, that the violence of Burke’s
proceedings on this trial was often unworthy of the situation he held
and the cause he advocated. When with harsh tones and a look more
expressive of personal than political hatred he bade Mr. Hastings kneel
before the court, it is said that Fox whispered to his friends, “In that
moment I would rather have been Hastings than Burke.”

At the latter end of 1788 arose the regency question, on which Burke,
with all his party, maintained the opinion that any apparently
irreparable incapacity in the sovereign caused a demise of the crown,
because, the prerogatives of royalty being given for public benefit, it
would be highly dangerous to suspend them for an indefinite period.
Burke, however, did some injury to his party by the intemperate and
imprudent language he adopted on this occasion, speaking of the King’s
situation in the tone of triumph rather than pity, and even using the
expression “God has hurled him from his throne.” These constitutional
questions, however important, were soon forgotten in a new absorbing
interest, which began to occupy the minds of all men. The French
Revolution had taken place. That astonishing event was at first hailed
with general sympathy and admiration in this country. The supporters of
Pitt either joined in the vehement delight of the Fox party, or took no
pains to restrain it. Here and there some may have murmured dislike: but
in general it was thought unworthy of Englishmen not to rejoice in the
acquisition of liberty by a neighbouring people; and not a few looked to
this great change as the harbinger of political regeneration to Europe
and the world. In this general acclamation one voice was wanting. Burke,
from the very first meeting of the States General, did not conceal his
aversion to their proceedings and his apprehension of the results.
Gradually, as the excesses of popular violence in Paris became more
frequent, an Anti-Gallican party began to gather round him. On the 9th
of February, 1790, during a debate on the army estimates, Burke took
advantage of some expressions which Fox let fall in praise of the French
Revolution to open an attack against it, denying that there was any
similarity between our revolution of 1688 and the “strange thing” called
by the same name in France. Fox in his reply spoke in memorable terms of
his obligations to his friend, declaring that all he had ever learnt
from other sources was little in comparison with what he had gained from
him. Sheridan attacked the speech just made by Burke in no measured
terms, describing it as perfectly irreconcilable with the principles
hitherto professed by that gentleman. On this, Burke again rose, and in
a few words declared that Sheridan and himself were thenceforth
“separated in politics.” Before the end of this year came out the
celebrated ‘Reflections,’ which at once showed how irreparable was the
schism between the author and his former associates. It roused an
immediate war of opinion, which gave birth to a war of force throughout
Europe. Innumerable pamphlets soon followed upon its publication, some
denouncing the work as a specious apology for despotism, others
advocating the opinions contained in it with a vehemence which the
authors had not dared to show, till they were encouraged by the support
of so eloquent and so distinguished a partizan. The most remarkable
attempts of the former description were the ‘Rights of Man,’ by Thomas
Paine, which soon became the manual of the democratic party; and the
‘Vindiciæ Gallicæ,’ by Mr., afterwards Sir James Mackintosh, the most
illustrious, if not the only successor of Burke himself in his peculiar
line of philosophical politics. Fox was loud in condemning the book, and
although no formal breach of friendship had hitherto taken place, such
an event was obviously to be expected. On the 6th May, 1791, during a
discussion on a plan for settling the constitution of Canada, this
separation actually occurred, with a solemnity worthy of the men and the
event. From that hour, during the six remaining years of his life, one
idea swayed with exclusive dominion the mind of Burke. Utterly separated
from Fox’s party, aloof from the ministry, retired, after a few
sessions, from Parliament, he continued to wage unceasing war by speech
and writing against the principles and practice of Jacobinism. Soon he
was pointed out as a prophet, and the verification of his predictions in
characters of blood was much more powerful, because much more palpable,
than the vague anticipations of future advantage put forward by his
opponents. In 1794, after his retirement from Parliament, he received
the grant of a considerable pension for himself and his wife. The
democratic party did not scruple to stigmatize his motives, and in
answer to an accusation of this sort was written the ‘Letter to a Noble
Lord,’ perhaps the most astonishing specimen of his peculiar capacities
of style. In this year the death of his son overwhelmed him with
affliction. Still he continued his exertions. His views of the war
differed widely from those of the ministry; he ceased not to urge that
it was a war not against France but Jacobinism, and that it would be a
degradation to Britain to treat with any of the Regicides. On this
subject are written the two ‘Letters on a Regicide Peace,’ published in
1796, and the others published since his death. On the 8th of July,
1797, this event took place, in the 68th year of his age, at his own
house at Beaconsfield, whither, after seeking medical aid elsewhere in
vain, he had returned to die.

The mind of this great man may, perhaps, be considered as a fair
representative of the general characteristics of English intellect. Its
groundwork was solid, practical, and conversant with the details of
business, but upon this, and secured by this, arose a superstructure of
imagination and moral sentiment. He saw little, because it was painful
to him to see any thing, beyond the limits of the national character;
with that, and with the constitution which he considered its appropriate
expression, all his sympathies were bound up. But he loved them with an
intelligent and discriminating love, making it his pains to comprehend
thoroughly what it was his delight to serve diligently. His political
opinions, springing out of these dispositions, were early fixed in
favour of the Whig system of governing by great party connexions. These
opinions, however, were swayed in their application by strong impulses
of personal feeling. A temper impatient of control, an imagination prone
to magnify those classes of facts which impressed him with alarm or
hope, a command of language almost unlimited, and a copiousness of
imagery misleading nearly as much as it illustrated or enforced; these
were qualities which laid him open to many serious accusations. But his
admirers have started a philosophic doubt, whether less of passion and
prejudice would have been compatible with the peculiar station he was
destined to occupy. In an age of revolution, it might be plausibly
maintained, his genius was the counteracting force: alone he stood
against the impulses communicated to European society by the
philosophers of France; their enthusiasm could only be met by
enthusiasm; their influence on the imaginations and hearts of men was
capable of overbearing either a blind prejudice or a dispassionate
logic. But Burke was an orator in all his thoughts, and a sage in all
his eloquence; he held the principles of Conservation with the zeal of a
Leveller, and tempered lofty ideas of Improvement with the
scrupulousness of official routine. As a debater in the House of Commons
he was inferior to some otherwise inferior men. Pitt and Fox will be
neglected while the speeches of Burke shall still be read. It has been
said of Fox by a philosophical panegyrist that he was the most
Demosthenean speaker since Demosthenes. Perhaps, of all great orators
Burke might be called the least Demosthenean. Probably a hearer of the
great Athenian would have felt as extemporaneous and intuitive the
slowly-wrought perfections of rhetorical art, while the listeners to
Burke may have often set down to elaborate preparation what was really
the inspiration of the moment. His conversation, however, seems to have
been uniformly delightful. It is a true maxim in one sense, although in
another it would often need reversal, that great men are always greater
than their works. Much as we possess of Edmund Burke, very much is lost
to us of that which formed the admiration of his contemporaries. “The
mind of that man,” said Dr. Johnson, “is a perennial stream: no one
grudges Burke the first place.” He was acquainted with most subjects of
literature, and possessed some knowledge of science. The philosophy of
mind owes him one contribution of no inconsiderable value: but the
indirect results of his metaphysical studies as seen in the tenor of his
practical philosophy are much more extensive. For in all things, while
he deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete more
than with abstractions: he studied men rather than man. In private life
the character of Burke was unsullied even by reproach. A good father, a
good husband, a good friend, he was sincerely attached to the Protestant
religion of the English church, “not from indifference,” as he said
himself of the nation at large, “but from zeal; not because he thought
there was less religion in it, but because he knew there was more.” But
his attachment was without bigotry; the principles of toleration ever
found in him a powerful advocate; and he was ever zealous to remove
imperfections, and correct abuses, in the establishment, as the best
means of securing its permanent existence.

The works of Burke are collected in sixteen volumes octavo. His speeches
are separately published in four volumes octavo. A small volume appeared
in 1827, containing the correspondence, hitherto unpublished, between
this great statesman and his friend Dr. Laurence. His life has been
written soon after his death by Mr. Bisset; and more recently by Mr.
Prior. Several other biographical accounts were published about the time
of his death, both in the periodical publications and as independent
works: we are not aware that any of these are entitled to particular
notice.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by T. Woolnoth._

  HENRY IV.

  _From the original Picture by Porbus
  in the Collection of the Musée Royal, Paris._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                               HENRY IV.


Henry IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in spite
of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at Pau,
the capital of Béarn, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de Bourbon, Duke
of Vendôme, and, in right of his wife, titular King of Navarre, and
Jeanne d’Albret, the heiress of that kingdom. On the paternal side he
traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son of Louis IX., and
thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became heir to the crown of
France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the Protestant faith, he was
for many years the rallying point and leader of the Huguenots. In
boyhood the Prince of Béarn displayed sense and spirit above his years.
Early inured to war, he was present and exhibited strong proofs of
military talent at the battle of Jarnac, and that of Moncontour, both
fought in 1569. In the same year he was declared chief of the Protestant
League. The treaty of St. Germain, concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the
Huguenots the civil rights for which they had been striving: and, in
appearance, to cement the union of the two parties, a marriage was
proposed between Henry, who, by the death of his mother, had just
succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and Margaret of Valois, sister of
Charles IX. This match brought Condé, Coligni, and all the leaders of
their party, to Paris. The ceremony took place August 17, 1572. On the
twenty-second, when the rejoicings were not yet ended, Coligni was fired
at in the street, and wounded. Charles visited him, feigned deep sorrow,
and promised to punish the assassin. On the night between the
twenty-third and twenty-fourth, by express order of the Court, that
atrocious scene of murder began, which history has devoted to
execration, under the name of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. For three
years afterwards Henry, who to save his life had conformed to the
established religion, was kept as a kind of state prisoner. He escaped
in 1576, and put himself at the head of the Huguenot party. In the war
which ensued, with the sagacity and fiery courage of the high-born
general, he showed the indifference to hardships of the meanest soldier.
Content with the worst fare and meanest lodging, in future times the
magnificent monarch of France could recollect when his wardrobe could
not furnish him with a change of linen. He shared all fortunes with his
followers, and was rewarded by their unbounded devotion.

Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of
Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the rightful owner of the
French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League
was strong in force against him: he had few friends, few fortresses, no
money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for the
scantiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood the Duc
de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand, and gained
the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This extraordinary
result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the contrast of
personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow and indolent.
Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed, than Mayenne lost
at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth, but a great deal
of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the skill and courage of
Mayenne in Henry’s presence. “You are right,” said Henry; “he is a great
captain, but I have always five hours’ start of him.” Henry got up at
four in the morning, and Mayenne about ten.

The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the
following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the
Leaguers, commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers.
On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before
the battle: “If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white
plume: you will always find it in the path of honour and glory.” Nor is
his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: “Spare
the French!”

Paris was soon after blockaded; and the hatred of the Leaguers displayed
itself with increased violence, in proportion as the King showed himself
more worthy of affection. A regiment of Priests and Monks, with
cuirasses on their breasts, muskets and crucifixes in their hands,
paraded the streets, and heightened the passions of the populace into
frenzy. At this period of fanaticism, theologians were the most
influential politicians, and the dictators of the public conscience.
Accordingly the Sorbonne decided that Henry, as a relapsed and
excommunicated heretic, could not be acknowledged, even although he
should be absolved from the censures. The Parliament swore on the
Gospels, in the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to
refuse all proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such
extremities, and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of
human bones ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the
capital, where two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was
owing to his own lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than
gain possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free
passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed his
own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this paternal
kindness he lost the fruit of his labours to himself; but he also
prolonged the civil war, and the calamities of the kingdom at large.

The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to
raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court to
render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the Duke,
satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement,
and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry
as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succours from
England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen; but his prey was again
snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered and
declined; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a
bridge of boats: a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to be
impossible. The Duke once said of his adversary, that other generals
made war like lions, or wild boars; but that Henry hovered over it like
an eagle.

During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the
chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The
Catholics of the King’s party began to complain of his perseverance in
Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion,
especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to
him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers
softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in
the Roman church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at
St. Denys, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we cannot
but suppose, the monarch’s conversion was owing to political motives,
the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human tribunal:
politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most beneficial steps ever
taken towards the pacification and renewal of prosperity of a great
kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at Chartres, and in 1594 Paris
opened her gates to him. He had but just been received into the capital,
where he was conspicuously manifesting his beneficence and zeal for the
public good, when he was wounded in the throat by John Châtel, a young
fanatic. When the assassin was questioned, he avowed the doctrine of
tyrannicide, and quoted the sermons of the Jesuits in his justification.
That society therefore was banished by the Parliament, and their
librarian was executed on account of some libels against the King, found
in his own hand-writing among his papers.

For two years after his ostensible conversion, the King was obliged
daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance; and
it was not till 1595 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The Leaguers
then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League necessarily
was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their submission; but
the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that tranquillity could not
be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful to all his promises,
even after his authority was so firmly established, that he might have
broken his word with safety to all but his own conscience and honour.
Although the obligations which he had to discharge were most burdensome,
he found means to relieve his people, and make his kingdom prosper. The
Duc de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and the Duke de Mercœur, in Britanny, were
the last to protract an unavailing resistance; but the former was
reduced in 1596, and the latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed
almost uninterrupted peace till Henry’s death. But the Protestants gave
him almost as much uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted
liberty of conscience to the former; a measure which was admitted to be
necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either
from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence of
party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal
preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a
tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road to
Britanny, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely compromise. The
edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the public exercise of
their religion in several towns, granting them the right of holding
offices, putting them in possession of certain places for eight years,
as pledges for their security, and establishing salaries for their
ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but to no purpose; the
Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the Prince, when he
represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of the state and the
prosperity of the church must be inseparable. At the same time he
endeavoured to convince the bigots among the priesthood on both sides,
that the love of country and the performance of civil and political
duties may be completely reconciled with difference of worship.

But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry,
without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny, best
known as the Duc de Sully, who probably suggested many of his wisest
measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and did his
best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign’s errors by uncompromising
honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of pleasure were
powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned temperament of Henry: it
was love that most frequently prevailed over the claims of duty. The
beautiful Gabrielle d’Estrées became the absolute mistress of his heart;
and he entertained hopes of obtaining permission from Rome to divorce
Margaret de Valois, from whom he had long lived in a state of
separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he contemplated the dangerous
project of marrying the favourite; but her death saved him both from the
hazard and disgrace. It is not by anecdotes of his amours, that we would
be prone to illustrate the life of this remarkable sovereign; but the
following may deserve notice as highly characteristic. Shortly after the
peace with Spain, concluded by the advantageous treaty of Vervins in
1598, Henry, on his return from hunting, in a plain dress as was usual
with him, and with only two or three persons about him, had to cross a
ferry. He saw that the ferryman did not know him, and asked what people
said about the peace. “Faith,” said the man, “I know nothing about this
fine peace; every thing is still taxed, even to this wretched boat, by
which I can scarcely earn a livelihood.” “Does not the King intend,”
said Henry, “to set all this taxation to rights?” “The King is good kind
of man enough,” answered the sturdy boatman; “but he has a mistress, who
wants so many fine gowns, and so many trumpery trinkets, and we have to
pay for all that. Besides, that is not the worst: if she were constant
to him, we would not mind; but people do say that the jade has other
gallants.” Henry, much amused with this conversation, sent for the
ferryman next day, and extorted from him all that he had said the
evening before, in presence of the object of his vituperation. The
enraged lady insisted on his being hanged forthwith. “How can you be
such a fool?” said the King; “this poor devil is put out of humour only
by his poverty: for the time to come, he shall pay no tax for his boat,
and then he will sing for the rest of his days, _Vive Henri, vive
Gabrielle_.”

The King’s passions were not buried in the grave of La Belle Gabrielle:
she was succeeded by another mistress, Henrietta d’Entragues, a woman of
an artful, intriguing, and ambitious spirit, who inflamed his desires by
refusals, until she extorted a promise of marriage. Henry showed this
promise, ready signed, to Sully: the minister, in a noble fit of
indignation, tore it to pieces. “I believe you are mad,” cried the King,
in a rage. “It may be so,” answered Sully; “but I wish I was the only
madman in France.” The faithful counsellor was in momentary expectation
of an angry dismissal from all his appointments; but his monarch’s
candour and justice, and long tried friendship, prevailed over his
besetting weakness; and as an additional token of his favour, he
conferred on Sully the office of Grand Master of the Ordnance. The
sentence of divorce, so long solicited, was at length granted; and the
King married Mary de Medicis, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The
match, however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.

While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal
administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her
internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against the
King. D’Entragues could not be his wife, but continued to be his
mistress. She not only exasperated the Queen’s peevish humour against
him, but was ungrateful enough to combine with her father, the Count
d’Auvergne, and the Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely
discovered. The criminals were arrested and condemned, but received a
pardon. The Duke de Bouillon afterwards stirred up the Calvinists to
take Sedan, but it was immediately restored. Spite of the many virtues
and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could never pardon his
former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was continually surrounded
with traitors and assassins: almost every year produced some attempt on
his life, and he fell at last by the weapon of a misguided enthusiast.
Meanwhile, from misplaced complaisance to the Pope, he recalled the
Jesuits, contrary to the advice of Sully and the Parliament.

Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians, to
have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The proposal
is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed powers, none
of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition, but should
together form an association for maintaining a mutual balance, and
preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to be realized, is
not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even if meditated by
Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the history, or among
the state papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the supposed
co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in arming went no
further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of the house of
Austria, both in Germany and Italy. His warlike preparations have,
however, been ascribed to his prevailing weakness, in an infatuated
passion for the Princess of Condé. Whatever may have been the motive,
his means of success were imposing. He was to march into Germany at the
head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army, provisions, and every
other necessary were in readiness. Money no longer failed; Sully had
laid up forty millions of livres in the treasury, which were destined
for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been
formed by himself, and all seemed to forebode such a storm, as must
probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the
philosopher’s stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the
inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army; but his mind had
become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased
by a temporary alienation from his faithful minister. He was in his way
to pay a visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled
as it passed along a street. His attendants left the carriage to remove
the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the
heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angoulême. This calamitous event
took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The
Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe, were
supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of implicating other
powers, and plunging France into greater evils than those from which
their hero had rescued them, deterred not only statesmen, but even the
judges on Ravaillac’s trial, from pressing for the names of accomplices.
Hardouin de Perefixe, in his History of Henry the Great, says, “If it be
asked who inspired the monster with the thought? History answers that
she does not know; and that in so mysterious an affair, it is not
allowable to vent suspicions and conjectures as assured truths; that
even the judges who conducted the examinations opened not their mouths,
and spoke only with their shoulders.” There were seven courtiers in the
coach when the murder took place; and the Marshal d’Estrées, in his
History of the Regency of Mary de Medicis, says that the Duke d’Epernon
and the Marquis de Verneuil were accused by a female servant of the
latter, of having been privy to the design; but that, having failed to
verify her charge before the Parliament, she was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment between four walls. The circumstance that Ravaillac was of
Angoulême, which was the Duke’s government, gave some plausibility to
the suspicion. It was further whispered, that the first blow was not
mortal; but that the Duke stooped to give facility to the assassin, and
that he aimed a second which reached the King’s heart. But these rumours
passed off, without fixing any well-grounded and lasting imputation on
that eminent person’s character.

The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight,
discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The house
of Austria, Mary de Medicis his wife, Henrietta d’Entragues his
mistress, as well as the Duke d’Epernon, have been subjected to the
hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who actually
struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no accomplice, and that
he was carried forward by an uncontrollable instinct. If his mind were
at all acted on from without, it was probably by the epidemic fanaticism
of the times, rather than by personal influence.

Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medicis.

Of no prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal
anecdotes related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well
known, and of easy access. The whole tenor of Henry’s life exhibits a
lofty, generous, and forgiving temper, the fearless spirit which loves
the excitement of danger, and that suavity of feeling and manners,
which, above all qualities, wins the affections of those who come within
its sphere: it does not exhibit high moral or religious principle. But
his weaknesses were those which the world most readily pardons,
especially in a great man. If Henry had emulated the pure morals and
fervent piety of his noble ancestor Louis IX., he would have been a far
better king, as well as a better man; yet we doubt whether in that case,
his memory would then have been cherished with such enthusiastic
attachment by his countrymen.

[Illustration: Marriage of Henry IV. and Mary de Medicis, from the
Picture by Rubens.]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

  BENTLEY.

  _From a Picture by Hudson,
  in Trinity College, Cambridge._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                BENTLEY.


Richard Bentley was the son, not of a low mechanic, as the earlier
narratives of his life assert, but of a respectable yeoman, possessed of
a small estate. That fact has been established by his latest and most
accurate, as well as most copious biographer, Dr. Monk, now Bishop of
Gloucester. Bentley was born in Yorkshire, January 27, 1661–2, at
Oulton, near Wakefield; and educated at Wakefield school, and St. John’s
College, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies with unwearied
industry. No fellowship to which he was eligible having fallen vacant,
he was appointed Master of Spalding school, in 1682; over which he had
presided only one year, when his critical learning recommended him to
Dr. Stillingfleet, then Dean of St. Paul’s, as a private tutor for his
son. In 1689 he attended his pupil to Wadham College in Oxford, where he
was incorporated Master of Arts on the 4th of July in that year, having
previously taken that degree in his own university. Soon after the
promotion of Stillingfleet to the see of Worcester, Bentley was made
domestic chaplain to that learned prelate, with whom he continued on the
terms of confidential intimacy incident to that connexion, till his
Lordship’s death. Dr. William Lloyd, at that time Bishop of Lichfield,
was equally alive to the uncommon merit of this rising scholar; and his
two patrons concurrently recommended him as a fit person to open the
lectures founded by the celebrated Robert Boyle, in defence of natural
and revealed religion. Bentley had before this time embarked largely in
literary pursuits. Among these we can only stop to mention his
criticisms on the historiographer Malelas, contained in a letter
appended to Dr. Mill’s edition of that author, which stamped his
reputation as a first-rate scholar, especially among the learned men of
the Continent.

The delivery of the first course of Boyle’s Lectures, in 1692, gave
Bentley an admirable opportunity of establishing his reputation as a
divine; and he taxed his abilities to the utmost to ensure success. Sir
Isaac Newton’s Principia had not been published more than six years: the
sublime discoveries of the author were little known, and less
understood, from the general prejudice against any new theory, and the
difficulty of comprehending the deep reasonings on which this one
rested. Bentley determined to spare no pains in laying open this new
philosophy of the solar system in a popular form, and in displaying to
the best advantage the cogent arguments in behalf of the existence of a
Deity, furnished by that masterly work. That nothing might be wanting to
his design, he applied to the author, and received from him the solution
of some difficulties. This gave rise to a curious and important
correspondence; and there is a manuscript in Newton’s own hand preserved
among Bentley’s papers, containing directions respecting the books to be
read as a preparation for the perusal of his Principia. Newton’s four
letters on this subject are preserved in Trinity College Library, and
have been given to the public in the form of a pamphlet. The lecturer
did not neglect, in addition to the popular illustration of the
Principia, to corroborate his argument by considerations drawn from
Locke’s doctrine, that the notion of a Deity is not innate. The sermons
were received with loud and universal applause, and the highest opinion
of the preacher’s abilities was entertained by the learned world.
Bentley soon reaped the fruits of his high reputation, being appointed
to a stall at Worcester in October, 1692, and made Keeper of the King’s
Library in the following year. In 1694 he was again appointed to preach
Boyle’s lecture. His subject was a defence of Christianity against the
objections of infidels. These sermons have never been published; nor
have Dr. Monk’s researches enabled him to ascertain where they are now
deposited.

Bentley was scarcely settled in his office of librarian, when he became
involved in a quarrel with the Hon. Charles Boyle, brother to the Earl
of Ossory, who was then in the course of his education at Christ Church
in Oxford, and had carried thither a more than ordinary share of
classical knowledge, and a decided taste for literary pursuits. Mr.
Boyle had been selected by his college to edit a new edition of the
Epistles of Phalaris; and for that purpose, not by direct application,
but through the medium of a blundering and ill-mannered bookseller, he
had procured the use of a manuscript copy of the Epistles from the
Library at St. James’s. The responsibility attendant on the custody of
manuscripts, and perhaps some disgust at the channel through which the
loan was negotiated, occasioned the librarian to demand restitution
before the collation was finished. A notion was entertained at Christ
Church, that an affront was intended both to the Epistles, which Bentley
had already pronounced to be a clumsy forgery of later times, and to the
advocates of their genuineness. Tory politics had probably some share in
exasperating a quarrel with a scholar in the opposite interest. Be this
as it may, the preface to Phalaris contained an offensive sentence,
which the editor would not, or perhaps could not cancel, as the copies
seem to have been delivered before the real state of the case was
explained; and this gave rise to the once celebrated controversy between
Boyle and Bentley. It produced a number of pieces written with learning,
wit, and spirit, on both sides; but Bentley fought single-handed, while
the tracts on the side of Boyle were clubbed by the wits of Christ
Church; for the reputed author was attending his parliamentary duty in
Ireland, while those enlisted under his colours were sustaining his
cause in the English republic of letters. Of the numerous attacks on
Bentley published at this period, Swift’s Battle of the Books is the
only one which continues to be known by the merit of the writing. The
controversy was prolonged to the year 1699, when Bentley’s enlarged
dissertation upon Phalaris appeared, and obtained so complete a victory
over his opponents, as to constitute an epoch not only in the writer’s
life, but in the history of literature. It is avowedly controversial;
but it contains a matchless treasure of knowledge, in history,
chronology, antiquities, philosophy, and criticism. The preface contains
his defence against the charges made on his personal character, his
vindication of which is satisfactory and triumphant. So strong, however,
are the prejudices of party and fashion, that many persons looked upon
the controversy as a field for a grand tournament of wit and learning,
exhibiting the prowess of the combatants without deciding the cause in
dispute; but all those whose judgment on such questions could be of any
value held the triumph of Dr. Bentley to be complete, both as to the
sterling merits of the case, and his able management of its discussion.
It was not long before the impression created in his favour became
manifest; for, in the course of the next year, 1700, Bentley was
appointed by the crown to the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge.
On that high advancement he resigned his stall at Worcester. He was
afterwards collated to the Archdeaconry of Ely, in 1781, which, besides
conferring rank in the church, was endowed with two livings; and he was
appointed Chaplain both to King William and Queen Anne. There is a
tradition in Bentley’s family, that Bishop Stillingfleet said, “We must
send Bentley to rule the turbulent Fellows of Trinity College: if any
one can do it, he is the person; for he has ruled my family ever since
he entered it.”

Having thus attained to affluence and honour, he married a lady to whom
he had been long attached. The union was eminently happy. Mrs. Bentley’s
mind was highly cultivated; she was amiable and pious; and the
benevolence of her disposition availed to soften the animosity of
opponents at several critical periods of her husband’s life. His new
station was calculated to increase rather than to lessen the Master’s
taste for critical studies. As he occasionally gave the results of his
inquiries to the public, his labours, abounding in erudition and
sagacity, by degrees raised him to the reputation of being the first
critic of his age. Among the most remarkable of his numerous pieces, we
may mention a collection of the Fragments of Callimachus, with notes and
emendations, transmitted to Grævius, in whose edition of that poet’s
works they appeared in 1697; and three letters on the Plutus and the
Clouds of Aristophanes, written to Kuster, and by him dissected into the
form of notes, and published in his edition of that author. Copies of
two of the original epistles have fortunately been preserved, and given
to the world in the Museum Criticum, after more than a century. Kuster
had in a great measure destroyed their interest by omissions, and by
curtailing their amusing and digressive playfulness. But as they fell
from Bentley’s own pen, few of his writings exhibit more acuteness, or
more lively perception of the elegancies of the Greek tongue. About the
same time he produced one of the ablest and most perfect of his works,
his Emendations on the Fragments of Menander and Philemon. That piece
indicates rather intimate acquaintance with his subject, and a feeling
of security in his positions, than direct and immediate labour or
research. He wrote under the assumed name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,
and sent the work to be printed and published on the Continent. Under
the same signature he appeared again in 1713, in his Reply to Collins’s
Discourse of Freethinking. His exposure of the sophistry and fallacies
pervading that book was judicious and highly effective; and for the
eminent service done to the Christian religion, and the clergy of
England in this work, by refuting the objections and exposing the
ignorance of the writers calling themselves Freethinkers, Dr. Bentley
received the public thanks of the University of Cambridge assembled in
senate, January 4, 1715. But his edition of Horace is the capital work,
which through good and evil report will associate his name with the
Latin language so long as it endures. He completed it in 1711. The tone
of the preface is arrogant and invidious: the presumption, which is the
great blot in his character, both as a man and a critic, is more
conspicuous in those few pages than in all his other productions. With
respect to the work itself, between seven and eight hundred changes in
the common readings were introduced into the text, contrary to the
established practice of classical editors. The language of the notes is
that of absolute dictatorship, not however without an award of fair
credit to some other commentators. His Latinity, although easy and
flowing, has been censured as by no means pure. Many of his readings
have been confirmed and adopted by the latest and best editors; others
are considered as either unnecessary, harsh, or prosaic: but, with all
its faults, Bentley’s Horace is a monument of inexhaustible learning;
the reader, whether convinced or not, adds to his stock of knowledge;
and the very errors of such a critic are instructive.

But Bentley’s haughty temper, thus displayed in his criticisms, burst
forth much more injuriously in the government of his college; where he
carried himself so loftily, and gave such serious and repeated offence,
that several of the Fellows exhibited a complaint against him before the
Bishop of Ely, as visitor. Their object was his removal from the
headship, in furtherance of which they charged him with embezzlement, in
having improperly applied large sums of money to his own use; and with
having adopted other unworthy and violent proceedings, to the
interruption of peace and harmony in the society. In answer to these
imputations he states his own case in a letter to the Bishop, which was
published in octavo in 1710, under the title of the Present State of
Trinity College. Such was the beginning of a long, inveterate, and
mischievous quarrel; which, after a continuance of more than twenty
years, ended in the Master’s favour. The Biographia Britannica, and the
Life of Bentley by the present Bishop of Gloucester, necessarily give a
detailed narrative of this dispute, during the progress of which several
books were written, with the most determined animosity on both sides. We
cannot in this instance regret the confined space, which prevents our
dilating on a quarrel, unfortunate in its origin, virulent in its
progress, and, in our opinion, especially discreditable to the Master.

Nor was this the only trial of a spirit sufficiently able to bear up
against the storms of opposition, and by obstinate perseverance to
triumph over its adversaries. During the course of the former dispute,
Bentley had been promoted to the Regius Professorship of Divinity.
George I. paid a visit to the university in October, 1717. It is usual
on such occasions to name several persons for a doctor’s degree in that
faculty by royal mandate; and the principal part of the ceremony
consists in what is called the creation, that is, the presentation of
the nominees to the Chancellor, if present, or to the Vice-Chancellor in
his absence, by the Professor. Bentley claimed a fee of four guineas as
due from each of the Doctors whom it was his office to create, in
addition to a broad-piece, which had been the ancient and customary
compliment. There were two gold coins under that denomination; a
Jacobus, worth twenty-five shillings, and a Carolus, passing for
twenty-three. Both were called in, and no gold pieces of that value have
since been coined. The Professor refused to create any doctor who would
not acquiesce in the fee. His arguments in favour of the claim were at
least plausible; but it ill became so high a functionary to interrupt
solemn proceedings, and sow discord in a learned body for a mercenary
and paltry consideration. From this low origin arose a long and warm
dispute, in the course of which the Master of Trinity and Regius
Professor was suspended from all his degrees, October 3, 1718, and
degraded on the seventeenth of that month. Of thirty Doctors present,
twenty-three voted for the degradation of their brother; and of ten
heads of colleges who attended all but one joined in the sentence. The
principal ground for these extraordinary measures will not appear very
strong to impartial posterity; it was an alleged contempt in speaking of
a regular meeting of the Heads of Houses, as “the Vice-Chancellor and
four or five of his friends over a bottle.” From this sentence Bentley
petitioned the King for relief: and the affair was referred to a
committee of the Privy Council, whence it was carried into the Court of
King’s Bench, where the four Judges declared their opinions _seriatim_
against the proceedings of the university; and a peremptory mandamus was
issued, February 7, 1724, after more than five years of undignified
altercation, charging the Chancellor, Masters, and scholars “to restore
Richard Bentley to all his degrees, and to every other right and
privilege of which they had deprived him.”

Happily both for himself and the learned world, Bentley was gifted with
a natural hardiness of temper, which enabled him to buffet against both
these storms; so that he continued to pursue his career of literature,
as if the elements had been undisturbed. November 5, 1715, he delivered
a sermon on popery from the university pulpit, distinguished by learning
and argument, and written in an original style, which compelled the
attention of the hearers, unlike those common-place and narcotic
declamations usually poured forth on that anniversary. It was printed,
and has incurred the strange fate of having been purloined by Sterne,
and introduced into Tristram Shandy. Part of it is read by Corporal
Trim, whose feelings are so overpowered by the description of the
Inquisition, that he declares “he would not read another line of it for
all the world.” The sermon had the common lot of Bentley’s publications;
it gave birth to a controversy. It was attacked in ‘Remarks’ by Cummins,
a Calvinistic dissenter. An answer was put forth with the following
title: ‘Reflections on the scandalous Aspersions on the Clergy, by the
author of the Remarks.’ It is asserted in more than one life of Bentley,
that he was himself the author of these Reflections; but the Bishop of
Gloucester says that no one can believe this who reads half a page of
the pamphlet. In 1716 Bentley had propounded the plan of a projected
edition of the Greek Testament, in a letter to the Archbishop of
Canterbury. He brooded over this design for four years, sparing neither
labour nor expense to procure the necessary materials. In 1720 he issued
proposals for printing it by subscription, together with the Latin
version of Jerome; to which proposals a specimen of the execution was
annexed. The proposals are printed at length in the Biographia
Britannica, and in Dr. Monk’s Life. They were virulently attacked by Dr.
Conyers Middleton, at that time a fellow of Trinity, and a leading
person in the opposition to the Master, in ‘Remarks’ on Bentley’s
proposals. At this time Bentley’s enemies were endeavouring to oust him
from his professorship. It was insinuated that his project was a mere
pretext, to be abandoned when it had answered his temporary purpose of
diverting the public mind from his personal misconduct. To these
suspicions he added force by the confession, in excuse for certain marks
of haste in a paper drawn up, not as a specimen of his critical powers,
but simply as an advertisement, that the proposals were drawn up one
evening by candle-light. Middleton followed up his blow by ‘Further
Remarks:’ the publication of the Testament was suspended, nor was it
ever carried into effect. That it was stopped by Middleton’s pamphlet,
is an error countenanced by numerous writers of the time, but denied by
Dr. Monk, who says that the discontinuance certainly was not owing to
Middleton’s attack. He doubts indeed whether Bentley ever looked into
the tract. A speech of his to Bishop Atterbury shortly after its
appearance is quite in character: he “scorned to read the rascal’s book;
but if his Lordship would send him any part which he thought the
strongest; he would undertake to answer it before night.” In 1726, his
Terence was published with notes, a dissertation concerning the metres,
which he termed Schediasma, and, strangely placed in such a work, his
speech at the Cambridge commencement in 1725. The sprightliness and good
temper of this short but eloquent oration is in strong contrast with his
controversial asperity: it breathes strong affection for the university,
from which body a stranger might suppose that he had received the
kindest treatment. But even this edition of the polished and amiable
comedian was undertaken in a spirit of jealousy and resentment against
Dean Hare, a former friend and rival editor, who had in truth deserved
his anger, by availing himself of information derived from Bentley in an
unauthorized and unhandsome manner. The notes throughout are in caustic
and contemptuous language, with unceasing severity against Hare, not
indeed in that violent strain of abuse which has so often marked the
warfare of critics, but with cool and sneering allusions without the
mention of the proper name, under the disparaging designation of
_Quidam, est qui_, or _Vir eruditus_. Not content with this revenge,
Bentley undertook to anticipate Hare in an edition of Phœdrus, which is
characterized by Dr. Monk as a “hasty, crude, and unsupported revision”
of the text of that author; in which the rashness and presumption of his
criticisms were rendered still more offensive by the imperious
conciseness in which his decrees were promulgated. Hare, on the
contrary, had long been preparing his edition: his materials were
provided and arranged, and he retaliated in an _Epistola Critica_,
addressed to Dr. Bland, head-master of Eton. The spirit of the epistle
is personal and bitter; and while it undoubtedly had its intended effect
in exposing Bentley, it is not creditable either to the temper or to the
consistency of its author.

The last of Bentley’s works which we shall notice is his unfortunate
edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, given to the public in 1732. It is a
sad instance of utter perversion of judgment in a man of extraordinary
talent. Fenton first suggested, that the spots in that sun-like
performance might be owing to the misapprehension of the amanuensis, and
the ignorant blunders of a poverty-stricken printer. On this foundation
Bentley, neither himself a poet, nor possessing much taste or feeling
for the higher effusions of even his own favourite authors, the Greek
and Latin poets, undertook to revise the language, remedy the blemishes,
and reject the supposed interpolations of our national epic. He was
peculiarly disqualified for such a task, not only by prosaic temperament
and the chill of advanced years, but by his entire ignorance of the
Italian poets and romance writers, from whose fables and imagery Milton
borrowed his illustrations as freely as from the more familiar stories
and modes of expression of the classical authorities. As usual with him,
his notes were written hastily, and sent immediately to the press. The
public disapprobation was unanimous and just: but even in this
performance many acute pieces of criticism are scattered up and down,
for which the world, disgusted by his audacity and flippancy, allows him
no credit.

We must pass quickly over the ten remaining years of Bentley’s life.
They were embittered by a fresh contest for character and station before
the supreme tribunal of the kingdom. The case between the Bishop of Ely
and Dr. Bentley, respecting the visitatorial jurisdiction over Trinity
College in general, and over the Master in particular, was argued first
in the Court of King’s Bench, and then carried by appeal to the House of
Lords, where it was finally affirmed that the Bishop of Ely was visitor.
In his seventy-second year Bentley underwent a second trial at Ely
House, and was sentenced to be deprived of his mastership; but he eluded
the execution of the sentence, and continued to perform the duties of
the office which he held. At length a compromise was effected between
him and some of his most active prosecutors, many of whom, as well as
himself, were septuagenarians. On his proposed edition of Homer,
distinguished by the restoration of the Digamma, we need not enlarge. It
appears to have been broken off by a paralytic attack, in the course of
1739. In the following year he sustained the severest loss, by the death
of his wife in the fortieth year of their union. His own death took
place July 14, 1742, when he had completed his eightieth year. He was
buried in the chapel; to which he had been a benefactor by giving £200
towards its repairs, soon after he was appointed to the mastership.

Bentley’s literary character is known in all parts of Europe where
learning is known. In his private character he was what Johnson liked, a
good hater: there was much of arrogance, and no little obstinacy in his
composition; but it must be admitted on the other hand, that he had many
high and amiable qualities. Though too prone to encounter hostility by
oppression, he was warm and sincere in friendship, an affectionate
husband, and a good father. In the exercise of hospitality at his lodge
he maintained the dignity of the college, and rivalled the munificence
even of the papal priesthood. His benefactions to the college were also
liberal: but he exacted from it far more than it was willing to pay, or
than any former master had received; and his name would stand fairer if
his generosity had been less distinguished, provided that, at the same
time, his conduct had been less grasping. We shall only add that the
severity of his temper as a critic and controversial writer was
exchanged in conversation for a strain of vivacity and pleasantry
peculiar to himself.

Bentley had three children: a son called by his own name, and two
daughters. The son was bred under his own tuition at Trinity College,
where he obtained a fellowship. His contemporaries acknowledge his
genius, but lament that his pursuits were so desultory and various as to
exclude him from that substantial fame which his talents might have
ensured. Dr. Bentley’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Mr. Humphry
Ridge, a gentleman of good family in Hampshire, but was left a widow in
less than a year, and returned to reside with her father. The youngest,
Joanna, married Mr. Denison Cumberland, grandson to the learned Bishop
of Peterborough. The first issue of this marriage was the late Richard
Cumberland, well known in the republic of letters, and especially as a
dramatic writer. In his memoir of his own life Mr. Cumberland gives some
amusing anecdotes of his grandfather in his old age. His object seems to
have been to paint the domestic character of Bentley in a pleasing
light, and to counteract the prevalent opinion of his stern and
overbearing manners. The old man’s personal kindness towards himself
seems to have produced a deep and well merited feeling of gratitude. His
communications however are of little value, for he neglected his
opportunities of obtaining accurate and more important information from
his mother and other relatives of the great critic.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by F. Mackenzie._

  KEPPLER.

  _From a Picture in the Collection of
  Godefroy Kraenner, Merchant at Ratisbon._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                KEPLER.


The matter contained in this sketch of Kepler’s history, is exclusively
derived from the Life published in the Library of Useful Knowledge. To
that work we refer all readers who wish to make themselves acquainted
with the contents of Kepler’s writings, and with the singular methods by
which he was led to his great discoveries: it will be evident, on
inspection, that it would be useless to attempt farther compression of
the scientific matter therein contained. Our object therefore will be to
select such portions as may best illustrate his singular and
enthusiastic mind, and to give a short account of his not uneventful
life.

John Kepler was born December 21, 1571, Long. 29° 7´, Lat. 48° 54´, as
we are carefully informed by his earliest biographer Hantsch. It is well
to add that on the spot thus astronomically designated as our
astronomer’s birth-place, stands the city of Weil, in the Duchy of
Wirtemberg. Kepler was first sent to school at Elmendingen, where his
father, a soldier of honourable family, but indigent circumstances, kept
a tavern: his education was completed at the monastic school of
Maulbronn, and the college of Tubingen, where he took his Master’s
degree in 1591. About the same time he was offered the astronomical
lectureship at Gratz, in Styria: and he accepted the post by advice, and
almost by compulsion, of his tutors, “better furnished,” he says, “with
talent than knowledge, and with many protestations that I was not
abandoning my claim to be provided for in some other more brilliant
profession.” Though well skilled in mathematics, and devoted to the
study of philosophy, he had felt hitherto no especial vocation to
astronomy, although he had become strongly impressed with the truth of
the Copernican system, and had defended it publicly in the schools of
Tubingen. He was much engrossed by inquiries of a very different
character: and it is fortunate for his fame that circumstances withdrew
him from the mystical pursuits to which through life he was more or less
addicted; from such profitless toil as the “examination of the nature of
heaven, of souls, of genii, of the elements, of the essence of fire, of
the cause of fountains, of the ebb and flow of the tide, the shape of
the continents and inland seas, and things of this sort,” to which, he
says, he had devoted much time. The sort of spirit in which he was
likely to enter on the more occult of these inquiries, and the sort of
agency to which he was likely to ascribe the natural phenomena of which
he speaks, may be estimated from an opinion which he gravely advanced in
mature years and established fame, that the earth is an enormous living
animal, with passions and affections analogous to those of the creatures
which live on its surface. “The earth is not an animal like a dog, ready
at every nod; but more like a bull or an elephant, slow to become angry,
and so much the more furious when incensed.” “If any one who has climbed
the peaks of the highest mountains throw a stone down their very deep
clefts, a sound is heard from them; or if he throw it into one of the
mountain lakes, which beyond doubt are bottomless, a storm will
immediately arise, just as when you thrust a straw into the ear or nose
of a ticklish animal, it shakes its head, and runs shuddering away. What
so like breathing, especially of those fish who draw water into their
mouths, and spout it out again through their gills, as that wonderful
tide! For although it is so regulated according to the course of the
moon, that in the preface to my ‘Commentaries on Mars’ I have mentioned
it as probable that the waters are attracted by the moon, as iron is by
the loadstone, yet if any one uphold that the earth regulates its
breathing according to the motion of the sun and moon, as animals have
daily and nightly alternations of sleep and waking, I shall not think
his philosophy unworthy of being listened to; especially if any flexible
parts should be discovered in the depths of the earth to supply the
functions of lungs or gills.”

The first fruit of Kepler’s astronomical researches was entitled
‘Prodromus Dissertationis Cosmographicæ,’ the first part of a work to be
called ‘Mysterium Cosmographicum,’ of which, however, the sequel was
never written. The most remarkable part of the book is a fanciful
attempt to show that the orbits of the planets may be represented by
spheres circumscribed and inscribed in the five regular solids. Kepler
lived to be convinced of the total baselessness of this supposed
discovery, in which, however, at the time, he expressed high exultation.
In the same work are contained his first inquiries into the proportion
between the distances of the planets from the sun and their periods of
revolution. He also attempted to account for the motion of the planets,
by supposing a moving influence emitted like light from the sun, which
swept round those bodies, as the sails of a windmill would carry any
thing attached to them: of a genuine central force he had no knowledge,
though he had speculated on the existence of an attractive force in the
centre of motion, and rejected it on account of difficulties which he
could not explain. The ‘Prodromus’ was published in 1596, and the genius
and industry displayed in it gained praise from the best astronomers of
the age.

In the following year Kepler withdrew from Gratz into Hungary,
apprehending danger from the unadvised promulgation of some, apparently
religious, opinions. During this retirement he became acquainted with
the celebrated Tycho Brahe, at that time retained by the Emperor Rodolph
II. as an astrologer and mathematician, and residing at the castle of
Benach, near Prague. Kepler, harassed throughout life by poverty, was
received by his more fortunate fellow-labourer with cordial kindness. No
trace of jealousy is to be found in their intercourse. Tycho placed the
observations which he had made with unremitted industry during many
years in the hands of Kepler, and used his interest with the Emperor to
obtain permission for his brother astronomer to remain at Benach as
assistant observer, retaining his salary and professorship at Gratz.
Before all was settled, however, Kepler finally threw up that office,
and remained, it should seem, entirely dependent on Tycho’s bounty. The
Dane was then employed in constructing a new set of astronomical tables,
to be called the Rudolphine, intended to supersede those calculated on
the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. He was interrupted in this labour
by death, in 1601; and the task of finishing it was intrusted to Kepler,
who succeeded him as principal mathematician to the Emperor. A large
salary was attached to this office, but to extract any portion of it
from a treasury deranged and almost exhausted by a succession of wars,
proved next to impossible. He remained for several years, as he himself
expresses it, begging his bread from the Emperor at Prague, during which
the Rudolphine Tables remained neglected, for want of funds to defray
the expenses of continuing them. He published, however, several smaller
works; a treatise on Optics, entitled a Supplement to Vitellion, in
which he made an unsuccessful attempt to determine the cause and the
laws of refraction; a small work on a new star which appeared in
Cassiopeia in 1604, and shone for a time with great splendour; another
on comets, in which he suggests the possibility of their being planets
moving in straight lines. Meanwhile he was continuing his labours on the
observations of Tycho, and especially on those relating to the planet
Mars: and the result of them appeared in 1609, in his work entitled
‘Astronomia Nova;’ or Commentaries on the motions of Mars. He engaged in
these extensive calculations from dissatisfaction with the existing
theories, by none of which could the observed and calculated motions of
the planets be made to coincide; but without any notion whither the task
was about to lead him, or of rejecting the complicated machinery of
former astronomers—

                                       the sphere
               With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er,
               Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

His inquiries are remarkable for the patience with which he continued to
devise hypotheses, one after another, and the scrupulous fidelity with
which he rejected them in succession, as they proved irreconcileable
with the unerring test of observation. Not less remarkable is the
singular good fortune by which, while groping in the dark among
erroneous principles and erroneous assumptions, he was led, by careful
observation of Mars, to discover the true form of its orbit, and the
true law of its motion, and the motion of all planets, round the sun.
These are enunciated in two of the three celebrated theorems known by
the name of Kepler’s Laws, beyond comparison the most important
discoveries made in astronomy from the time of Copernicus to that of
Newton, of which the first is, that the planets move in ellipses, in one
of the foci of which the sun is placed the second, that the time of
describing any arc is proportional, in the same orbit, to the area
comprised by the arc itself, and lines drawn from the sun to the
beginning and end of it.

About the year 1613 Kepler quitted Prague, after a residence of eleven
years, to assume a professorship in the University of Linz. The year
preceding his departure saw him involved in great domestic distress.
Want of money, sickness, the occupation of the city by a turbulent army,
the death of his wife and of the son whom he best loved, these, he says
to a correspondent, “were reasons enough why I should have overlooked
not only your letter, but even astronomy itself.” His first marriage,
contracted early in life, had not been a happy one: but he resolved on a
second venture, and no less than eleven ladies were successively the
objects of his thoughts. After rejecting, or being rejected, by the
whole number, he at last settled on her who stood fifth in the list; a
woman of humble station, but, according to his own account, possessed of
qualities likely to wear well in a poor man’s house. He employed the
judgment and the mediation of his friends largely in this delicate
matter: and in a letter to the Baron Strahlendorf, he has given a full
and amusing account of the process of his courtships, and the
qualifications of the ladies among whom his judgment wavered. He
proposed to one lady whom he had not seen for six years, and was
rejected: on paying her a visit soon after, he found, to his great
relief, that she had not a single pleasing point about her. Another was
too proud of her birth; another too old; another married a more ardent
lover, while Kepler was speculating whether he would take her or not;
and a fifth punished the indecision which he had shown towards others by
alternations of consent and denial, until after a three months’
courtship, the longest in the list, he gave her up in despair.

Kepler did not long hold his professorship at Linz. Some religious
opinions relative to the doctrine of transubstantiation gave offence to
the Roman Catholic party, and he was excommunicated. In 1617 he received
an invitation to fill the chair of mathematics at Bologna: this however
he declined, pleading his German origin and predilections, and his
German habits of freedom in speech and manners, which he thought likely
to expose him to persecution or reproach in Italy. In 1618 he published
his Epitome of the Copernican system, a summary of his philosophical
opinions, drawn up in the form of question and answer. In 1619 appeared
his celebrated work ‘Harmonice Mundi,’ dedicated to King James I. of
England; a book strongly illustrative of the peculiarities of Kepler’s
mind, combining the accuracy of geometric science with the wildest
metaphysical doctrines, and visionary theories of celestial influences.
The two first books are almost strictly geometrical; the third treats of
music; for the fourth and fifth, we take refuge from explaining their
subjects in transcribing the author’s exposition of their contents. “The
fourth, metaphysical, psychological, and astrological, on the mental
essence of harmonies, and of their kinds in the world, especially on the
harmony of rays emanating on the earth from the heavenly bodies, and on
their effect in nature, and on the sublunary and human soul; the fifth,
astronomical and metaphysical, on the very exquisite harmonies of the
celestial motions, and the origin of the eccentricities in harmonious
proportions.” This work, however, is remarkable for containing amid the
varied extravagances of its two last books, the third of Kepler’s Laws,
namely, that the squares of the periods of the planets’ revolution vary
as the cubes of their distances from the sun; a discovery in which he
exulted with no measured joy. “It is now eighteen months since I got the
first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn, very few days since
the unveiled sun, most admirable to gaze upon, burst out upon me.
Nothing holds me; I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over
mankind by the honest confession that I have stolen the golden vases of
the Egyptians, to build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the
confines of Egypt. If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can
bear it: the die is cast, the book is written; to be read either now or
by posterity, I care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader,
as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.”

The substance of Kepler’s astrological opinions is contained in this
work. It is remarkable that one whose candour and good faith are so
conspicuous, one so intent on correcting his various theories by
observation and experience, should have given in to this now generally
rejected system of imposture and credulity; nay should profess to have
been forced to adopt it from direct and positive observations. “A most
unfailing experience (as far as can be hoped in natural phenomena), of
the excitement of sublunary nature by the conjunctions and aspects of
the planets, has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.” At the
same time he professed through life a supreme contempt for the common
herd of nativity casters, and claimed to be the creator of a “new and
most true philosophy, a tender plant which, like all other novelties,
ought to be carefully nursed and cherished.” His plant was rooted in the
sand, and it has perished; nor is it important to explain the fine-spun
differences by which his own astrological belief was separated from
another not more baseless. Poor through life, he relieved his ever
recurring wants by astrological calculations: and he enjoyed
considerable reputation in this line, and received ample remuneration
for his predictions. It was principally as astrologers that both Tycho
Brahe and Kepler were valued by the Emperor Rudolph: and it was in the
same capacity that the latter was afterwards entertained by Wallenstein.
One circumstance may suggest a doubt whether his predictions were always
scrupulously honest. From the year 1617 to 1620, he published an annual
Ephemeris, concerning which he writes thus: “In order to pay the expense
of the Ephemeris for these two years, I have also written a _vile
prophesying almanac_, which is hardly more respectable than begging;
unless it be because it saves the Emperor’s credit, who abandons me
entirely, and, with all his frequent and recent orders in council, would
suffer me to perish with hunger.” Poverty is a hard task-master; yet
Kepler should not have condescended to become the Francis Moore of his
day.

In 1620, Kepler was strongly urged by Sir Henry Wotton, then ambassador
to Venice, to take refuge in England from the difficulties which beset
him. This invitation was not open to the objections which had deterred
him from accepting an appointment in Italy: but love of his native land
prevailed to make him decline it also. He continued to weary the
Imperial Government with solicitations for money to defray the expense
of the Rudolphine Tables, which were not printed until 1627. These were
the first calculated on the supposition of elliptic orbits, and contain,
besides tables of the sun and planets, logarithmic and other tables to
facilitate calculation, the places of one thousand stars as determined
by Tycho, and a table of refractions. Similar tables of the planetary
motions had been constructed by Ptolemy, and reproduced with alterations
in the thirteenth century under the direction of Alphonso, King of
Castile. Others, called the Prussian Tables, had been calculated after
the discoveries of Copernicus, by two of that great astronomer’s pupils.
All these, however, were superseded in consequence of the observations
of Tycho Brahe, observations far more accurate than had ever before been
made: and for the publication of the Rudolphine Tables alone, which for
a long time continued unsurpassed in exactness, the name of Kepler would
deserve honourable remembrance.

Kepler was the first of the Germans to appreciate and use Napier’s
invention of logarithms: and he himself calculated and published a
series, under the title ‘Chilias Logarithmorum,’ in 1624. Not long after
the Rudolphine Tables were printed, he received permission from the
Emperor Ferdinand to attach himself to the celebrated Wallenstein, a
firm believer in the science of divination by the stars. In him Kepler
found a more munificent patron than he had yet enjoyed; and by his
influence he was appointed to a professorship at the University of
Rostock, in the Duchy of Mecklenburgh. But the niggardliness of the
Imperial Court, which kept him starving through life, was in some sense
the cause of his death. He had claims on it to the amount of eight
thousand crowns, which he took a journey to Ratisbon to enforce, but
without success. Fatigue or disappointment brought on a fever which put
an end to his life in November, 1630, in his 59th year. A plain stone,
with a simple inscription, marked his grave in St. Peter’s church-yard,
in that city. Within seventy paces of it, a marble monument has been
erected to him in the Botanic Garden, by a late Bishop of Constance. He
left a wife and numerous family ill provided for. His voluminous
manuscripts are now deposited in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg.
Only one volume of letters, in folio, has been published from them; and
out of these the chief materials for his biography have been extracted.




[Illustration]

                           SIR MATTHEW HALE.


Matthew Hale was born on the 1st of November, 1609, at Alderley, a small
village situated in Gloucestershire, about two miles from
Wotton-under-Edge. His father, Robert Hale, was a barrister of Lincoln’s
Inn, and his mother, whose maiden name was Poyntz, belonged to an
ancient and respectable family which had resided for several generations
at Iron Acton. Hale’s father is represented to have been a man of such
scrupulous delicacy of conscience, that he abandoned his profession,
because he thought that some things, of ordinary practice in the law,
were inconsistent with that literal and precise observance of truth
which he conceived to be the duty of a Christian. “He gave over his
practice,” says Burnet, in his Life of Hale, “because he could not
understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which, as he
thought, was to tell a lie.”

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. W. Cook._

  HALE.

  _From an original Picture in the Library
  of Lincolns Inn._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

Hale had the misfortune to lose both his parents very early in life, his
mother dying before he was three years old, and his father before he had
attained his fifth year. Under the direction of his father’s will he was
committed to the care of a near relation, Anthony Kingscote, Esq., of
Kingscote in Gloucestershire. This gentleman, being inclined to the
religious doctrines and discipline of the Puritans, placed him in a
school belonging to that party; and, intending to educate him for a
clergyman, entered him in 1626, at Magdalen Hall in Oxford. The
strictness and formality of his early education seem to have inclined
him to run into the opposite extreme at the university, when he became
to a certain extent his own master. He is said to have been very fond at
this time of theatrical amusements, and of fencing, and other martial
exercises; and giving up the design of becoming a divine, he at one time
determined to pass over into the Netherlands, and to enlist as a
volunteer in the army of the Prince of Orange. An accidental
circumstance diverted him from this resolution. He became involved in a
lawsuit with a gentleman in Gloucestershire, who laid claim to part of
his paternal estate; and his guardian, being a man of retired habits,
was unwilling to undertake the task of personally superintending the
proceedings on his behalf. It became necessary therefore that Hale,
though then only twenty years old, should leave the university and
repair to London for the purpose of arranging his defence. His
professional adviser on this occasion was Serjeant Glanville, a learned
and distinguished lawyer; who, being struck by the clearness of his
young client’s understanding, and by his peculiar aptitude of mind for
the study of the law, prevailed upon him to abandon his military
project, and to enter himself at one of the Inns of Court with the view
of being called to the bar. He accordingly became a member of the
society of Lincoln’s Inn in Michaelmas term 1629, and immediately
applied himself with unusual assiduity to professional studies. At this
period of his life, he is said to have read for several years at the
rate of sixteen hours a day.

During his residence as a student in Lincoln’s Inn, an incident occurred
which recalled a certain seriousness of demeanour, for which he had been
remarkable as a boy, and gave birth to that profound piety which in
after-life was a marked feature in his character. Being engaged with
several other young students at a tavern in the neighbourhood of London,
one of his companions drank to such excess that he fell suddenly from
his chair in a kind of fit, and for some time seemed to be dead. After
assisting the rest of the party to restore the young man to his senses,
in which they at length succeeded, though he still remained in a state
of great danger, Hale, who was deeply impressed with the circumstance,
retired into another room, and falling upon his knees prayed earnestly
to God that his friend’s life might be spared; and solemnly vowed that
he would never again be a party to similar excess, nor encourage
intemperance by drinking a health again as long as he lived. His
companion recovered, and to the end of life Hale scrupulously kept his
vow. This was afterwards a source of much inconvenience to him, when the
reign of licentiousness commenced, upon the restoration of Charles II.;
and drinking the King’s health to intoxication was considered as one of
the tests of loyalty in politics, and of orthodoxy in religion.

His rapid proficiency in legal studies not only justified and confirmed
the good opinion which had been formed of him by his early friend and
patron, Serjeant Glanville, but also introduced him to the favourable
notice of several of the most distinguished lawyers of that day. Noy,
the Attorney-General, who some years afterwards devised the odious
scheme of ship-money, and who, while he is called by Lord Clarendon “a
morose and proud man,” is also represented by him as an “able and
learned lawyer,” took particular notice of Hale, and advised and
assisted him in his studies. At this time also he became intimate with
Selden, who, though much older than himself, honoured him with his
patronage and friendship. He was induced by the advice and example of
this great man to extend his reading beyond the contracted sphere of his
professional studies, to enlarge and strengthen his reasoning powers by
philosophical inquiries, and to store his mind with a variety of general
knowledge. The variety of his pursuits at this period of life was
remarkable: anatomy, physiology, and divinity formed part only of his
extensive course of reading; and by his subsequent writings it is made
manifest that his knowledge of these subjects was by no means
superficial.

The exact period at which Hale was called to the bar is not given by any
of his biographers; and in consequence of the non-arrangement of the
earlier records at Lincoln’s Inn, it cannot be readily ascertained. It
is probable however that he commenced the actual practice of his
profession about the year 1636. It is plain that he very soon attained
considerable reputation in it, from his having been employed in most of
the celebrated trials arising out of the troubles consequent on the
meeting of Parliament in 1640. His prudence and political moderation,
together with his great legal and constitutional knowledge, pointed him
out as a valuable advocate for such of the court party as were brought
to public trial. Bishop Burnet says that he was assigned as counsel for
Lord Strafford, in 1640. This does not appear from the reports of that
trial, nor is it on record that he was expressly assigned as Strafford’s
counsel by the House of Lords: but he may have been privately retained
by that nobleman to assist in preparing his defence. In 1643 however he
was expressly appointed by both Houses of Parliament as counsel for
Archbishop Laud: and the argument of Mr. Herne, the senior counsel, an
elaborate and lucid piece of legal reasoning, is said, but on no certain
authority, to have been drawn up by Hale. In 1647 he was appointed one
of the counsel for the Eleven members: and he is said to have been
afterwards retained for the defence of Charles I. in the High Court of
Justice: but as the King refused to own the jurisdiction of the
tribunal, his counsel took no public part in the proceedings. He was
also retained after the King’s death by the Duke of Hamilton, when
brought to trial for treason, in taking up arms against the Parliament.
Burnet mentions other instances, but these are enough to prove his high
reputation for fidelity and courage, as well as learning.

In the year 1643 Hale took the covenant as prescribed by the Parliament,
and appeared more than once with other laymen in the assembly of
divines. In 1651 he took the “Engagement to be faithful and true to the
Commonwealth without a King and House of Lords,” which, as Mr. Justice
Foster observes, “in the sense of those who imposed it, was plainly an
engagement for abolishing kingly government, or at least for supporting
the abolition of it.” In consequence of his compliance in this respect
he was allowed to practise at the bar, and was shortly afterwards
appointed a member of the commission for considering of the reformation
of the law. The precise part taken by Hale in the deliberations of that
body cannot now be ascertained; and indeed there are no records of the
mode in which they conducted their inquiries, and, with a few
exceptions, no details of the specific measures of reform introduced by
them. A comparison, however, of the machinery of courts of justice
during the reign of Charles I., and their practice and general conduct
during the Commonwealth, and immediately after the Restoration, will
afford convincing proofs that during the interregnum improvements of
great importance were effected; improvements which must have been
devised, matured, and carried into execution by minds of no common
wisdom, devoted to the subject with extraordinary industry and
reflection.

It was unquestionably with the view of restoring a respect for the
administration of justice, which had been wholly lost during the reign
of Charles I., and giving popularity and moral strength to his own
government, that Cromwell determined to place such men as Hale on the
benches of the different courts. Hale however had at first many scruples
concerning the propriety of acting under a commission from an usurper;
and it was not without much hesitation, that he at length yielded to the
importunity of Cromwell and the urgent advice and entreaties of his
friends; who, thinking it no small security to the nation to have a man
of his integrity and high character on the bench, spared no pains to
satisfy his conscientious scruples. He was made a serjeant, and raised
to the bench of the Court of Common Pleas in January, 1653–4.

Soon after he became a judge he was returned to Cromwell’s first
Parliament of five months, as one of the knights of the shire for the
county of Gloucester, but he does not appear to have taken a very active
part in the proceedings of that assembly. Burnet says that “he, with a
great many others, came to parliaments, more out of a design to hinder
mischief than to do much good.” On one occasion, however, he did a
service to his country, for which all subsequent generations have reason
to be grateful, by opposing the proposition of a party of frantic
enthusiasts to destroy the records in the Tower and other depositories,
as remnants of feudality and barbarism. Hale displayed the folly,
injustice, and mischief of this proposition with such authority and
clearness of argument, that he carried the opinions of all reasonable
members with him; and in the end those who had introduced the measure
were well satisfied to withdraw it. That his political opinions at this
time were not republican, is evident from a motion introduced by him,
that the legislative authority should be affirmed to be in the
Parliament, and an individual with powers limited by the Parliament; but
that the military power should for the present remain with the
Protector. He had no seat in the second Parliament of the Protectorate,
called in 1656; but when a new Parliament was summoned upon the death of
Cromwell in January, 1658–9, he represented the University of Oxford.

His judicial conduct during the Commonwealth is represented by
contemporaries of all parties as scrupulously just, and nobly
independent. Several instances are related of his resolute refusal to
submit the free administration of the law to the arbitrary dictation of
the Protector. On one occasion of this kind, which occurred on the
circuit, a jury had been packed by express directions from Cromwell.
Hale discharged the jury on discovering this circumstance, and refused
to try the cause. When he returned to London, the Protector severely
reprimanded him, telling him that “he was not fit to be a judge;” to
which Hale only replied that “it was very true.”

It appears that at this period, he, in common with several other judges,
had strong objections to being employed by Cromwell as commissioners on
the trial of persons taken in open resistance to his authority. After
the suppression of the feeble and ineffectual rebellion in 1655, in
which the unfortunate Colonel Penruddock, with many other gentlemen of
rank and distinction, appeared in arms for the King in the western
counties, a special commission issued for the trial of the offenders at
Exeter, in which Hale’s name was inserted. He happened to be spending
the Lent vacation at his house at Alderley, to which place an express
was sent to require his attendance; but he plainly refused to go,
excusing himself on the ground that four terms and two circuits in the
year were a sufficient devotion of his time to his judicial duties, and
that the intervals were already too small for the arrangement of his
private affairs; “but,” says Burnet, “if he had been urged to it, he
would not have been afraid of speaking more clearly.”

He continued to occupy his place as a judge of the Common Pleas until
the death of the Protector; but when a new commission from Richard
Cromwell was offered to him, he declined to receive it: and though
strongly urged by other judges, as well as his personal friends, to
accept the office on patriotic grounds, he firmly adhered to his first
resolution, saying that “he could act no longer under such authority.”

In the year 1660 Hale was again returned by his native county of
Gloucester to serve in the Parliament, or Convention, by which Charles
II. was recalled. On the discussion of the means by which this event
should be brought about, Hale proposed that a committee should be
appointed to look into the propositions and concessions offered by
Charles I. during the war, particularly at the treaty of Newport, from
whence they might form reasonable conditions to be sent over to the
King. The motion was successfully opposed by Monk, who urged the danger
which might arise, in the present state of the army and the nation, if
any delay should occur in the immediate settlement of the government.
“This,” says Burnet, “was echoed with such a shout over the House, that
the motion was no longer insisted on.” It can hardly be doubted that
most of the destructive errors of the reign of Charles II. would have
been spared, if express restrictions had been imposed upon him before he
was permitted to assume the reins of government. On the other hand it
has been justly said, that the time was critical; that at that precise
moment the army and the nation, equally weary of the scenes of confusion
and misrule which had succeeded to Richard Cromwell’s abdication, agreed
upon the proposed scheme; but that if delay had been interposed, and if
debates had arisen in Parliament, the dormant spirit of party would in
all probability have been awakened, the opportunity would have been
lost, and the restoration might after all have been prevented. These
arguments, when urged by Monk to those who were suffering under a
pressing evil, and had only a prospective and contingent danger before
them, were plausible and convincing; but to those in after times who
have marked the actual consequences of recalling the King without
expressly limiting and defining his authority, as displayed in the
miserable and disgraceful events of his “wicked, turbulent, and
sanguinary reign,” and in the necessary occurrence of another revolution
within thirty years from the Restoration, it will probably appear that
our ancestors paid rather too dearly on that occasion for the advantages
of an immediate settlement of the nation.

Immediately after the restoration of the King in May, 1668, Lord
Clarendon, being appointed Lord Chancellor, sought to give strength and
stability to the new government, by carefully providing for the due
administration of justice. With this view, he placed men distinguished
for their learning and high judicial character upon the benches of the
different courts. Amongst other eminent lawyers, who had forsaken their
profession during the latter period of the Commonwealth, he determined
to recall Hale from his retirement, and offered him the appointment of
Lord Chief Baron. But it was not without great difficulty that Hale was
induced to return to the labours of public life. A curious original
paper containing his “reasons why he desired to be spared from any place
of public employment,” was published some years ago by Mr. Hargrave, in
the preface to his collection of law tracts. Amongst these reasons,
which were stated with the characteristic simplicity of this great man,
he urged “the smallness of his estate, being not above £500 per annum,
six children unprovided for, and a debt of £1000 lying upon him; that he
was not so well able to endure travel and pains as formerly; that his
constitution of body required some ease and relaxation; and that he had
of late time declined the study of the law, and principally applied
himself to other studies, now more easy, grateful, and seasonable for
him.” He alludes also to two “infirmities, which make him unfit for that
employment, first, an aversion to the pomp and grandeur necessarily
incident to it; and secondly, too much pity, clemency, and tenderness in
cases of life, which might prove an unserviceable temper.” “But if,” he
concludes, “after all this, there must be a necessity of undertaking an
employment, I desire that it may be in such a court and way as may be
most suitable to my course of studies and education, and that it may be
the lowest place that may be, to avoid envy. One of his Majesty’s
counsel in ordinary, or at most, the place of a puisne judge in the
Common Pleas, would suit me best.” His scruples were however eventually
overcome, and on the 7th of November, 1660, he accepted the appointment
of Lord Chief Baron: Lord Clarendon saying as he delivered his
commission to him that “if the King could have found an honester and
fitter man for that employment he would not have advanced him to it; and
that he had therefore preferred him, because he knew no other who
deserved it so well.” Shortly afterwards he reluctantly received the
honour of knighthood.

The trials of the regicides took place in the October immediately
preceding his appointment, and his name appears among the commissioners
on that occasion. There is however no reason to suppose that he was
actually present; his name is not mentioned in any of the reports,
either as interfering in the proceedings themselves, or assisting at the
previous consultations of the judges; and it can hardly be doubted but
that, if he had taken a part in the trials, he would have been included
with Sir Orlando Bridgeman and several others in the bitter remarks made
by Ludlow on their conduct in this respect. It has been the invariable
practice from very early times to the present day, to include the twelve
judges in all commissions of Oyer and Terminer, for London and
Middlesex; and as, at the time of the trials in question, only eight
judges had been appointed, it is probable that Hale and the other three
judges elect were named in the commission, though their patents were not
made out till the following term, in order to preserve as nearly as
possible the ancient form.

Sir Matthew Hale held the office of Lord Chief Baron till the year 1671;
and during that period greatly raised the character of the court in
which he presided, by his unwearied patience and industry, the mildness
of his manners, and the inflexible integrity of his judicial conduct.
His impartiality in deciding cases in the Exchequer where the interests
of the Crown were concerned, is admitted even by Roger North, who
elsewhere charges him with holding “demagogical principles,” and with
the “foible of leaning towards the popular.” “I have heard Lord Guilford
say,” says this agreeable but partial writer, “that while Hale was Chief
Baron of the Exchequer, by means of his great learning, even against his
inclination, he did the Crown more justice in that court, than any
others in his place had done with all their good-will and less
knowledge.”

Whilst he was Chief Baron he was called upon to preside at the trial of
two unhappy women who were indicted at the Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds,
in the year 1665, for the crime of witchcraft. The Chief Baron is
reported to have told the jury that, “he made no doubt at all that there
were such creatures as witches,” and the women were found guilty and
afterwards executed. The conduct of Hale on this occasion has been the
subject of much sarcastic animadversion. It might be said in reply, that
the report of the case in the State Trials is of no authority whatever;
but supposing it to be accurate, it would be unjust and unreasonable to
impute to Sir Matthew Hale as personal superstition or prejudice, a mere
participation in the prevailing and almost universal belief of the times
in which he lived. The majority of his contemporaries, even among
persons of education and refinement, were firm believers in witchcraft;
and though Lord Guilford rejected this belief, Roger North admits that
he dared not to avow his infidelity in this respect in public, as it
would have exposed him to the imputation of irreligion. Numerous
instances might be given to show the general prevalence at that time of
this stupid and ignorant superstition; and therefore the opinion of Hale
on this subject does not appear to be a proof of peculiar weakness or
credulity.

On the occurrence of the great fire of London in 1666, an act of
parliament passed containing directions and arrangements for rebuilding
the city. By a clause in this statute, the judges were authorized to sit
singly to decide on the amount of compensation due to persons, whose
premises were taken by the corporation in furtherance of the intended
improvements. Sir Matthew Hale applied himself with his usual diligence
and patience to the discharge of this laborious and extrajudicial duty.
“He was,” says Baxter, “the great instrument for rebuilding London; for
it was he that was the constant judge, who for nothing followed the
work, and by his prudence and justice removed a multitude of great
impediments.”

In the year 1671, upon the death of Sir John Kelyng, Chief Justice of
the Court of King’s Bench, Sir Matthew Hale was removed from the
Exchequer to succeed him. The particular circumstances which caused his
elevation to this laborious and responsible situation at a time when his
growing infirmities induced him to seek a total retirement from public
life, are not recorded by any of his biographers. For four years after
he became Chief Justice he regularly attended to the duties of his
court, and his name appears in all the reported cases in the Court of
King’s Bench, until the close of the year 1675. About that time he was
attacked by an inflammation of the diaphragm, a painful and languishing
disease, from which he constantly predicted that he should not recover.
It produced so entire a prostration of strength, that he was unable to
walk up Westminster Hall to his court without being supported by his
servants. “He resolved,” says Baxter, “that the place should not be a
burden to him, nor he to it,” and therefore made an earnest application
to the Lord Keeper Finch for his dismission. This being delayed for some
time, and finding himself totally unequal to the toil of business, he at
length, in February 1676, tendered the surrender of his patent
personally to the King, who received it graciously and kindly, and
promised to continue his pension during his life.

On his retirement from office, he occupied at first a house at Acton
which he had taken from Richard Baxter, who says “it was one of the
meanest houses he had ever lived in; in that house,” he adds, “he liveth
contentedly, without any pomp, and without costly or troublesome retinue
of visitors, but not without charity to the poor; he continueth the
study of mathematics and physics still as his great delight. It is not
the least of my pleasure that I have lived some years in his more than
ordinary love and friendship, and that we are now waiting which shall be
first in heaven; whither he saith he is going with full content and
acquiescence in the will of a gracious God, and doubts not but we shall
shortly live together.” Not long before his death he removed from Acton
to his own house at Alderley, intending to die there; and having a few
days before gone to the parish church-yard and chosen his grave, he sunk
under a united attack of asthma and dropsy, on Christmas-day, 1676.

The judicial character of Sir Matthew Hale was without reproach. His
profound knowledge of the law rendered him an object of universal
respect to the profession; whilst his patience, conciliatory manners,
and rigid impartiality engaged the good opinion of all classes of men.
As a proof of this, it is said that as he successively removed from the
Court of Common Pleas to the Exchequer, and from thence to the King’s
Bench, the mass of business always followed him; so that the court in
which he presided was constantly the favourite one with counsel,
attorneys, and parties. Perhaps indeed no judge has ever been so
generally and unobjectionably popular. His address was copious and
impressive, but at times slow and embarrassed: Baxter says “he was a man
of no quick utterance, and often hesitant; but spake with great reason.”
This account of his mode of speaking is confirmed by Roger North, who
adds, however, that “his stop for a word by the produce always paid for
the delay; and on some occasions he would utter sentences heroic.” His
reputation as a legal and constitutional writer is in no degree inferior
to his character as a judge. From the time it was published to the
present day, his history of the Pleas of the Crown has always been
considered as a book of the highest authority, and is referred to in
courts of justice with as great confidence and respect as the formal
records of judicial opinions. His Treatises on the Jurisdiction of the
Lords’ House of Parliament, and on Maritime Law, which were first
published by Mr. Hargrave more than a century after Sir Matthew Hale’s
death, are works of first-rate excellence as legal arguments, and are
invaluable as repositories of the learning of centuries, which the
industry and research of the author had collected.

After his retirement from public life, he wrote his great work called
‘The primitive Origination of Mankind, considered and examined according
to the light of nature.’ Various opinions have been formed upon the
merits of this treatise. Roger North depreciates the substance of the
book, but commends its style; while Bishop Burnet and Dr. Birch greatly
praise its learning and force of reasoning.

Sir Matthew Hale was twice married. By his first wife, who was a
daughter of Sir Henry Moore of Faley in Berkshire, he had ten children,
most of whom turned out ill. His second wife, according to Roger North,
was “his own servant maid;” and Baxter says, “some made it a scandal,
but his wisdom chose it for his convenience, that in his age he married
a woman of no estate, to be to him as a nurse.” Hale gives her a high
character in his will, as “a most dutiful, faithful, and loving wife,”
making her one of his executors, and intrusting her with the education
of his grand-children. He bequeathed his collection of manuscripts,
which he says had cost him much industry and expense, to the Society of
Lincoln’s Inn, in whose library they are carefully preserved.

The published biographies of Hale are extremely imperfect, none of them
containing a particular account of his personal history and character.
Bishop Burnet’s Life is the most generally known, and, though far too
panegyrical and partial, is perhaps the most complete; it has been
closely followed by most of his subsequent biographers. In Baxter’s
Appendix to the Life of Hale, and in his account of his own Life, the
reader will find some interesting details respecting his domestic and
personal habits; and Roger North’s Life of Lord Guilford contains many
amusing, though ill-natured and sarcastic anecdotes of this admirable
judge.

[Illustration: View of Alderley Church.]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Thomson._

  FRANKLIN.

  _From an original Picture by J. A. Duplesis in the possession of M.
    Barnet
  Consul General for the United States of America at Paris._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                               FRANKLIN.


Benjamin Franklin was born at Boston in New England, January 6, 1706.
His father was a non-conformist, who had emigrated in 1682, and followed
the trade of a tallow-chandler. Benjamin was one of the youngest of
fourteen children, and, being intended for the ministry, was sent for a
year to the Boston Grammar School; after which, poverty compelled his
father to remove him, at ten years old, to assist in his business. The
boy disliked this occupation so much, that he was bound apprentice to an
elder brother, who was just established at Boston as a printer. Though
but twelve years of age, he soon learnt all his brother could teach him;
but the harsh treatment he met with, which he says first inspired him
with a hatred for tyranny, made him resolve to emancipate himself on the
first opportunity. All his leisure time was spent in reading; and having
exhausted his small stock of books, he resorted to a singular expedient
to supply himself with more. Having been attracted by a treatise on the
advantages of a vegetable diet, he determined to adopt it, and offered
to provide for himself, on condition of receiving half the weekly sum
expended on his board. His brother willingly consented; and by living
entirely on vegetables he contrived to save half his pittance to gratify
his voracious appetite for reading. He continued the practice for
several years, and attributes to it his habitual temperance and
indifference to the delicacies of the table.

Some time before this the elder Franklin had set up a newspaper, the
second ever published in America, which eventually gave Benjamin a
pretext for breaking through the trammels of his apprenticeship. In
consequence of some remarks which gave offence to the provincial
authorities, the former was imprisoned under a warrant from the Speaker
of the Assembly; and his discharge was accompanied with an order, that
“James Franklin should no longer print the New England Courant.” In this
dilemma the brothers agreed that it should be printed for the future in
Benjamin’s name; and to avoid the censure that might fall on the elder
as printing it by his apprentice, the old indenture was cancelled, and a
new one signed which was to be kept secret; but fresh disputes arising,
Benjamin took advantage of the transaction to assert his freedom,
presuming that his brother would not dare to produce the secret
articles. Expostulation was vain; but the brother took care to spread
such reports as prevented him from getting employment at Boston. He
determined therefore to go elsewhere; and, having sold his books to
raise a little money, he set off without the knowledge of his friends,
and wandered by way of New York to Philadelphia, where he found himself
at seventeen with a single dollar in his pocket, friendless and unknown.
He succeeded, however, at last in procuring employment with a printer of
the name of Keimer, with whom he remained seven months. By some accident
he was thrown in the way of the Governor, Sir William Keith, who
promised to be of service to him in his business, if he could persuade
his father to establish him in Philadelphia. His father, however,
refused to advance any money, thinking him too young to be established
in a concern of his own. He therefore once more engaged himself with
Keimer, and remained with him a year and a half.

The favour of the Governor, who promised him introductions and a letter
of credit, led Franklin to undertake a voyage to England, with a view of
improving himself in his trade, and procuring a set of types. But he was
severely disappointed, when, at the end of the voyage, upon applying to
the Captain who carried the Governor’s despatches, he learnt that there
were no letters for him, and that Governor Keith was one of that large
class of persons who are more ready to excite expectations than to
fulfil them. He soon however got employment, and, with frugality,
contrived to maintain both himself and his friend Ralph, who had
accompanied him to England on a literary speculation, which, after many
failures in verse and prose, procured him at last a nook in the Dunciad,
and a pension from the Prince of Wales, whose cause he had espoused in
print against George II.

During his voyage he attracted the notice of a merchant named Denham,
who, again meeting him in London, became fond of him, and engaged his
services as a clerk. After remaining a year and a half in London, he
returned with Mr. Denham to Philadelphia. During this voyage he drew up
a scheme for self-examination, and several prudent rules for the
guidance of his future conduct, to which he steadily adhered through
life. Indeed the remarkable success of most of his undertakings may be
traced in a great measure to this faculty of profiting early by the
lessons of experience, and abiding rigorously by a resolution once made.

He had scarcely returned half a year when his patron died, leaving him
again on the world at the age of twenty-one. But he had now acquired so
much skill in his business, that he was gladly received at advanced
wages into Keimer’s printing-house.

About this time he set on foot a club, called “The Junto,” consisting of
twelve persons of his own age, most of whom proved eminent men in
after-life. This association had much influence on his fortunes,
particularly when, having quarrelled with Keimer, he was induced to
establish himself in partnership with a fellow-journeyman named
Meredith, and needed both interest and money. By 1729 he had saved
enough to buy out his partner, and make himself sole proprietor of the
printing-house. In the following year he married a young woman named
Reade, to whom he had been attached before he went to England.

In 1732 he began to publish ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack.’ It was
interspersed with many prudential maxims, which were printed with
additions, in a collected form, in 1757, and have been translated into
many languages. The annual sale of this Almanack reached 10,000 copies,
and, as it was continued for twenty-five years, was very profitable to
the author.

In 1736 he was appointed Clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and
obtained their printing. The next year he was made Deputy Postmaster,
and introduced so many judicious reforms into his department, that it
began to bring in a considerable revenue, though up to that time it had
before barely paid its own expenses. He also carried into effect many
improvements at Philadelphia, as his credit with his fellow-townsmen
increased; invariably taking care to introduce them as “the idea of a
few friends,” or “the plan of some public spirited persons,” thus
avoiding the odium which attaches to the corrector of abuses, and
eventually securing the credit of having made useful suggestions. In
these schemes he was well seconded by the “Junto.” Some of them
were—Institutions for watching, paving, and lighting the city; the Union
Fire Company, still, we believe, in useful operation; a Philosophical
Society; an Academy for Education, now grown up into the University of
Pennsylvania; and the City Hospital. But many of these improvements were
brought forward at a later period; for until 1748, when he took a
partner, his time was almost exclusively occupied in his
printing-office.

Being now, comparatively, a man of leisure, he devoted more attention to
philosophical pursuits and to public business, for which his
fellow-citizens began to find his habits and talents exceedingly well
suited. He became, in succession, magistrate, alderman, and member of
the Assembly; and nothing of importance was transacted without his
assistance or advice.

The first public mission in which he was engaged, was to a tribe of
Indians in 1750, which was successful. In 1753 he was appointed
Postmaster-General, with a salary of £300 a year.

The next year he produced a plan for the union of the American
Provinces, for mutual defence against an apprehended invasion by the
French from the Canada frontier. This seems to have been the first time
that such an idea was broached; and, as he was fond of saying, like all
good motions it was kept alive, though not carried into effect at the
time.

Pennsylvania was then ruled by an Assembly elected annually, and a
Governor appointed by the descendants of William Penn, who resided in
England, and were the feudal lords of the soil. This anomalous kind of
government naturally led to misunderstandings, which were among the
causes that mainly contributed to alienate the affections of the
provinces from the mother country. The Proprietaries, as they were
called, laid claim to immunity from taxation, upon grounds which the
Assembly refused to admit; and the Governor and his officers taking part
with the Proprietaries, to whom they were indebted for their
appointments, a controversy grew up, which was never entirely disposed
of while the connexion with Great Britain subsisted. In this dispute
Franklin took an active share, and sided with the opposition, rejecting
frequent overtures from the government; with which, however, he
continued to keep on good terms, never losing sight of the duty of a
citizen, in supporting the authority of the laws, and defending the
state against its foreign and domestic enemies by his writings and
example. In following this course on various occasions, especially that
of the French invasion from Canada, he not only warmly exerted himself
in person, but advanced a good deal of money, which, to the disgrace of
the British Government, was never wholly repaid.

In 1757 he was appointed to manage the controversy with the
Proprietaries in England. Thither he accordingly repaired after some
vexatious delays, and proceeded in the object of his mission with his
accustomed energy; and though he met with many obstacles, his efforts
were at length successful, and the Penns gave up their claim to be
exempt from contributing to the burdens of the state. But they still
held the power of appointing the Governor, which the Province wished to
be transferred to the Crown, and the dispute was afterwards renewed. The
conduct of Franklin in this affair gained him so much credit in America,
that he received the additional appointments of Agent for Maryland,
Massachusetts, and Georgia, each of which provinces had grievances of
its own requiring redress.

During this absence in England, Franklin was presented by the
Universities of St. Andrew’s and Oxford with the degree of D.C.L., and
took his place as Fellow of the Royal Society, which honour, with many
similar distinctions, had been conferred upon him some years before for
his discoveries in electricity. The chief of these were, the identity of
electricity with lightning, and the mode of protecting buildings by
pointed metallic conductors. The simplification which he effected in the
theory of electricity, by showing how all the phenomena are explicable
by the hypothesis of a single electric fluid, forms a remarkable example
of philosophical generalization, and a lasting monument of its author’s
genius[3]. He was also consulted on American affairs by Lord Chatham,
who, by his advice, as it is believed, withdrew a part of the British
force then acting with the King of Prussia, and directed it with so much
secrecy and success against Canada, that the French had no intelligence
of the danger of the province till they heard of its irretrievable loss.

Footnote 3:

  See the Library of Useful Knowledge—Treatise on Electricity, § 48, &c.

In the summer of 1762 he returned to Philadelphia, where he received
public thanks, and a grant of £5000 for his services. His popularity was
such, that he had been re-elected annually to the Assembly, and he
immediately resumed the active part which he had formerly taken in its
proceedings.

Among other projects for reform, that relating to the appointment of
Governor, which the Proprietaries seem to have exercised with very
little regard to the public interest, gave rise to much stormy
discussion during the next two years. Franklin’s share in it procured
him many enemies, who succeeded in preventing his election in 1764. Yet,
a strong petition to the Crown on the subject having been disregarded,
he was a second time appointed agent for enforcing the views of the
Assembly upon the authorities in England. When there, he by no means
limited his exertions to this narrow point: minor dissensions were now
merging in the final struggle for national independence, to which the
passing of the Grenville Stamp Act in 1763 gave the immediate impulse.
Franklin reprobated this tax as arbitrary and illegal, when it was first
reported to the Assembly; and his writings in the papers against it with
his examination in Parliament, are thought to have contributed much to
its repeal under the Rockingham administration, in 1766.

In this and the three next years he paid several visits to the
Continent, where he was received with much distinction. He began already
to record his observations upon the part the different powers would be
likely to take in case of a rupture between England and her colonies: an
event which a thorough knowledge of the temper of both led him, even
thus early, to contemplate as by no means improbable. The closure of the
port of Boston in 1773, and the quartering of troops in the town, filled
up the measure of discontent. Franklin was then agent for three
provinces besides Pennsylvania; and their remonstrances, which he lost
no opportunity of forcing on the attention of the English public as well
as the Government, found in him a most efficient supporter. At length,
finding all his efforts to bring about a reconciliation entirely
fruitless, and having met with much misconstruction and personal
indignity at the hands of successive administrations, he resigned his
agencies and set sail for Philadelphia, where he arrived in the spring
of 1775, after an absence of eleven years.

In the preceding autumn a Congress of delegates from the Assemblies of
all the provinces, the idea of which seems to have originated with
Franklin, had met at Philadelphia; and their first act was to sign a
Declaration of Rights, which had been transmitted to Franklin and the
other agents for presentation. The day after his return he was himself
elected to serve in this Congress for Pennsylvania, and was intrusted
with the management of several important negotiations. In the mean time
collisions had taken place between the troops at Boston and the
inhabitants, which led to the actions of Lexington and Bunker’s Hill.
These events quickened the deliberations of the Congress; and after one
more fruitless petition for redress, the Declaration of Independence was
published, July 4, 1776, and warlike preparations were actively
commenced. The English Ministry now sent out Lord Howe, with full powers
to concede every thing but absolute independence; but as the
Commissioners appointed to confer with him, of whom Franklin was one,
were instructed to treat upon no other terms, the negotiation abruptly
terminated.

After his return from a short but unsuccessful mission to Canada, Dr.
Franklin had been appointed President of the Convention for settling the
constitution of Pennsylvania; but he had not long held the office before
his services were again put in requisition by the Congress, as head of
the Commission to the Court of France, with powers to negotiate loans,
purchase stores, and grant letters of marque. He consented, with all the
alacrity of youth, to undertake this charge, though in his 71st year;
and, crossing the Atlantic for the fourth time, arrived in France with
his colleagues before the end of 1776, and took up his residence at
Passy, a village near Paris. The nation at large received the Commission
with open arms, and rendered them much assistance, in which the
Government secretly participated. But it was not till the surrender of
Burgoyne’s army, in October 1777, that the reluctance of the Court to
hazard a war with England was overcome. The treaty of alliance, and
recognition of the United States, was signed in February 1778, and war
immediately was declared against England.

The principal object of the Commission being thus gained, Franklin still
continued in France with the character of plenipotentiary during the
seven remaining years of the war, till 1783, when England consented to
recognize the independence of her late colonies. The definitive treaty
for that purpose was signed by himself, and on the part of England by
David Hartley, September 3, 1783.

He had of late years been afflicted with those painful disorders the
gout and stone, and at last received permission to return, of which he
availed himself the following spring, having just completed his 79th
year. He was, as may be supposed, most enthusiastically received at
Philadelphia, after an absence of eight years and a half; but the
Congress, with an ingratitude which has often been justly laid to the
charge of republics, made him no acknowledgment or compensation for his
long and arduous services; and he felt the neglect rather keenly.

In a very short time we find him again busily engaged in public
employments; first as a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and of
the Commission for the settlement of the National Confederacy, and soon
afterwards as President of the state of Pennsylvania, which he retained
for the full legal period of three years. He was also a leading member
in several societies for public and charitable purposes. One of the
latter was a Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and his last public
act was a memorial to Congress on this subject. He then wholly retired
from public employments, after a life spent in labours through which
nothing could have supported him but a consciousness of the high
responsibilities of a mind gifted like his own, and the magnitude of the
cause for which his powerful advocacy was so long engaged. He died about
two years after his retirement, at the age of eighty-four, in the full
enjoyment of all his faculties. Few men ever possessed such
opportunities or talents for contributing to the welfare of mankind;
fewer still have used them to better purpose: and it is pleasant to
know, on his own authority, that such extensive services were rendered
without any sacrifice of his own happiness. In his later correspondence
he frequently alludes with complacency to a favourite sentiment which he
has also introduced into his Memoirs;—“That he would willingly live over
again the same course of life, even though not allowed the privilege of
an author, to correct in a second edition the faults of the first.”

His remarkable success in life and in the discharge of his public
functions is not to be ascribed to genius, unless the term be extended
to that perfection of common sense and intimate knowledge of mankind
which almost entitled his sagacity to the name of prescience, and made
‘Franklin’s forebodings’ proverbially ominous among those who knew him.
His preeminence appears to have resulted from the habitual cultivation
of a mind originally shrewd and observant, and gifted with singular
powers of energy and self-control. There was a business-like alacrity
about him, with a discretion and integrity which conciliated the respect
even of his warmest political foes; a manly straight-forwardness before
which no pretension could stand unrebuked; and a cool tenacity of temper
and purpose which never forsook him under the most discouraging
circumstances, and was no doubt exceedingly provoking to his opponents.
Indeed his sturdiness, however useful to his country in time of need,
was perhaps carried rather to excess; his enemies called it obstinacy,
and accused him of being morose and sullen. No better refutation of such
a charge can be wished for than the testimony borne to his disposition
by Priestley (Monthly Magazine, 1782), a man whom Franklin was justly
proud to call his friend. In private life he was most estimable; two of
his most favourite maxims were, never to exalt himself by lowering
others, and in society to enjoy and contribute to all innocent
amusements without reserve. His friendships were consequently lasting,
and chosen at will from among the most amiable as well as the most
distinguished of both sexes, wherever his residence happened to be
fixed.

His chief claims to philosophical distinction are his experiments and
discoveries in electricity; but he has left essays upon various other
matters of interest and practical utility; an end of which he never lost
sight. Among these are remarks on ship-building and light-houses; on the
temperature of the sea at different latitudes and depths, and the
phenomena of what is called the Gulf-stream of the Atlantic; on the
effect of oil poured upon rough water, and other subjects connected with
practical navigation; and on the proper construction of lamps, chimneys,
and stoves. His suggestions on these subjects are very valuable. His
other writings are numerous; they relate chiefly to politics, or the
inculcation of the rules of prudence and morality. Many of them are
light and even playful; they are all instructive, and written in an
excellent and simple style; but they are not entirely free from the
imputation of trifling upon serious subjects. The most valuable of them
is probably his autobiography, which is unfortunately but a fragment.

As a speaker he was neither copious nor eloquent; there was even a
degree of hesitation and embarrassment in his delivery. Yet as he seldom
rose without having something important to say, and always spoke to the
purpose, he commanded the attention of his hearers, and generally
succeeded in his object.

His religious principles, when disengaged from the scepticism of his
youth, appears to have been sincere, and unusually free from sectarian
animosity.

Upon the whole, his long and useful life forms an instructive example of
the force which arises from the harmonious combination of strong
faculties and feelings when so controlled by sense and principle that no
one is suffered to predominate to the disparagement of the rest.

An excellent Life, in which his autobiography is included, with a
collection of many of his miscellaneous writings, and much of his
correspondence, has been published in six octavo volumes, by his
grandson Temple Franklin, who accompanied him during his mission to
France, and possessed the amplest means of verifying his statements by
reference to the original papers.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

                               SCHWARTZ.


It is refreshing to turn from the scenes of war and bloodshed, and
frequently of perfidy and oppression, by which our European empire in
India was established and consolidated, to watch the progress of a
benevolent and peaceful enterprise, the substitution of the Christian
faith for the impure, and bloody, and oppressive superstitions of the
Hindoos. We augur well of its success, though it is still far from its
accomplishment; for, since the first hand was put to it, it has advanced
with slow, yet certain and unfaltering steps. Many able and good men
have devoted themselves to the cause, and none with more distinguished
success than he who has been called the Apostle of the East, CHRISTIAN
SCHWARTZ. The saying of an eminent missionary, who preached to a far
different people, the stern and high-minded Indians of North America, is
exemplified in his life,—“Prayer and pains, through faith, will do any
thing.” For years Schwartz laboured in obscurity, with few scattered and
broken rays of encouragement to cheer his way. But his patience, his
integrity, his unwearied benevolence, his sincerity and unblemished
purity of life, won a hearing for his words of doctrine; and he was
rewarded at last by a more extended empire in the hearts of the Hindoos,
both heathen and convert, than perhaps any other European has obtained.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by E. Scriven._

  SCHWARTZ.

  _From an original Picture in the possession of
  the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge Lincolns Inn Fields._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

Christian Frederic Schwartz was born at Sonnenburg, in the New Mark,
Germany, October 26, 1726. His mother died while he was very young, and,
in dying, devoted the child, in the presence of her husband and her
spiritual guide, to the service of God, exacting from both of them a
promise that they would use every means for the accomplishment of this,
her last and earnest wish. Schwartz received his education at the
schools of Sonnenburg and Custrin. He grew up a serious and
well-disposed boy, much under the influence of religious impressions;
and a train of fortunate circumstances deepened those impressions, at a
time when the vivacity of youth, and the excitement which he was
dedicated. When about twenty years of age he entered the University of
Halle, where he obtained the friendship of one of the professors, Herman
Francke, a warm and generous supporter of the missionary cause. While
resident at Halle, Schwartz, together with another student, was
appointed to learn the Tamul or Malabar language, in order to
superintend the printing of a Bible in that tongue. His labour was not
thrown away, though the proposed edition never was completed; for it led
Francke to propose to him that he should go out to India as a
missionary. The suggestion suited his ardent and laborious character,
and was at once accepted. The appointed scene of his labours was
Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast, the seat of a Danish mission: and,
after repairing to Copenhagen for ordination, he embarked from London
for India, January 21, 1750, and reached Tranquebar in July.

It is seldom that the life of one employed in advocating the faith of
Christ presents much of adventure, except from the fiery trials of
persecution; or much of interest, except to those who will enter into
the missionary’s chief joy or sorrow, the success or inefficiency of his
preaching. From persecution Schwartz’s whole life was free; his
difficulties did not proceed from bigoted or interested zeal, but from
the apathetic subtlety of his Hindoo hearers, ready to listen, slow to
be convinced, enjoying the mental sword-play of hearing, and answering,
and being confuted, and renewing the same or similar objections at the
next meeting, as if the preacher’s former labours had not been. The
latter part of his life was possessed of active interest; for he was no
stranger to the court or the camp; and his known probity and
truthfulness won for him the confidence of three most dissimilar
parties, a suspicious tyrant, an oppressed people, and the martial and
diplomatic directors of the British empire in India. But the early years
of his abode in India possess interest neither from the marked success
of his preaching, nor from his commerce with the busy scenes of conquest
and negotiation. For sixteen years he resided chiefly at Tranquebar, a
member of the mission to which he was first attached; but at the end of
that time, in 1766, he transferred his services to the Society for
promoting Christian Knowledge, with which he acted until death, and to
which the care of the Danish mission at Tranquebar was soon after
transferred. He had already, in 1765, established a church and school at
Tritchinopoly, and in that town he now took up his abode, holding the
office of chaplain to the garrison, for which he received a salary of
£100 yearly. This entire sum he devoted to the service of the mission.

For several years Schwartz resided principally at Tritchinopoly,
visiting other places, from time to time, especially Tanjore, where his
labours ultimately had no small effect. He was heard with attention, he
was everywhere received with respect, for the Hindoos could not but
admire the beauty of his life, though it failed to win souls to his
preaching. “The fruit,” he said, “will perhaps appear when I am at
rest.” He had, however, the pleasure of seeing some portion of it ripen,
for in more than one place a small congregation grew gradually up under
his care. His toil was lightened and cheered in 1777, when another
missionary was sent to his assistance from Tranquebar. Already he had
derived help from some of his more advanced converts, who acted as
catechists, for the instruction of others. He was sedulous in preparing
these men for their important duty. “The catechists,” he says, “require
to be daily admonished and stirred up, otherwise they fall into
indolence and impurity.” Accordingly he daily assembled all those whose
nearness permitted this frequency of intercourse; he taught them to
explain the doctrines of their religion; he directed their labours for
the day, and he received a report of those labours in the evening.

His visits to Tanjore became more frequent, and he obtained the
confidence of the Rajah, or native prince, Tulia Maha, who ruled that
city under the protection of the British. In 1779 Schwartz procured
permission from him to erect a church in his capital, and, with the
sanction of the Madras Government, set immediately to work on this task.
His funds failing, he applied at Madras for further aid; but, in reply,
he was summoned to the seat of government with all speed, and requested
to act as an ambassador, to treat with Hyder Ally for the continuance of
peace. It has been said, that Schwartz engaged more deeply than became
his calling in the secular affairs of India. The best apology for his
interference, if apology be needful, is contained in his own
account:—“The novelty of the proposal surprised me at first: I begged
some time to consider of it. At last I accepted of the offer, because by
so doing I hoped to prevent evil, and to promote the welfare of the
country.” The reason for sending him is at least too honourable to him
to be omitted: it was the requisition of Hyder himself. “Do not send to
me,” he said, “any of your agents; for I do not trust their words or
treaties: but if you wish me to listen to your proposals, send to me the
missionary of whose character I hear so much from every one; him I will
receive and trust.”

In his character of an envoy Schwartz succeeded admirably. He
conciliated the crafty, suspicious, and unfeeling despot, without
compromising the dignity of those whom he represented, or forgetting the
meekness of his calling. He would gladly have rendered his visit to
Seringapatam available to higher than temporal interests: but here he
met with little encouragement. Indifferent to all religion, Hyder
suffered the preacher to speak to him of mercy and of judgment; but in
these things his heart had no part. Some few converts Schwartz made
during his abode of three months; but on the whole he met with little
success. He parted with Hyder upon good terms, and returned with joy to
Tanjore. The peace, however, was of no long continuance; and Schwartz
complained that the British Government were guilty of the infraction.
Hyder invaded the Carnatic, wasting it with fire and sword; and the
frightened inhabitants flocked for relief and protection to the towns.
Tanjore and Tritchinopoly were filled with famishing multitudes. During
the years 1781, 2, and 3, this misery continued. At Tanjore, especially,
the scene was dreadful. Numbers perished in the streets of want and
disease; corpses lay unburied, because the survivors had not energy or
strength to inter them; the bonds of affection were so broken that
parents offered their children for sale; and the garrison, though less
afflicted than the native population, were enfeebled and depressed by
want, and threatened by a powerful army without the walls. There were
provisions in the country; but the cultivators, frightened and alienated
by the customary exactions and ill-usage, refused to bring it to the
fort. They would trust neither the British authorities nor the Rajah:
all confidence was destroyed. “At last the Rajah said to one of our
principal gentlemen, ‘We all, you and I, have lost our credit: let us
try whether the inhabitants will trust Mr. Schwartz.’ Accordingly, he
sent me a blank paper, empowering me to make a proper agreement with the
people. Here was no time for hesitation. The Sepoys fell down as dead
people, being emaciated with hunger; our streets were lined with dead
corpses every morning—our condition was deplorable. I sent therefore
letters every where round about, promising to pay any one with my own
hands, and to pay them for any bullock which might be taken by the
enemy. In one or two days I got above a thousand bullocks; and sent one
of our catechists, and other Christians, into the country. They went at
the risk of their lives, made all possible haste, and brought into the
fort, in a very short time, 80,000 kalams of grain. By this means the
fort was saved. When all was over, I paid the people, even with some
money which belonged to others, made them a small present, and sent them
home.”

The letter from which this passage is extracted was written to the
Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, in consequence of an attack
made by a member of Parliament upon the character of the Hindoo
converts, and depreciation of the labours of the missionaries. To boast
was not in Schwartz’s nature; but he was not deterred by a false modesty
from vindicating his own reputation, when it was expedient for his
master’s service: and there has seldom been a more striking tribute paid
to virtue, unassisted by power, than in the conduct of the Hindoos, as
told in this simple statement. His labours did not cease with this
crisis, nor with his personal exertions. He bought a quantity of rice at
his own expense, and prevailed on some European merchants to furnish him
with a monthly supply; by means of which he preserved many persons from
perishing. In 1784 he was again employed by the Company on a mission to
Tippoo Saib; but the son of Hyder refused to receive him. About this
period his health, hitherto robust, began to fail; and in a letter,
dated July, 1784, he speaks of the approach of death, of his comfort in
the prospect, and firm belief in the doctrines which he preached. In the
same year the increase of his congregation rendered it necessary to
build a Malabar church in the suburbs of Tanjore, which was done chiefly
at his own expense. In February, 1785, he engaged in a scheme for
raising English schools throughout the country, to facilitate the
intercourse of the natives with Europeans. Schools were accordingly
established at Tanjore and three other places. The pupils were chiefly
children of the upper classes—of Bramins and merchants; and the good
faith with which Schwartz conducted these establishments deserves to be
praised as well as his religious zeal. “Their intention, doubtless, is
to learn the English language, with a view to their temporal welfare;
but they thereby become better acquainted with good principles. No
deceitful methods are used to bring them over to the doctrines of
Christ, though the most earnest wishes are felt that they may attain
that knowledge which is life eternal.” In a temporal view, these
establishments proved very serviceable to many of the pupils: but,
contrary to Schwartz’s hopes and wishes, not one of the young men became
a missionary.

In January, 1787, Schwartz’s friend, the Rajah of Tanjore, lay at the
point of death. Being childless, he had adopted a boy, yet in his
minority, as his successor: a practice recognised by the Hindoo law. His
brother, Ameer Sing, however, was supported by a strong British party,
and it was not likely that he would submit quietly to his exclusion from
the throne. In this strait Tulia Maha sent for Schwartz, as the only
person to whom he could intrust his adopted son. “This,” he said, “is
not my, but your son; into your hands I deliver the child.” Schwartz
accepted the charge with reluctance; he represented his inability to
protect the orphan, and suggested that Ameer Sing should be named regent
and guardian. The advice probably was the best that could be given: but
the regent proved false, or at least doubtful in his trust; and the
charge proved a source of trouble and anxiety. But by Schwartz’s care,
and influence with the Company, the young prince was reared to manhood,
and established in possession of his inheritance. Nor were Schwartz’s
pains unsuccessful in cultivation of his young pupil’s mind, who is
characterized by Heber as an “extraordinary man.” He repaid these
fatherly cares with a filial affection, and long after the death of
Schwartz testified, both by word and deed, his regard for his memory.

We find little to relate during the latter part of Schwartz’s life,
though much might be written, but that the nature of this work forbids
us to dilate upon religious subjects. His efforts were unceasing to
promote the good, temporal as well as spiritual, of the Indian
population. On one occasion he was requested to inspect the watercourses
by which the arid lands of the Carnatic are irrigated; and his labours
were rewarded by a great increase in the annual produce. Once the
inhabitants of the Tanjore country had been so grievously oppressed,
that they abandoned their farms, and fled the country. The cultivation
which should have begun in June was not commenced even at the beginning
of September, and all began to apprehend a famine. Schwartz says in the
letter, which we have already quoted, “I entreated the Rajah to remove
that shameful oppression, and to recall the inhabitants. He sent them
word that justice should be done to them, but they disbelieved his
promises. He then desired me to write to them, and to assure them that
he, at my intercession, would show kindness to them. I did so. All
immediately returned; and first of all the Collaries believed my word,
so that 7,000 men came back in one day. The rest of the inhabitants
followed their example. When I exhorted them to exert themselves to the
utmost, because the time for cultivation was almost lost, they replied
in the following manner:—‘As you have showed kindness to us, you shall
not have reason to repent of it: we intend to work night and day to show
our regard for you.’”

His preaching was rewarded by a slow, but a progressive effect; and the
number of missionaries being increased by the Society in England, the
growth of the good seed, which he had sown during a residence of forty
years, became more rapid and perceptible. In the country villages
numerous congregations were formed, and preachers were established at
Cuddalore, Vepery, Negapatam, and Palamcotta, as well as at the earlier
stations of Tranquebar, Tritchinopoly, and Tanjore, whose chief
recreation was the occasional intercourse with each other which their
duty afforded them, and who lived in true harmony and union of mind and
purpose. The last illness of Schwartz was cheered by the presence of
almost all the missionaries in the south of India, who regarded him as a
father, and called him by that endearing name. His labours did not
diminish as his years increased. From the beginning of January to the
middle of October, 1797, we are told by his pupil and assistant, Caspar
Kolhoff, he preached every Sunday in the English and Tamul languages by
turns; for several successive Wednesdays he gave lectures in their own
languages to the Portuguese and German soldiers incorporated in the 51st
regiment; during the week he explained the New Testament in his usual
order at morning and evening prayer; and he dedicated an hour every day
to the instruction of the Malabar school children. In October, he who
hitherto had scarce known disease, received the warning of his
mortality. He rallied for a while, and his friends hoped that he might
yet be spared to them. But a relapse took place, and he expired February
13, 1798, having displayed throughout a long and painful illness a
beautiful example of resignation and happiness, and an interest undimmed
by pain in the welfare of all for and with whom he had laboured. His
funeral, on the day after his death, presented a most affecting scene.
It was delayed by the arrival of the Rajah, who wished to behold once
more his kind, and faithful, and watchful friend and guardian. The
coffin lid was removed; the prince gazed for the last time on the pale
and composed features, and burst into tears. The funeral service was
interrupted by the cries of a multitude who loved the reliever of their
distresses, and honoured the pure life of the preacher, who for near
fifty years had dwelt among them, careless alike of pleasure, interest,
and ambition, pursuing a difficult and thankless task with unchanging
ardour, the friend of princes, yet unsullied even by the suspicion of a
bribe, devoting his whole income, beyond a scanty maintenance, to the
service of the cause which his life was spent in advocating.

The Rajah continued to cherish Schwartz’s memory. He commissioned
Flaxman for a monument erected to him at Tanjore; he placed his picture
among those of his own ancestors; he erected more than one costly
establishment for charitable purposes in honour of his name; and, though
not professing Christianity, he secured to the Christians in his service
not only liberty, but full convenience for the performance of their
religious duties. Nor were the Directors backward in testifying their
gratitude for his services. They sent out a monument by Bacon to be
erected in St. Mary’s Church at Madras, with orders to pay every
becoming honour to his memory, and especially to permit to the natives,
by whom he was so revered, free access to view this memorial of his
virtues.

It is to be regretted that no full memoir of the life and labours of
this admirable man has been published. It is understood that his
correspondence, preserved by the Society for promoting Christian
Knowledge, would furnish ample materials for such a work. The facts of
this account are taken from the only two memoirs of Schwartz which we
know to be in print,—a short one for cheap circulation published by the
Religious Tract Society; and a more finished tribute to his memory in
Mr. Carne’s ‘Lives of Eminent Missionaries,’ recently published. We
conclude in the words of one whose praise carries with it authority,
Bishop Heber: “Of Schwartz, and his fifty years’ labour among the
heathen, the extraordinary influence and popularity which he acquired,
both with Mussulmans, Hindoos, and contending European governments, I
need give you no account, except that my idea of him has been raised
since I came into the south of India. I used to suspect that, with many
admirable qualities, there was too great a mixture of intrigue in his
character—that he was too much of a political prophet, and that the
veneration which the heathen paid, and still pay him (and which indeed
almost regards him as a superior being, putting crowns, and burning
lights before his statue), was purchased by some unwarrantable
compromise with their prejudices. I find I was quite mistaken. He was
really one of the most active and fearless, as he was one of the most
successful missionaries, who have appeared since the Apostles. To say
that he was disinterested in regard of money, is nothing; he was
perfectly careless of power, and renown never seemed to affect him, even
so far as to induce an outward show of humility. His temper was
perfectly simple, open, and cheerful; and in his political negotiations
(employments which he never sought, but which fell in his way) he never
pretended to impartiality, but acted as the avowed, though certainly the
successful and judicious agent of the orphan prince committed to his
care, and from attempting whose conversion to Christianity he seems to
have abstained from a feeling of honour[4]. His other converts were
between six and seven thousand, being those which his companions and
predecessors in the cause had brought over.”

Footnote 4:

  He probably acted on the same principle as in conducting the English
  schools above-mentioned, using “no deceitful methods.” That he was
  earnest in recommending the _means_ of conversion, appears from a
  dying conversation with his pupil, Serfogee Rajah.




[Illustration]

                                BARROW.


The name of ISAAC BARROW stands eminent among the divines and
philosophers of the seventeenth century. Of the many good and great men
whom it is the glory of Trinity College, Cambridge, to number as her
foster-sons, there is none more good, none perhaps, after BACON and
NEWTON, more distinguished than he: and he has an especial claim to the
gratitude of all members of that splendid foundation as the projector of
its unequalled library, as well as a liberal benefactor in other
respects.

The father of Barrow, a respectable citizen of London, was linen-draper
to Charles I., and the son was naturally brought up in royalist
principles. The date of his birth is variously assigned by his
biographers, but the more probable account fixes it to October, 1630. It
is recorded that his childhood was turbulent and quarrelsome; that he
was careless of his clothes, disinclined to study, and especially
addicted to fighting and promoting quarrels among his school-fellows;
and of a temper altogether so unpromising, that his father often
expressed a wish, that if any of his children should die, it might be
his son Isaac. He was first sent to school at the Charter House, and
removed thence to Felstead in Essex. Here his disposition seemed to
change: he made great progress in learning, and was entered at Trinity
College in 1645, in his fifteenth year, it being then usual to send boys
to college about that age. He passed his term as an under graduate with
much credit. The time and place were not favourable to the promotion of
Royalists; for a royalist master had been ejected to make room for one
placed there by the Parliament, and the fellows were chiefly of the same
political persuasion. But Barrow’s good conduct and attainments won the
favour of his superiors, and in 1649, the year after he took his degree,
he was elected fellow. It deserves to be known, for it is honourable to
both parties, that he never disguised or compromised his own principles.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by B. Holl._

  BARROW.

  _From the original Picture by Isaac Whood
  at Trinity College, Cambridge._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

His earlier studies were especially turned towards natural philosophy;
and, rejecting the antiquated doctrines then taught in the schools, he
selected Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes as his favourite authors. He did
not commence the study of mathematics until after he had gained his
fellowship, and was led to it in a very circuitous way. He was induced
to read the Greek astronomers, with a view to solving the difficulties
of ancient chronology; and to understand their works a thorough
knowledge of geometry was indispensable. He therefore undertook the
study of that science; which suited the bent of his genius so well, that
he became one of the greatest proficients in it of his age. His first
intention was to become a physician, and he made considerable progress
in anatomy, chemistry, botany, and other sciences subservient to the
profession of medicine; but he changed his mind, and determined to make
divinity his chief pursuit. In 1655 he went abroad. His travels extended
through France, Italy, and the Levant, to Constantinople; and, after an
absence of four years, he returned to England through Germany and
Holland. During this period he lost no opportunity of prosecuting his
studies; and he sent home several descriptive poems, and some letters,
written in Latin, which are printed in his Opuscula, in the fourth
volume of the folio edition of his works. In the voyage to Smyrna he
gave a proof of the high spirit, which, purified from its childish
unruliness and violence, continued to form part of his character through
life. The vessel being attacked by an Algerine corsair, Barrow remained
on the deck, cheerfully and vigorously fighting, until the assailant
sheered off. Being asked afterwards why he did not go into the hold, and
leave the defence of the ship to those whom it concerned, he replied,
“It concerned no one more than myself. I would rather have died than
fallen into the hands of those merciless pirates.” He has described this
voyage, and its eventful circumstances, in a poem contained in his
Opuscula.

He entered into orders in 1659, and in the following year was made Greek
Professor at Cambridge. The numerous offices to which he was appointed
about this time, show that his merits were generally and highly
esteemed. He was chosen to be Professor of Geometry at Gresham College
in 1662; and was one of the first fellows elected into the Royal
Society, after the incorporation of that body by charter in 1663; in
which year he was also appointed the first mathematical lecturer on the
foundation of Mr. Lucas, at Cambridge. Not that he made sinecures of
these responsible employments, or thought himself qualified to discharge
the duties of all at once: for he resigned the Greek professorship, on
being appointed Lucasian Professor, for reasons explained in his
introductory oration, which is extant in the Opuscula. The Gresham
professorship he also gave up in 1664, intending thenceforth to reside
at Cambridge. Finally, in 1669, he resigned the Lucasian chair to his
great successor, Newton, intending to devote himself entirely to the
study of divinity. Barrow received the degree of D.D. by royal mandate,
in 1670; and, in 1672, was raised to the mastership of Trinity College
by the King, with the compliment, “that he had given it to the best
scholar in England.” In that high station he distinguished himself by
liberality: he remitted several allowances which his predecessors had
required from the college; he set on foot the scheme for a new library,
and contributed in purse, and still more by his personal exertions, to
its completion. It should be remarked that his patent of appointment
being drawn up, as usual, with a permission to marry, he caused that
part to be struck out, conceiving it to be at variance with the
statutes. He was cut off by a fever in the prime of life, May 4, 1679,
aged 49, during a visit to London. His remains were honourably deposited
in Westminster Abbey, among the worthies of the land; and in that noble
building a monument was erected to him by the contributions of his
friends.

Of Barrow’s mathematical works we must speak briefly. The earliest of
them was an edition of Euclid’s Elements, containing all the books,
published at Cambridge in 1655, followed by an edition of the Data in
1657. His Lectiones Opticæ, the first lectures delivered on the Lucasian
foundation, were printed in 1669, and attracted the following
commendation from the eminent mathematician, James Gregory. “Mr. Barrow,
in his Optics, shows himself a most subtle geometer, so that I think him
superior to any that ever I looked upon. I long exceedingly to see his
geometrical lectures, especially because I have some notions on that
subject by me.” In this work, (we speak on the authority of Montucla,
part iv. viii.), Barrow has applied himself principally to discuss
subjects unnoticed or insufficiently explained by preceding authors.
Among these was the general problem, to determine the focus of a lens;
which, except in a few cases, as where the opposite sides of the lens
are similar, and the incident rays of light parallel to the axis, had
hitherto been left to the practical skill and experience of the workman.
Barrow gave a complete solution of the problem, comprised in an elegant
formula which includes all cases, whether of parallel, convergent, or
divergent rays. This book, says Montucla, is a mine of curious and
interesting propositions in optics, to the solution of which geometry is
applied with peculiar elegance.

The Lectiones Geometricæ, full of profound researches into the
metaphysics of geometry, the method of tangents, and the properties of
curvilinear figures, appeared in the following year, 1670. The vast
improvements in our methods of investigation, arising out of the
invention of the fluxional or differential calculus, have cast into the
shade the labours, and in part the fame, of the early geometricians, and
have made that easy, which before was all but impossible. This work,
however, is remarkable as containing a way of determining the subtangent
of a curve, justly characterized by Montucla as being so intimately
connected with the above-named method of analysis, that it is needless
to seek in subsequent works the main principle of the differential
calculus. The inquiring reader will find a full account of it in
Montucla, or in Thomson’s History of the Royal Society, page 275. There
is an English translation of the Lectiones Geometricæ by Stone,
published in 1735. Barrow also edited the works of Archimedes, the
Conics of Apollonius, and the Spherics of Theodosius, in a very
compressed form, in 1 vol. 8vo. Lond. 1675. The treatise of Archimedes
on the Sphere and Cylinder, and the Mathematicæ Lectiones, a series of
Lucasian lectures, read in 1664 and subsequent years, were not printed
until 1683, after the author’s death. This work, or at least Kirby’s
translation, published about 1734, contains the Oration which he made
before the University on his election to the Lucasian chair. For further
detail see Ward’s Lives of the Gresham Professors.

It is however as a theologian that Barrow is best known to the present
age. Unlike his scientific writings, his theological works never can
grow obsolete, for they contain eternal truths set forth with a power of
argument, and force of eloquence, which must ever continue to command
the admiration of those who are capable of appreciating and relishing
the noblest qualities and products of the human mind. The light of
revelation shone clearly and steadily then as now; no modern discoveries
can increase or diminish its brightness; no new methods of reasoning, no
more convenient forms of notation or expression, can supersede the
sterling excellences which we have just ascribed to this great divine.
Others may rise up (they are yet to come) equal or superior to him in
these very excellences; still their fame can never detract from his; and
Barrow with his great predecessor, Hooker, will not fail to be classed
among the luminaries of the English church, and the standard authors of
the English language. Copious and majestic in his style, his sermons
were recommended by the great Lord Chatham to his great son, as
admirably adapted to imbue the public speaker with the coveted
“abundance of words” the knowledge and full command of his native
language. He himself neglected not to increase his stores from the
models of ancient eloquence; and his manuscripts, preserved in Trinity
College Library, bear testimony to the diligence with which he
transcribed the finest passages of the Greek and Latin authors,
especially Demosthenes and Chrysostom. His sermons were long, too long
it was thought by many of his hearers; but they were carefully composed,
written and rewritten again and again, and their method, argumentative
closeness, and abundant learning, show that he thought no pains too
great to bestow on the important duty of public teaching. Warburton said
that in reading Barrow’s sermons, he was obliged to think. They are
numerous, considering their nature and the comparatively short period of
the author’s clerical life. The first edition of his works, by
Archbishop Tillotson, to whom, in conjunction with his friend and
biographer Mr. Hill, Barrow left his manuscripts, contains seventy-seven
sermons on miscellaneous subjects, of which only two were printed, and
those not published, during the author’s life; together with a series of
thirty-four sermons on the Apostle’s Creed. Mr. Hughes, the late editor
of his works, has added to the former collection five more, printed for
the first time from the original MSS. in Trinity Library. We quote from
the life prefixed to that edition, the eloquent passage in which Mr.
Hughes speaks of these admirable works.

“Never, probably, was religion at a lower ebb in the British dominions,
than when that profligate Prince Charles II., who sat unawed on a throne
formed as it were out of his father’s scaffold, found the people so
wearied of puritanical hypocrisy, presbyterian mortifications, and a
thousand forms of unintelligible mysticism, that they were ready to
plunge into the opposite vices of scepticism or infidelity, and to
regard with complacency the dissolute morals of himself and his vile
associates. To denounce this wickedness in the most awful terms; to
strike at guilt with fearless aim, whether exalted in high places, or
lurking in obscure retreats; to delineate the native horrors and sad
effects of vice, to develope the charms of virtue, and inspire a love of
it in the human heart; in short, to assist in building up the fallen
buttresses and broken pillars of God’s church upon earth, was the high
and holy duty to which Barrow was called.”

Besides his sermons, Barrow wrote a shorter Exposition of the Creed, an
Exposition of the Decalogue, an Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, and a
short account of the doctrine of the Sacraments. These were composed in
1669, the year in which the Lectiones Opticæ were published, in
obedience to some college regulation, and, Mr. Hughes conjectures, as
exercises for a college preachership. Barrow says, in a letter, that
they so took up his thoughts, that he could not easily apply them to any
other matter. His great work on the Pope’s Supremacy was not composed
till 1676. The pains which he took with it were immense; and we are told
by the same authority that “the state of his MS. in Trinity Library
shows that probably no piece was ever composed more studiously, digested
more carefully, or supported by more numerous and powerful authorities.”
Barrow states in this work the several positions, on which the Romanists
ground their claim on behalf of the Bishop of Rome, for universal
supremacy over the Christian church. These he divides into seven heads,
which he proceeds severally and successively to refute. “This treatise,”
says Dr. Tillotson, in his preface to it, “he gave to me on his
death-bed, with the character that he hoped it was indifferent perfect,
though not altogether as he had intended it, if God had granted him
longer life. He designed indeed to have transcribed it again, and to
have filled up those many spaces which were purposely left in it for the
farther confirmation and illustration of several things, by more
testimonies and instances which he had in his thoughts. And it would
certainly have added much to the beauty and perfection of this work, had
it pleased God that he had lived to finish it to his mind, and to have
given it his last hand. However, as it is, it is not only a just, but an
admirable discourse on this subject, which many others have handled
before, but he hath exhausted it; insomuch that no argument of moment,
nay, hardly any consideration properly belonging to it, hath escaped his
large and comprehensive mind. He hath said enough to silence the
controversy for ever, and to deter all wise men of both sides from
meddling any further with it.” Appended to this treatise on the
Supremacy of the Pope, is a discourse on the Unity of the Church.

We conclude with a few scattered notices of the character and person of
this excellent man. His habits, it will readily be supposed, were very
laborious. Dr. Pope, in his Life of Bishop Ward, says that during winter
Barrow would rise before light, being never without a tinder-box, and
that he has known him frequently rise after his first sleep, light and
burn out his candle, and then return to bed before day. In pecuniary
affairs he was generous in the extreme. Of his liberality to his college
we have already spoken. We may add that, being appointed to two
ecclesiastical preferments, he bestowed the profits of both in charity,
and resigned them as soon as he became master of Trinity. He left no
property but books and unpublished manuscripts. Pure in his morals, he
was the farthest possible from moroseness; amiable, lively, and witty in
his temper and conversation, he was impatient of any looseness,
irreverence, or censoriousness of speech, “being of all men,” says Dr.
Tillotson, in his Address to the Reader, “I ever had the happiness to
know, the clearest of this common guilt, and most free from offending in
word; coming as near as it is possible for human frailty to do, to the
perfect idea of St. James, his _perfect man_.”

His figure was low and spare, but of uncommon strength; and his courage,
devoid of all alloy of quarrelsomeness, was approved in more than one
instance related by the biographers of his peaceful life. It was among
his peculiarities that he never would sit for his portrait; but some of
his friends found means to have it taken without his knowledge, while
they engaged his attention in discourse. There is a full length of him
in the hall of Trinity, in fit conjunction with those of Newton and
Bacon.

The earliest authority for Barrow’s life is a short memoir by his friend
and executor, Mr. Hill, prefixed to the first edition of his works. Mr.
Ward added some particulars, in his Lives of the Gresham Professors. The
fullest accounts are to be found in the second edition of the Biographia
Britannica, and in the life prefixed to Mr. Hughes’s edition of his
theological works. In this the editor has given an analysis of the
contents of each piece, calculated to assist the student to a thorough
understanding of the author’s train of argument.

[Illustration: Monument of Barrow in Westminster Abbey.]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by W. Hopwood._

  D’ALEMBERT.

  _From the original Picture by De la Tour
  in the Collection of the Institute of France._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                              D’ALEMBERT.


Jean le Rond D’alembert, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of
the last century, owed none of his eminence to the accidents of birth or
fortune. Even to a name he had no legal title; he derived the one half
of that which he bore from the church of St. Jean le Rond in Paris, near
which he was exposed; and the other probably from his foster-mother, a
glazier’s wife, to whose care he was intrusted by a commissary of
police, who found him. It is conjectured that both the exposure and the
adoption of the infant were preconcerted; for a short time the father
appeared, and settled on him a yearly pension of twelve hundred francs,
equivalent to about £50.

Owing to these circumstances the date of D’Alembert’s birth is not
exactly known; it is said to have been the 16th or 17th of November,
1717. He commenced his studies at the Collège des Quatre Nations when
twelve years old. Mathematics and poetry seem to have been his favourite
pursuits, since his instructors, he says, endeavoured to turn him from
them; making it a charge against the former, that they dried up the
heart, and recommending that his study of the latter should be confined
to the poem of St. Prosper upon Grace. He was permitted, however, to
study the rudiments of mathematics: and we may infer that he was little
indebted either to books or teachers, from the mortification which he
felt somewhat later in life, at finding that he had been anticipated in
many things which he had believed to be discoveries of his own. He
meant, at one time, to follow the profession of the law, and proceeded
so far as to be admitted an advocate. Finding this not to his taste, he
tried medicine; and, resolute in good intentions, sent his mathematical
books to a friend, to be retained till he had taken his doctor’s degree.
But he reclaimed book after book on various pretexts, and finally
determined to content himself with his annuity of fifty pounds, and
liberty to devote his whole time to the scientific pursuits which he
loved so much. His mode of life at this period has been described by
himself:—“He awoke,” he says, “every morning, thinking with pleasure on
the studies of the preceding evening, and on the prospect of continuing
them during the day. When his thoughts were called off for a moment,
they turned to the satisfaction he should have at the play in the
evening, and between the acts of the piece he meditated on the pleasures
of the next morning’s study.”

The history of D’Alembert’s life is soon told. Some memoirs written in
1739 and 1740, and some corrections which he made in the Analyse
Démontrée of Reynau, a work then much esteemed in France, obtained for
him an entrance into the Académie des Sciences in 1741, at the early age
of twenty-four. Simple in his habits, careless of his own advancement,
or of the favours of great men, he refused several advantageous offers,
which would have withdrawn him from the society of Paris, and from the
libraries and other literary advantages of that great metropolis.
Frederic II. of Prussia sought to tempt him to Berlin in 1752, and again
in 1759. The invitation was again repeated and urged upon him in 1759
and 1763; and on the last occasion the King assured D’Alembert that, in
rejecting it, he had made the only false calculation of his whole life.
In 1762 Catharine of Russia wished him to undertake the education of her
son, and endeavoured to overcome his reluctance to leave Paris, by
promising him an income of ten thousand francs, and a kind reception to
as many of his friends as would accompany him. “I know,” she said, “that
your refusal arises from your desire to cultivate your studies and your
friendships in quiet. But this is of no consequence: bring all your
friends with you, and I promise you that both you and they shall have
every accommodation in my power.” But his income had been rendered
sufficient for his wants by a pension of twelve hundred francs from the
King of Prussia, and an equal sum from the French Government; and he
declined to profit by any of these liberal offers.

It is to D’Alembert’s honour that, until the end of her life, he repaid
the services of his foster-mother with filial attention and love. It is
said that when his name became famous, his mother, Mademoiselle de
Tencin, a lady of rank and wit, and known in the literary circles of the
day, sent for him, and acquainted him with the relationship which
existed between them. His well-merited reply was, “You are only my
step-mother, the glazier’s wife is my mother.” He lived unmarried, but
the latter years of his life were overcast in consequence of a singular
and unfortunate attachment to a M^{lle.} de l’Espinasse, a young lady of
talent, whose society was much courted by the literary men of Paris. She
professed to return this attachment; insomuch that when D’Alembert was
attacked by a severe illness in 1765, she insisted on becoming his
nurse, and after his recovery took up her abode under his roof. The
connexion is said to have been purely Platonic; and this, it has been
observed, _may_ be believed, because, had the fact been different, there
was little reason for concealing it, according to the code of morals
which then regulated Parisian society. But the lady proved fickle; and
worse than fickle, for she treated D’Alembert, who still retained his
affection for her, with contempt and unkindness. Yet this ill usage did
not alienate his regard. Upon her death he fell into a state of profound
melancholy, from which he never entirely recovered. He died October 29,
1783. Not having conformed, on his death-bed, to the requisitions of the
Roman church, some difficulty was experienced in procuring the rites of
burial; and in consequence his interment was strictly private.

In his personal character D’Alembert was simple, benevolent, warm in his
attachments, a sworn foe to servility and adulation, and no follower of
great men. This temper stood in the way of his progress to riches. It
was his maxim, that a man should be very careful in his writings,
careful enough in his actions, and moderately careful in his words; and
the latter clause was probably that which he best observed. In more than
one instance his plain drollery gave offence to persons of influence at
court, and frustrated the exertions of his friends to improve his
fortunes. Fortunately he united simple tastes with an independent,
fearless, and benevolent mind; and it is said that he gave away one half
of his income, when it did not amount to £350. His own account of his
own character, written in the third person, runs in the following terms,
and is confirmed by the testimony of his friends:—“Devoted to study and
privacy till the age of twenty-five, he entered late into the world, and
was never much pleased with it. He could never bend himself to learn its
usages and language, and perhaps even indulged a sort of petty vanity in
despising them. He is never rude, because he is neither brutal nor
severe; but he is sometimes blunt, through inattention or ignorance.
Compliments embarrass him, because he never can find a suitable answer
immediately; when he says flattering things, it is always because he
thinks them. The basis of his character is frankness and truth, often
rather blunt, but never disgusting. He is impatient and angry, even to
violence, when any thing goes wrong, but it all evaporates in words. He
is soon satisfied and easily governed, provided he does not see what you
aim at; for his love of independence amounts to fanaticism, so that he
often denies himself things which would be agreeable to him, because he
is afraid that they would put him under some restraint; which makes some
of his friends call him, justly enough, the slave of his liberty.” In
his religious opinions D’Alembert was, in the true meaning of the word,
a sceptic, and his name has obtained an unenviable notoriety as
co-editor, with Diderot, of the celebrated Encyclopédie. His
superintendence, however, extended only to the end of the second volume,
after which the work was stopped by the French Government; and on its
resumption D’Alembert confined himself strictly to the mathematical
department. In one respect his conduct may be advantageously contrasted
with that of some of his colleagues; he intruded his own opinions on no
man, and he took no pleasure in shocking others, by insulting what they
hold sacred. “I knew D’Alembert,” says La Harpe, “well enough to say
that he was sceptical in every thing but mathematics. He would no more
have said positively that there was no religion, than that there was a
God; he only thought that the probabilities were in favour of theism,
and against revelation. On this subject he tolerated all opinions: and
this disposition made him think the intolerant arrogance of the Atheists
odious and unbearable. I do not think that he ever printed a sentence,
which marks either hatred or contempt of religion.”

We proceed to mention the most remarkable of D’Alembert’s mathematical
works. He published in 1743 a treatise on Dynamics, in which he
enunciated the law now known under the name of D’Alembert’s principle,
one of the most valuable of modern contributions to mechanical science.
In the following year appeared a treatise on the Equilibrium and Motion
of Fluids; and in 1746, Reflections on the general Causes of Winds,
which obtained the prize of the Academy of Berlin. This work is
remarkable as the first which contained the general equations of the
motion of fluids, as well as the first announcement and use of the
calculus of partial differences. We may add to the list of his
discoveries, the analytical solutions of the problem of vibrating
chords, and the motion of a column of air; of the precession of the
equinoxes, and the nutation of the earth’s axis, the phenomenon itself
having been recently observed by Bradley. In 1752 he completed his
researches into fluids, by an Essay on the Resistance of Fluids. We have
to add to the list his Essay on the Problem of Three Bodies, as it is
called by astronomers, an investigation of the law by which three bodies
mutually gravitating affect each other; and Researches on various points
connected with the system of the Universe: the former published in 1747,
and the latter in 1754–6. His Opuscules, or minor pieces, were collected
in eight volumes, towards the end of his life.

Of his connexion with the Encyclopédie, we have already spoken. He is
said to be singularly clear and happy in his expositions of the
metaphysical difficulties of abstract science. He is also honourably
known in less abstruse departments of literature by his Mélanges de
Philosophie, Memoirs of Christina of Sweden, Essay on the Servility of
Men of Letters to the Great, Elements of Philosophy, and a work on the
Destruction of the Jesuits. On his election to the office of perpetual
Secretary to the Academy, he wrote the Eloges of the members deceased
from 1700 up to that date. His works and correspondence were collected
and published in eighteen volumes 8vo. Paris, 1805, by M. Bastien, to
whose first volume we refer the reader for complete information on this
subject.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

                                HOGARTH.


“I was born,” says Hogarth in his Memoirs of himself, “in the city of
London, November 10, 1697. My father’s pen, like that of many authors,
did not enable him to do more than put me in a way of shifting for
myself. As I had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, shows
of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant; and mimicry,
common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a
neighbouring painter drew my attention from play; and I was, at every
possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up an
acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learnt to draw the alphabet with
great correctness. My exercises when at school were more remarkable for
the ornaments which adorned them, than for the exercise itself. In the
former I soon found that blockheads with better memories could much
surpass me; but for the latter I was particularly distinguished.”

To this account of Hogarth’s childhood we have only to add, that his
father, an enthusiastic and laborious scholar, who like many of his
craft owed little to the favour of fortune, consulted these indications
of talent as well as his means would allow, and bound his son apprentice
to a silver-plate engraver. But Hogarth aspired after something higher
than drawing cyphers and coats-of-arms; and before the expiration of his
indentures he had made himself a good draughtsman, and obtained
considerable knowledge of colouring. It was his ambition to become
distinguished as an artist; and not content with being the mere copier
of other men’s productions, he sought to combine the functions of the
painter with those of the engraver, and to gain the power of delineating
his own ideas, and the fruits of his acute observation. He has himself
explained the nature of his views in a passage which is worth attention.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Mollison._

  HOGARTH.

  _From the original Picture by Himself
  in the National Gallery._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

“Many reasons led me to wish that I could find the shorter path,—fix
forms and characters in my mind,—and instead of copying the lines try to
read the language, and, if possible, find the grammar of the art by
bringing into one focus the various observations I had made, and then
trying by my power on the canvass how far my plan enabled me to combine
and apply them to practice. For this purpose I considered what various
ways, and to what different purposes, the memory might be applied; and
fell upon one most suitable to my situation and idle disposition; laying
it down first as an axiom, that he who could by any means acquire and
retain in his memory perfect ideas of the subjects he meant to draw,
would have as clear a knowledge of the figure as a man who can write
freely hath of the twenty-five letters of the alphabet and their
infinite combinations.” Acting on these principles, he improved by
constant exercise his natural powers of observation and recollection. In
his rambles among the motley scenes of London he was ever on the watch
for striking features or incidents; and not trusting entirely to memory,
he was accustomed, when any face struck him as peculiarly grotesque or
expressive, to sketch it on his thumb-nail, to be treasured up on paper
at his return home.

For some time after the expiration of his apprenticeship, Hogarth
continued to practise the trade to which he was bred; and his
shop-bills, coats-of-arms, engravings upon tankards, &c., have been
collected with an eagerness quite disproportionate to their value. Soon
he procured employment in furnishing frontispieces and designs for the
booksellers. The most remarkable of these are the plates to an edition
of Hudibras, published in 1726: but even these are of no distinguished
merit. About 1728 he began to seek employment as a portrait painter.
Most of his performances were small family pictures, containing several
figures, which he calls “Conversation Pieces,” from twelve to fifteen
inches high. These for a time were very popular, and his practice was
considerable, as his price was low. His life-size portraits are few; the
most remarkable are that of Captain Coram in the Foundling Hospital, and
that of Garrick as King Richard III. But his practice as a portrait
painter was not lucrative, nor his popularity lasting. Although many of
his likenesses were strong and characteristic, in the representation of
beauty, elegance, and high-breeding, he was little skilled. The nature
of the artist was as uncourtly as his pencil; he despised, or affected
to despise, what is called embellishment, forgetting that every great
painter of portraits has founded his success upon his power of giving to
an object the most favourable representation of which it is susceptible.
When Hogarth obtained employment and eminence of another sort, he
abandoned portrait painting, with a growl at the jealousy of his
professional brethren, and the vanity and blindness of the public.

March 23, 1729, Hogarth contracted a stolen marriage with the only
daughter of the once fashionable painter, Sir James Thornhill. The
father, for some time implacable, relented at last; and the
reconciliation, it is said, was much forwarded by his admiration of the
“Harlot’s Progress,” a series of six prints, commenced in 1731, and
published in 1734. The novelty as well as merit of this series of prints
won for them extraordinary popularity; and their success encouraged
Hogarth to undertake a similar history of the “Rake’s Progress,” in
eight prints, which appeared in 1735. The third, and perhaps the most
popular, as it is the least objectionable of these pictorial novels,
“Marriage Alamode,” was not engraved till 1745.

The merits of these prints were sufficiently intelligible to the public:
their originality and boldness of design, the force and freedom of their
execution, rough as it is, won for them an extensive popularity and a
rapid and continued sale. The Harlot’s Progress was the most eminently
successful, from its novelty rather than from its superior excellence.
Twelve hundred subscribers’ names were entered for it; it was dramatized
in several forms; and we may note, in illustration of the difference of
past and present manners, that fan-mounts were engraved, containing
miniature copies of the six plates. The merits of the pictures were less
obvious to the few who could afford to spend large sums on works of art;
and Hogarth, too proud to let them go for prices much below the value
which he put upon them, waited for a long time, and waited in vain, for
a purchaser. At last he determined to commit them to public sale; but
instead of the common method of auction, he devised a new and complex
plan, with the intention of excluding picture-dealers, and obliging men
of rank and wealth, who wished to purchase, to judge and bid for
themselves. The scheme failed, as might have been expected. Nineteen of
Hogarth’s best pictures, the Harlot’s Progress, the Rake’s Progress, the
Four Times of the Day, and Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn,
produced only 427_l._ 7_s._, not averaging 22_l._ 10_s._ each. The
Harlot’s Progress was purchased by Mr. Beckford, at the rate of fourteen
guineas a picture; five of the series perished in the fire at Fonthill.
The Rake’s Progress averaged twenty-two guineas a picture; it has passed
into the possession of Sir John Soane, at the advanced price of five
hundred and seventy guineas. The same eminent architect became the
proprietor of the four pictures of an Election, for the sum of 1732_l._
Marriage Alamode was disposed of in a similar way in 1750; and on the
day of sale one bidder appeared, who became master of the six pictures,
together with their frames, for 115_l._ 10_s._ Mr. Angerstein purchased
them, in 1797, for 1381_l._, and they now form a striking feature in our
National Gallery.

The number and variety of Hogarth’s moral and satiric works preclude our
naming any but the more remarkable. To those already mentioned we would
add the March to Finchley, Southwark Fair, the Distressed Poet, the
Enraged Musician, Modern Midnight Conversation, Gin Lane and Beer
Street, the four prints of an Election, and two entitled “The Times,”
which would hardly require notice, except for having produced a
memorable quarrel between himself on one side, and Wilkes and Churchill
on the other. The satire of the first, published in 1762, was directed,
not against Wilkes himself, but his political friends, Pitt and Temple;
nor is it so biting as to have required Wilkes, in defence of his party,
to retaliate upon one with whom he had lived in familiar and friendly
intercourse. He did so, however, in a number of the North Briton,
containing not only abuse of the artist, but unjust and injurious
mention of his wife. Hogarth was deeply wounded by this attack, and he
retorted by the well-known portrait—it ought not to be called a
caricature—of Wilkes with the cap of liberty. “I wished,” he says, “to
return the compliment, and turn it to some advantage. The renowned
patriot’s portrait, drawn as like as I could, as to features, and marked
with some indications of his mind, answered every purpose. A Brutus, a
saviour of his country, with such an aspect, was so arrant a farce, that
though it gave rise to much laughter in the lookers-on, it galled both
him and his adherents. This was proved by the papers being crammed every
day with invectives against the artist, till the town grew sick of thus
seeing me always at full length. Churchill, Wilkes’s toad-eater, put the
North Briton into verse in an epistle to Hogarth; but as the abuse was
precisely the same, except a little poetical heightening, it made no
impression, but perhaps effaced or weakened the black strokes of the
North Briton. However, having an old plate by me, with some parts ready
sunk, as the back-ground and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn
so much work laid aside to some account; and so patched up a print of
Master Churchill in the character of a bear.” The quarrel was unworthy
of the talents either of the painter or poet. “Never,” says Walpole,
“did two angry men of their abilities throw dirt with less dexterity.”
It is the more to be regretted, because its effects, as he himself
intimates, were injurious to Hogarth’s declining health. The summer of
1764 he spent at Chiswick, and the free air and exercise worked a
partial renovation of his strength. The amendment, however, was but
temporary; and he died suddenly, October 26, the day after his return to
his London residence in Leicester Square.

If we have dwelt little upon Hogarth’s merits in his peculiar style of
art, it is still less necessary to say much concerning his historical
pictures. Of their merits he himself formed a high and most exaggerated
estimate, not hesitating to give out that nothing but envy and ignorance
prevented his own pictures from commanding as much admiration, and as
high prices, as the most esteemed productions of foreign masters.
Posterity has confirmed the judgment of his contemporaries, and
Hogarth’s serious compositions are very generally forgotten. The only
one which merits to be excepted from this observation is his Sigismunda,
painted in 1759, in competition with the well-known and beautiful
picture, ascribed by some to Correggio, by others to Furino. Our
painter’s vanity and plain dealing had raised up a host of enemies
against him among painters, picture-dealers, and connoisseurs; and all
whose self-love he had wounded, or whose tricks he had denounced,
eagerly seized this opportunity to vent their anger in retaliation. The
picture is well known, both by engravings and by Walpole’s severe
criticism. We abstain from quoting it: we have passed lightly over a
great artist’s excellences, and it would be unfair to expatiate on his
defects and errors. Besides this, Hogarth’s chief historical works are
the Pool of Bethesda and the Good Samaritan, executed in 1736 as a
specimen of his powers, and presented to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital;
Paul before Felix, painted for the Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, in 1749; and
Moses brought before Pharaoh’s daughter, painted in 1752, and presented
to the Foundling Hospital.

Hogarth was not a mere painter: he used the pen as well as the pencil,
and aspired to teach as well as to exercise his art. He has left a
memoir of his own life, which contains some curious and interesting and
instructive matter concerning his own modes and motives of thought and
action. He wrote verses occasionally in a rough and familiar style, but
not without some sparkles of his humorous turn. But his most remarkable
performance is the “Analysis of Beauty,” composed with the ambitious
view of fixing the principles of taste, and laying down unerring
directions for the student of art. Its leading principle is, that the
serpentine line is the foundation of all that is beautiful, whether in
nature or art. To the universality of this assertion we should be
inclined to demur; Nature works by contrast, and loves to unite the
abrupt and angular with the flowing and graceful, in one harmonious
whole. The work, however, unquestionably contains much that was original
and valuable. But when it was found that Hogarth, a man unpolished in
conversation, not regularly trained either to the use of the pen or the
pencil, and, above all, a profound despiser of academics, of portrait
painters, and of almost all things conventionally admired, had written a
book professing to teach the principles of art, the storm of criticism
which fell upon him was hot and furious. It was discovered that Hogarth
was not the author of the book, that the principle was false and
ridiculous, and that every body had been in possession of it long
before. The last objection, certainly, is so far true, that every one
instinctively must feel a line of easy curvature to be more graceful
than one of abrupt and angular flexure. But the merit of first
enunciating this as a rule of art belongs to Hogarth; and it is recorded
to have been the opinion of West, uttered after the author’s death, that
the Analysis is a work of the highest value to the student of art, and
that, examined after personal enmity and prejudice were laid to sleep,
it would be more and more read, studied, and understood. We doubt
whether this judgment of the President is altogether sanctioned by the
practice of the present day; but time, without altogether establishing
the author’s theory, has at least laid asleep the malicious whispers
which denied to Hogarth the merit of it, whatever that may be.

In the executive part of his art, either as painter or engraver, Hogarth
did not attain to first-rate excellence. His engravings are spirited,
but rough; but they have the peculiar merit (one far above mechanical
delicacy and correctness of execution) of representing accurately, by a
few bold touches, the varied incidents and expression which he was so
acute and diligent in observing. A faithful copier, his works are
invaluable as records of the costume and spirit of the time; and they
preserve a number of minute illustrative circumstances, which his
biographers and annotators have laboured to explain, with the precision
used by critics in commenting upon Aristophanes. Wit and humour are
abundant in all of them, even in accessories apparently insignificant;
and they require to be studied before half the matter condensed in them
can be perceived and apprehended. “It is worthy of observation,” says
Mr. Lamb, “that Hogarth has seldom drawn a mean or insignificant
countenance.” This is so far true, that there are few of his faces which
do not contribute to the general effect. Mean and insignificant in the
common sense of the words they often are, and the fastidious observer
will find much to overcome in the general want of pleasing objects in
his compositions. But the vacancy or expression, the coarseness or
refinement of the countenance, are alike subservient to convey a meaning
or a moral; and in this sense it may justly be said, that few of
Hogarth’s faces are insignificant. Through the more important of his
works, a depth and unity of purpose prevails, which sometimes rises into
high tragic effect, the more striking from the total absence of
conventional objects of dignity, as in the two last plates of the
“Rake’s Progress.” “Gin Lane” has been included by Mr. Lamb in the same
praise, and its power cannot be denied; but it contains too much that is
purely disgusting, mixed with much that is in the nature of caricature,
to be a general favourite.

The nationality of Hogarth’s prints has given to them a more lasting and
extensive popularity than any class of engravings has ever enjoyed. Not
to mention the large impressions from the original plates, which were
touched and retouched again and again, they have been frequently
engraved on a smaller scale, accompanied with an historical and
descriptive text; and there is scarcely a library of any pretensions
which has not a “Hogarth Illustrated,” in some shape or other, upon its
shelves. Of these works, the first was Dr. Trusler’s “Hogarth
Moralized,” republished lately in a very elegant shape; the most
complete is the quarto edition of Hogarth’s works, by Nichols and
Stevens. There is a long and valuable memoir of the artist in Rees’s
“Cyclopædia,” by Mr. Phillips, R.A., and an extended life by Allan
Cunningham in the “Family Library.” The works of Walpole, Gilpin,
Hazlitt, and others, will furnish much of acute criticism; and we
especially recommend the perusal of an Essay by Charles Lamb on the
“Genius and Character of Hogarth,” published originally in the
“Reflector,” No. 3. It is chiefly occupied by a minute criticism upon
the “Rake’s Progress,” and though, in our opinion, somewhat partial and
excessive in praise, is admirably calculated to show the reader in what
spirit the moral works of Hogarth should be studied.

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._

  GALILEO.

  _From a picture by Ramsay
  in Trinity College, Cambridge._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                GALILEO.


The great Tuscan astronomer is best known as the first telescopic
observer, the fortunate discoverer of the Medicean stars (so Jupiter’s
satellites were first named): and what discovery more fitted to
immortalize its author, than one which revealed new worlds, and thus
gave additional force to the lesson, that the universe, of which we form
so small a part, was not created only for our use or pleasure! Those,
however, who consider Galileo only as a fortunate observer, form a very
inadequate estimate of one of the most meritorious and successful of
those great men who have bestowed their time for the advantage of
mankind in tracing out the hidden things of nature.

Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa, February 15, 1564. In childhood he
displayed considerable mechanical ingenuity, with a decided taste for
the accomplishments of music and painting. His father formed a just
estimate of his talents, and at some inconvenience entered him, when
nineteen years old, at the university of his native town, intending that
he should pursue the medical profession. Galileo was then entirely
ignorant of mathematics; and he was led to the study of geometry by a
desire thoroughly to understand the principles of his favourite arts.
This new pursuit proved so congenial to his taste, that from
thenceforward his medical books were entirely neglected. The elder
Galilei, a man of liberal acquirements and enlarged mind, did not
require the devotion of his son’s life to a distasteful pursuit.
Fortunately the young man’s talents attracted notice, and in 1589 he was
appointed mathematical lecturer in the University of Pisa. There is
reason to believe that, at an early period of his studentship, he
embraced, upon inquiry and conviction, the doctrines of Copernicus, of
which through life he was an ardent supporter.

Galileo and his colleagues did not long remain on good terms. The latter
were content with the superstructure which _à priori_ reasoners had
raised upon Aristotle, and were by no means desirous of the trouble of
learning more. Galileo chose to investigate physical truths for himself;
he engaged in experiments to determine the truth of some of Aristotle’s
positions, and when he found him in the wrong, he said so, and so taught
his pupils. This made the “paper philosophers,” as he calls them, very
angry. He repeated his experiments in their presence; but they set aside
the evidence of their senses, and quoted Aristotle as much as before.
The enmity arising from these disputes rendered his situation so
unpleasant, that, in 1592, at the invitation of the Venetian
commonwealth, he gladly accepted the professorship of mathematics at
Padua. The period of his appointment being only six years, he was
re-elected in 1598, and again in 1606, each time with an increase of
salary; a strong proof of the esteem in which he was held, even before
those astronomical discoveries which have immortalized his name. His
lectures at this period were so fully attended, that he was sometimes
obliged to adjourn them to the open air. In 1609 he received an
invitation to return to his original situation at Pisa. This produced a
letter, still extant, from which we quote a catalogue of the
undertakings on which he was already employed. “The works which I have
to finish are principally two books on the ‘System or Structure of the
Universe,’ an immense work, full of philosophy, astronomy, and geometry;
three books on ‘Local Motion,’ a science entirely new, no one, either
ancient or modern, having discovered any of the very many admirable
accidents which I demonstrate in natural and violent motions, so that I
may, with very great reason, call it a new science, and invented by me
from its very first principles; three books of mechanics, two on the
demonstration of principles, and one of problems; and although others
have treated this same matter, yet all that has been hitherto written,
neither in quantity nor otherwise, is the quarter of what I am writing
on it. I have also different treatises on natural subjects—on Sound and
Speech, on Light and Colours, on the Tides, on the Composition of
Continuous Quantity, on the Motions of Animals, and others besides. I
have also an idea of writing some books relating to the military art,
giving not only a model of a soldier, but teaching with very exact rules
every thing which it is his duty to know, that depends upon mathematics,
as the knowledge of castrametation, drawing up of battalions,
fortification, assaults, planning, surveying, the knowledge of
artillery, the use of instruments, &c.” Out of this comprehensive list,
the treatises on the universe, on motion and mechanics, on tides, on
fortification, or other works upon the same subjects, have been made
known to the world. Many, however, of Galileo’s manuscripts, through
fear of the Inquisition, were destroyed, or concealed and lost, after
the author’s death.

In the same year, 1609, Galileo heard the report, that a spectacle-maker
of Middleburg, in Holland, had made an instrument by which distant
objects appeared nearer. He tasked his ingenuity to discover the
construction, and soon succeeded in manufacturing a telescope. His
telescope, however, seems to have been made on a different construction
from that of the Dutch optician. It consisted of a convex and concave
glass, distant from each other by the difference of their focal lengths,
like a modern opera-glass; while there is reason to believe that the
other was made up of two convex lenses, distant by the sum of their
focal lengths, the common construction of the astronomical telescope.
Galileo’s attention naturally was first turned to the moon. He
discovered that her surface, instead of being smooth and perfectly
spherical, was rough with mountains, and apparently varied, like the
earth, by land and water. He next applied to Jupiter, and was struck by
the appearance of three small stars, almost in a straight line, and
close to him. At first he did not suspect the nature of these bodies;
but careful observation soon convinced him that these three, together
with a fourth, which was at first invisible, were in reality four moons
revolving round their primary planet. These he named the Medicean stars.
They have long ceased to be known by that name; but so highly prized was
the distinction thus conferred upon the ducal house of Florence, that
Galileo received an intimation, that he would “do a thing just and
proper in itself, and at the same time render himself and his family
rich and powerful for ever,” if he “named the next star which he should
discover after the name of the great star of France, as well as the most
brilliant of all the earth,” Henry IV. These discoveries were made known
in 1610, in a work entitled “Nuncius Sidereus,” the Newsman of the
Stars: in which Galileo farther announced that he had seen many stars
invisible to the naked eye, and ascertained that the nebulæ scattered
through the heavens consist of assemblages of innumerable small stars.
The ignorant and unprejudiced were struck with admiration; indeed,
curiosity had been raised so high before the publication of this book,
as materially to interfere with the convenience of those who possessed
telescopes. Galileo was employed a month in exhibiting his own to the
principal persons in Venice; and one unfortunate astronomer was
surrounded by a crowd who kept him in durance for several hours, while
they passed his glass from one to another. He left Venice the next
morning, to pursue his inquiries in some less inquisitive place. But the
great bulk of the philosophers of the day were far from joining in the
general feeling. They raised an outcry against the impudent fictions of
Galileo, and one, a professor of Padua, refused repeatedly to look
through the telescope, lest he should be compelled to admit that which
he had predetermined to deny. In the midst of this prejudice and envy,
Kepler formed a brilliant exception. He received those great discoveries
with wonder and delight, though they overturned some cherished theories,
and manifested an honest and zealous indignation against the traducers
of Galileo’s fame.

In particular his wrath broke out against a _protégé_ of his own, named
Horky; who, under the mistaken notion of gaining credit with his patron,
wrote a violent attack on Galileo, and asserted, among other things,
that he had examined the heavens with Galileo’s own glass, and that no
such thing as a satellite existed near Jupiter. The conclusion of the
affair is curious and characteristic. Horky begged so hard to be
forgiven, that, says Kepler, “I have taken him again into favour, upon
this preliminary condition, to which he has agreed,—that I am to show
him Jupiter’s satellites, _and he is to see them, and to own that they
are there_.”

It was not long before Galileo had new, and equally important matter to
announce. He observed a remarkable appearance in Saturn, as if it were
composed of three stars touching each other; his telescope was not
sufficiently powerful to resolve into them Saturn and his ring. Within a
month he ascertained that Venus exhibits phases like those of the
moon,—a discovery of great importance in confirming the Copernican
system. The same phenomenon he afterwards detected in Mars. We close the
list with the discovery of the revolution of the sun round his axis, in
the space of about a lunar month, derived from careful observation of
the spots on his surface.

About this time (1610–11) Galileo took up his abode in Tuscany, upon the
invitation of the Grand Duke, who offered to him his original situation
at Pisa, with a liberal salary, exemption from the necessity of
residence, and complete leisure to pursue his studies. In 1612 he
published a discourse on Floating Bodies, in which he investigates the
theory of buoyancy, and refutes, by a series of beautiful and conclusive
experiments, the opinion that the floating or sinking of bodies depends
on their shape.

Neither Copernicus nor his immediate followers suffered inconvenience or
restraint on account of their astronomical doctrines: nor had Galileo,
until this period of his life, incurred ecclesiastical censure for any
thing which he had said or written. But the Inquisition now took up the
matter as heretical, and contrary to the express words of Scripture; and
in 1616, Copernicus’s work ‘De Revolutionibus,’ Kepler’s Epitome, and
some of Galileo’s own letters, were placed on the list of prohibited
books; and he himself, being then in Rome, received formal notice not to
teach that the earth revolves round the sun. He returned to Florence
full of indignation; and considering his hasty temper, love of truth,
and full belief of the condemned theory, it is rather wonderful that he
kept silence so long, than that he incurred at last the censures of the
hierarchy. He did, however, restrain himself from any open advocacy of
the heretical doctrines, even in composing his great work, the ‘Dialogue
on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems.’ This was completed in 1630,
but not printed till 1632, under licence from officers of the church,
both at Rome and Florence. It is a dialogue between Simplicio, an
Aristotelian, Salviati, who represents the author, and Sagredo, a half
convert to Salviati’s opinions. It professes “indeterminately to propose
the philosophical arguments, as well on one side as on the other:” but
the neutrality is but ill kept up, and was probably assumed, not with
any hope that the court of Rome would be blinded as to the real tendency
of the book, but merely that it would accept this nominal submission as
a sufficient homage to its authority. If this were so, the author was
disappointed; the Inquisition took cognizance of the matter, and
summoned him to Rome to undergo a personal examination. Age and
infirmity were in vain pleaded as excuses; still, through the urgent and
indignant remonstrances of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he was treated
with a consideration rarely shown by that iniquitous tribunal. He was
allowed to remain at the Florentine ambassador’s palace, with the
exception of a short period, from his arrival in February, until the
passing of sentence, June 21, 1633. He was then condemned, in the
presence of the Inquisitors, to curse and abjure the “false doctrines,”
which his life had been spent in proving; to be confined in the prison
of the Holy Office during pleasure, and to recite the seven penitential
psalms once a week during three years. The sentence and the abjuration
are given at full length in the Life of Galileo, in the ‘Library of
Useful Knowledge.’ “It is said,” continues the biographer, “that
Galileo, as he rose from his knees, stamped on the ground, and whispered
to one of his friends, ‘_e pur si muove_,’ (it does move though.”)

Galileo’s imprisonment was not long or rigorous; for after four days he
was reconducted to the Florentine ambassador’s palace: but he was still
kept under strict surveillance. In July he was sent to Sienna, where he
remained five months in strict seclusion. He obtained permission in
December to return to his villa at Arcetri, near Florence: but there, as
at Sienna, he was confined to his own premises, and strictly forbidden
to receive his friends. It is painful to contemplate the variety of
evils which overcast the evening of this great man’s life. In addition
to a distressing chronic complaint, contracted in youth, he was now
suffering under a painful infirmity which by some is said to have been
produced by torture, applied in the prisons of the Inquisition to extort
a recantation. But the arguments brought forward to show that the
Inquisitors did resort to this extremity do not amount to anything like
direct proof. In April, 1634, Galileo’s afflictions were increased by
the death of a favourite, intelligent, and attached daughter. He
consoled his solitude, and lightened the hours of sickness, by
continuing the observations which he was now forbidden to publish to the
world; and the last of his long train of discoveries was the phenomenon
known by the name of the moon’s libration. In the course of 1636–7 he
lost successively the sight of both his eyes. He mentions this calamity
in a tone of pious submission, mingled with a not unpleasing pride.
“Alas, your dear friend and servant Galileo has become totally and
irreparably blind; so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which
with wonderful observations I had enlarged a hundred and thousand times
beyond the belief of by-gone ages, henceforward for me is shrunk into
the narrow space which I myself fill in it. So it pleases God: it shall
therefore please me also.” In 1638 he obtained leave to visit Florence,
still under the same restrictions as to society; but at the end of a few
months he was remanded to Arcetri, which he never again quitted. From
that time, however, the strictness of his confinement was relaxed, and
he was allowed to receive the friends who crowded round him, as well as
the many distinguished foreigners who eagerly visited him. Among these
we must not forget Milton, whose poems contain several allusions to the
celestial wonders observed and published by the Tuscan astronomer.
Though blind and nearly deaf, Galileo retained to the last his
intellectual powers; and his friend and pupil, the celebrated
Torricelli, was employed in arranging his thoughts on the nature of
percussion, when he was attacked by his last illness. He died January 8,
1642, aged seventy-eight.

It was disputed, whether, as a prisoner of the Inquisition, Galileo had
a right to burial in consecrated ground. The point was conceded; but
Pope Urban VIII. himself interfered to prevent the erection of a
monument to him in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, for which a
large sum had been subscribed. A splendid monument now covers the spot
in which his remains repose with those of his friend and pupil, the
eminent mathematician Viviani.

In 1618, Galileo published, through the medium of Mario Guiducci, an
Essay on the Nature of Comets. His opinions (which, in fact, were
erroneous) were immediately attacked under the feigned signature of
Lotario Sarsi. To this antagonist he replied in a work entitled ‘Il
Saggiatore,’ the Assayer, which we select for mention, not so much for
the value of its contents, though, like the rest of his works, it has
many remarkable passages, as for the high reputation which it enjoys
among Italian critics as a model of philosophical composition. The
“Dialogues on Motion,” the last work of consequence which Galileo
published, contain investigations of the simpler branches of dynamics,
the motion of bodies falling freely or down inclined planes, and of
projectiles; determinations of the strength of beams, and a variety of
interesting questions in natural philosophy. The fifth and sixth are
unfinished; the latter was intended to comprise the theory of
percussion, which, as we have said, was the last subject which occupied
the author’s mind. For a full analysis of this and the other treatises
here briefly noted, and for an account of Galileo’s application of the
pendulum to the mensuration of time; his invention of the thermometer,
though in an inaccurate and inconvenient form; his methods of
discovering the longitude, and a variety of other points well worth
attention, we must refer to the Life of Galileo already quoted. The
numerous extracts from Galileo’s works convey a lively notion of the
author’s character, and are distinguished by a peculiar tone of quaint
humour. For older writers we may refer to the lives of Viviani,
Gherardini, and Nelli; and to the English one by Salusbury, of which
however the second volume is so rare that the Earl of Macclesfield’s
copy is the only one known to exist in England. Venturi has given to the
world some unpublished manuscripts, and collected much curious and
scattered information in his “Memorie e Lettere de Gal. Galilei.” Of
Galileo’s works several editions exist: the most complete are those of
Padua, in four volumes quarto, 1744, and of Milan, in thirteen volumes
octavo, 1811.

In conclusion, we quote the estimate of Galileo’s character, from the
masterly memoir from which this sketch is derived. “The numberless
inventions of his acute industry; the use of the telescope, and the
brilliant discoveries to which it led; the patient investigation of the
laws of weight and motion, must all be looked upon as forming but a part
of his real merits, as merely particular demonstrations of the spirit in
which he everywhere withstood the despotism of ignorance, and appealed
boldly from traditional opinions to the judgment of reason and common
sense. He claimed and bequeathed to us the right of exercising our
faculties in examining the beautiful creation which surrounds us.
Idolised by his friends, he deserved their affection by numberless acts
of kindness; by his good humour, his affability, and by the benevolent
generosity with which he devoted himself, and a great part of his
limited income, to advance their talents and fortunes. If an intense
desire of being useful is everywhere worthy of honour; if its value is
immeasurably increased when united to genius of the highest order; if we
feel for one, who, notwithstanding such titles to regard, is harassed by
cruel persecution, then none deserve our sympathy, our admiration, and
our gratitude, more than Galileo.”

[Illustration: [Monument to Galileo in the Church of Santa Croce at
Florence.]]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by R. Woodman._

  REMBRANDT.

  _From the original Picture by himself
  in his Majesty’s Collection._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                               REMBRANDT.


Born June 15, 1606. His father was a miller, named Gerretz, who lived
near Leyden, on the banks of the Rhine. Hence Rembrandt assumed the
higher-sounding title of Van Ryn, in exchange for his paternal
appellation. The miller was sagacious enough to perceive that his son
had talent, but not to discover the direction in which it lay; and sent
him to study Latin, and qualify himself for one of the learned
professions at the University of Leyden. He had no turn for scholarship;
indeed, through life, his literary acquirements were decidedly below
par: but he showed great expertness in drawing any object which caught
his notice. The miller wisely yielded to what appeared the natural bent
of his son’s genius, and suffered him to pursue painting as a
profession. He studied first for three months at Amsterdam, in the
school of Jacob Van Swannenberg, then six months with Peter Lastman, and
six with Jacob Pinas. It is somewhat surprising that he should have
continued so long with these masters, from whom he could learn no more
than the rudiments of execution. Had they been better, he would have
gained little but manual skill from them; for, from the first, his style
was essentially his own. Nature was his preceptress, and his academy was
his father’s mill. There he found those unique effects of light and
shadow which distinguish his pictures from all others. The style of art
which astonished his contemporaries by its novelty and power, and will
ever continue to influence the practice of later artists, was founded on
and formed out of the brilliant contrasts exhibited by a beam of light
admitted through a narrow aperture, and rapidly subsiding into darkness:
a spectacle which, familiar to his childhood, seems to have left an
indelible impression on his imagination. He studied with great
assiduity, but seems to have scarcely been conscious of his own strength
until the commendation of his fellow-students roused him. At the
suggestion of one of them he took a painting which he had just finished
to an amateur at the Hague, who gave the best proof of his approbation
by paying a hundred florins for it on the spot. The sudden acquisition
of so much wealth almost turned the young artist’s head. He went on foot
to the Hague; but he posted home to his father’s mill in a chariot.
Extravagance, however, was not one of his characteristics, and this was
his last, as it was his first act of ostentatious disbursement.

He remained for some time in his native village, induced, perhaps, by
the facilities which the banks of the Rhine presented to him for the
study of landscape. Even in that department of art he selected those
phases of nature which harmonized with his usual management of _chiar’
oscuro_: such as effects of twilight, or the setting sun, or any
combinations of clouds, rocks, trees, or other objects, which formed
large masses of shade relieved by light concentrated in one spot. But
being frequently summoned to Amsterdam by commissions for portraits, he
settled in that city in 1630. At the same time he married a pretty
peasant girl from Ramsdorp, whose portrait he has often introduced in
his pictures. He received several pupils into his house, who paid
largely for his instructions.

One of Rembrandt’s earliest and most steadfast patrons was the
burgomaster Six, for whom he painted the celebrated picture now in the
National Gallery, of ‘The Woman taken in Adultery.’ If this be an
average specimen of his style at this time, no wonder can be felt that
his reputation rose to a prodigious height, and that he obtained large
prices for his performances. The style of this picture, though
approaching to the elaborate finishing of Mieris or Gerard Dow, is yet
as broad as in any of his subsequent works, after he had adopted a
bolder method of execution. Refinement of character we never must expect
in Rembrandt; but in this picture we are not shocked by that
uncalled-for coarseness which debases many of his later works. In the
figure of Christ especially, there is some attempt to rise above the
level of common life, which he usually contents himself with copying.
The picture exhibits his usual grandeur and solemnity of light and
shade, and is remarkable for brilliancy of colouring.

As Rembrandt’s practice became more and more lucrative, he gave way to a
vice which certainly is not the besetting one of artists, and grew
insatiably avaricious. His engravings were sought with even more avidity
than his pictures; and he left unemployed no artifice by which their
popularity might be turned to account. Impressions were taken off and
circulated when the plates were half finished, then the work was
completed, and the sale recommenced. Alterations were then made in the
perfect engraving, and these botched prints were again sent into the
market. Impressions of the same plate in all these stages of
transformation were eagerly sought by the idle foppery of collectorship;
and it was held a serious impeachment of taste not to possess proofs of
the little Juno with and without a crown; the young Joseph with the face
light, and the same Joseph with his face dark; the woman with the white
bonnet, and the same woman without a bonnet; the horse with a tail, and
a horse without a tail, &c. Ungentlemanly tricks were practised to
enhance the price of his works. He often expressed an intention of
quitting Amsterdam altogether. Once he was announced to be dangerously
ill; at another time he was reported to be dead. It is strange that he
should not have felt these petty artifices to be unworthy of his genius,
and unnecessary to his fame or fortune; but it seems not improbable that
some of his eccentricities were played off to attract attention. Being
occupied one day in painting the picture of a burgomaster and his
family, word was brought that his favourite monkey was dead. He made
great parade of his distress, and as some alleviation of it, proceeded
to paint the monkey into the picture. The civic dignitary remonstrated
in vain against this extraordinary addition to the family group:
Rembrandt refused to finish the picture unless the monkey kept his
place, and accordingly it was allowed to remain. That he was not
unconscious of the absurdity of such caprices, may be inferred from his
quick turn for humour, and the shrewdness and sagacity of his remarks.

The roughness and apparent negligence in the execution of his works
astonished many of the Dutch connoisseurs, who had been so used to
minute delicacy of finish as to consider it essential to excellence. To
these critics he replied in a tone of irony, requesting that when they
perceived anything particularly wrong in his works, they would believe
that he had a motive for it. To others who examined his pictures too
closely, he observed, that the smell of the paint was unwholesome,
adding a very just observation, that the picture is finished when the
painter has expressed his intention.

Numerous copies of Rembrandt’s pictures were made by his pupils, which
he retouched and sold as originals. Sandraart asserts that he gained one
thousand two hundred florins yearly by this commerce. It is proper,
however, to state that most of the great masters have, more or less,
availed themselves of the labour of their scholars.

In one respect, however, Rembrandt acted worthily of his genius. He
never allowed the love of gain to interfere with or limit the time and
labour which were required to give excellence to his paintings. The
bravura of hand by which his later works are distinguished, has led to
an idea that he painted them carelessly and with great dispatch. No
doubt he wrought with firmness and decision when his plan was fixed; but
various studies are extant, which show that, before commencing a
picture, he constructed and reconstructed his design with indefatigable
attention. This was especially the case with his historical works; yet
in portrait painting he was scarcely less particular. Frequently when
the picture was considerably advanced, struck by some new arrangement,
an effect of light, a happy turn of drapery, a better position of the
head, he would begin again; and the patience of the sitter was sometimes
so much tried by a succession of these alterations, that works would
have been left unfinished on the artist’s hands, but for that confidence
in the ultimate excellence of the pictures, which rendered his employers
anxious to possess them at any outlay of time, patience, or money.

Descamps, the French biographer of the Flemish painters, enlarges on
Rembrandt’s misfortune in not having been born in Italy, or, at least,
not having spent some years there. “How different a painter would he
have been,” he says, “had he been familiar with the works of Raphael and
Titian.” That he would have been a different painter may be doubted;
that he would have been a better one is still less probable. Descamps
adds, that he owed his genius to nature and instinct alone; a much more
rational remark, and so true, that it appears almost demonstrable that
no system of discipline or education would have materially altered his
turn of mind. He was sufficiently well acquainted, through the medium of
prints, casts, and marbles, with the leading works both of ancient and
modern art; but he had no taste for refinement, and he knew that what is
called high art was not his vocation. He had collected quantities of old
armour, rich draperies, grotesque ornaments, and military weapons, which
he jocularly called his antiques; and he made no scruple of deriding the
exclusive claims to taste set up by particular schools. He felt that he
had no occasion to ask his passport to reputation from others; but that,
as Fuseli expresses it, he could enter the temple of fame by forging his
own keys.

Few painters, indeed, have so full a claim to the merit of originality
as Rembrandt. It would be hard to point out any of his predecessors to
whom he is indebted for any part of his style; but he has opened a rich
treasure of excellence for his successors to profit by. The full powers
of the management of light and shade, which we denominate by the Italian
phrase _chiar’ oscuro_, were not known until Rembrandt developed them.
It might have been supposed that the power and harmony, and splendour of
Corregio left nothing to be desired in this department of the art; but
Rembrandt gave to his masses a force and depth, and concentration,
unequalled, and peculiar to himself. Nor is _chiar’ oscuro_ in his hands
merely an instrument of picturesque effect; it is also a most powerful
vehicle of sentiment, especially in subjects characterized by solemnity
or terror. The ‘Crucifixion,’ ‘Christ and St. Peter in the Storm,’ and
‘Sampson seized by the Philistines,’ are striking but not singular
examples of this:—it is the excellence which pervades his works.
‘Jacob’s Dream,’ in the Dulwich Gallery, deserves mention as a most
remarkable instance of his peculiar powers, for it embodies images so
vague and undefinable, that they might be thought beyond the grasp of
painting. Forms float before us, apparently cognizable by our senses,
yet so vague, that when examined, they lose the semblance of form which
at first they wore, receding gradually to so immeasurable a distance,
that it would seem as if in truth the heavens were opened. It is the
most _spiritual_ thing conceivable, and breathes the very atmosphere of
a dream.

As a colourist Rembrandt has scarcely a superior: if his tints are not
equal in truth and purity to those of Titian, yet his admirable
management of light and shadow gives to his colouring an almost
unrivalled splendour. In that quality of execution which painters call
_surface_, he was eminently skilled; perhaps none but Corregio and
Reynolds can compare with him in it. To his portraits he gave a most
speaking air of identity; but his delineations of the human form and
character in works of imagination are almost ludicrous, and little
better than travesties of the subject. Beauty certainly must have come
in his way; but he seems to have avoided and rejected it for the sake of
ugliness and vulgarity. The picture of a ‘Woman Bathing,’ in the
National Gallery, is a good instance both of his merits and faults,
treating with the utmost fidelity and beauty of execution a subject so
disagreeable, that admiration is neutralized by disgust. Indeed his
genius has no greater triumph than that of reconciling us to his
defects.

Rembrandt’s style of engraving, as of painting, is in great measure of
his own invention. His plates are partly etched, assisted with the dry
point, and sometimes, but not often, finished with the graver. His
prints possess the effect of colouring in a surprising degree; the light
and shade is managed, as might be expected, with consummate skill, and
the touch has a lightness and apparent negligence, which give to his
etchings an indescribable charm.

De Piles and some other writers have asserted that Rembrandt was at
Venice in the year 1635 or 1636. This mistake arose from the dates, and
the name of Venice which Rembrandt put at the bottom of some of his
prints, with the view of enhancing the price of them. He never quitted
Amsterdam after he first established himself there in 1630. He could
have had no inducement indeed to absent himself from a city in which he
was so rapidly acquiring both fame and fortune. In what related to his
art he never looked out of himself; and he was so far from seeking any
general acquaintance with the world, that he associated only with a
small circle in his own city, and that of an inferior class. The
burgomaster Six, who appreciated his extraordinary talents, and wished
to see him fill a place in society worthy of them, often attempted to
lead him among the wealthy and the great; but that inveterate want of
refinement which is visible in his works, pervaded his character, and he
confessed that he felt uneasy in such company; adding, that when he left
his painting-room, it was for the purpose of relaxation, which he was
more likely to find among his humble associates, and in the
convivialities of the tavern. He lived nearly to the age of sixty-eight
years, and died at Amsterdam in 1674.

Those who may be curious to know the different impressions and
variations of Rembrandt’s plates, and their respective rarity and value,
will find information in the catalogue of his works, first published by
Gersaint, at Paris, and P. Yver, at Amsterdam; which was afterwards
enlarged by our countryman Dalby, and has since been added to in a
publication by Adam Bartset, printed at Vienna in 1797.

Rembrandt’s works are nowhere more valued than in this country, which
may account for the vast influx of them hither. Originals are not often
met with on the Continent: here they may be found in every great
collection. The National and the Dulwich Galleries contain some of his
finest performances. Particulars of Rembrandt’s life and works may be
found in La Vie des Peintres Flamands, par Descamps, and in De Piles. In
English, in Bryan’s ‘Dictionary of Painters,’ and in Pilkington.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

  DRYDEN.

  _From a Picture by Houdson
  in the Hall of Trinity College Cambridge._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                DRYDEN.


John Dryden was born at Aldwinkle, near Oundle, in Northamptonshire,
August 9, 1631, according to Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Malone raises a doubt
concerning the accuracy of this date. The inscription on his monument
says, only, _natus_, 1632. He was educated at Westminster School, under
Dr. Busby, and elected Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1650.
The year before he left the university, he wrote a poem on the death of
Lord Hastings. Of this production Dr. Johnson says, that “it was
composed with great ambition of such conceits as, notwithstanding the
reformation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley still kept
in reputation.” Dryden’s vacillation, both in religion and politics,
proves, that though perhaps not completely dishonest, he had no firm and
well-considered principles. His heroic stanzas on Oliver Cromwell,
written after the Protector’s funeral in 1658, were followed on the
restoration by his Astrea Redux, and in the same year by a second
tribute of flattery to his sacred Majesty, ‘A Panegyric on his
Coronation.’ The Annus Mirabilis is one of his most elaborate works; a
historical poem in celebration of the Duke of York’s victory over the
Dutch. He succeeded Sir William Davenant as poet laureat. He did not
obtain the laurel till August 18, 1670; but according to Malone, the
patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced from the Midsummer
after Davenant’s death, in 1668. He was also made historiographer to the
king, and in the same year published his Essay on Dramatic Poetry.

Among the works of so voluminous a writer, we can only notice those
which are distinguished by excellence, or by some strong peculiarity.

Dryden was more than thirty years of age when he commenced dramatic
writer. His first piece, the Wild Gallant, met with so mortifying a
reception, that he resolved never more to write for the stage. The hasty
resolutions of anger are seldom kept, and are seldom worth keeping; but
in the present instance it would have been well had he adhered to the
first dictates of his resentment. We should not then have had to regret,
that so large a portion of a great writer’s life and labour has been
wasted on twenty-eight dramas: the comedies exhibiting much ribaldry and
but little wit; with neither ingenuity nor interest in the fable; with
no originality in the characters: the tragedies for the most part filled
with the exaggerations of romance, and the hyperboles of an extravagant
imagination, in the place of nature and pathos. His tragedy seldom
touches the passions: his staple commodities are pompous language,
poetical flights, and picturesque description. His characters all speak
in one language—that of the author. Addison says, “It is peculiar to
Dryden to make all his personages as wise, witty, elegant, and polite as
himself.” In confirmation of the proofs internally afforded by his
writings, that his taste for tragedy was not genuine, he expresses his
contempt for Otway, master as that poet was of the tender passions. But
however uncongenial with his natural talent dramatic composition might
be, his temporary disgust soon passed away. In his Essay on Dramatic
Poetry, he tells his patron, Dorset, that the writing of that treatise
served as an amusement to him in the country, when he was driven from
London by the plague; that he diverted himself with thinking on the
theatres, as lovers do by ruminating on their absent mistresses. But
whatever opinion he might entertain of his own tragic style, he was
himself sensible that his talents did not lie in the line of comedy.
“Those who decry my comedies do me no injury, except it be in point of
profit: reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend.”
He retaliated on the criticisms levelled against his extravagances in
tragedy, by an ostentatious display of defiance. We find in his
Dedication of the Spanish Friar, “All that I can say for certain
passages of my own Maximin and Almanzor is, that I knew they were bad
enough to please when I wrote them.”

In 1671 he was publicly ridiculed on the stage in the Duke of
Buckingham’s comedy of the Rehearsal. The character of Bayes was at
first named Bilboa, and meant for Sir Robert Howard; but the
representation of the piece in its original form was stopped by the
plague in 1665: it was not reproduced till six years afterwards, when it
appeared with alterations in ridicule of the pieces brought out in the
interval, and with a correspondent change of the hero. Dryden affected
to despise the satire. In the Dedication to his Translation of Juvenal,
he says, “I answered not to the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat
to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own
farce.”

An Essay on Satire, said to be written jointly by Dryden and Lord
Mulgrave, was first printed in 1679. This piece was handed about in
manuscript, for some time before its publication. It contained
reflections on the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lord Rochester. Anthony
Wood says, that suspecting Dryden to be the author, the aggrieved
parties hired three ruffians, who cudgelled the poet in Will’s
coffee-house.

In 1680 a translation of Ovid’s Epistles into English came out: two of
which, together with the Preface, were by Dryden. In the following year
he published Absalom and Achitophel; a work of first-rate excellence as
a political and controversial poem. Dr. Johnson ascribes to it “acrimony
of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of character, variety
and vigour of sentiments, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony
of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be
found in any other English composition.” In the same year, the Medal, a
satire, was given to the public. This piece was occasioned by the
striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against Lord
Shaftesbury being thrown out, and is a severe invective against that
celebrated statesman.

In 1682 Dryden published ‘_Religio Laici_,’ in defence of revealed
religion against Deists, Papists, and Presbyterians. Yet soon after the
accession of James the Second, he became a Roman Catholic; and in the
hope of promoting Popery, was employed on a translation of Maimbourg’s
History of the League, on account of the parallel between the troubles
of France and those of Great Britain. This extraordinary conversion
exposed him to the ridicule of the wits, and especially to the gibes of
the facetious and celebrated Tom Brown.

The Hind and Panther, a controversial poem in defence of the Romish
church, appeared in 1687. The Hind represents the church of Rome, the
Panther the church of England. The first part of the poem consists
mostly of general characters and narration; which, says the author, “I
have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic
poetry. The second, being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning
church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as
possibly I could, yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had
not frequent occasion for the magnificence of verse. The third, which
has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be,
more free and familiar than the two former. There are in it two
episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the main design; so that
they are properly parts of it, though they are also distinct stories of
themselves. In both of these I have made use of the commonplaces of
satire, whether true or false, which are urged by the members of one
church against another.” The absurdity of a fable exhibiting two beasts
discoursing on theology, was ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country
Mouse, a burlesque poem, the joint production of Montague, afterwards
Earl of Halifax, and Prior, who then put forth the first sample of his
talents. Dryden is supposed to have been engaged for the translation of
Varillas’s History of Heresies, but to have dropped the design, from a
feeling of his own incompetency to theological controversy. Bishop
Burnet, in his Reflections on the Ninth Book of the first Volume of M.
Varillas’s History, classes together that work, and the Hind and
Panther, as “such extraordinary things of their kind, that it will be
but suitable to see the author of the worst poem become likewise the
translator of the worst history that the age has produced.” Dr. Johnson
supports the Bishop’s hostile criticism so far as to pronounce the
scheme of the work injudicious and incommodious, and to censure the
absurdity of making one beast advise another to rest her faith on a pope
and council: but he allows it to be written “with great smoothness of
metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of
images; the controversy to be embellished with pointed sentences,
diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective;”
and a poem inlaid with such ornaments, however little worth the solid
material might be, was but peevishly represented as “the worst that the
age had produced.” Pope, a higher authority than the honest Bishop in
such matters, considered it as the most correct specimen of Dryden’s
versification. Malone has shown that Burnet was mistaken in attributing
to our author the answer to Burnet’s Remarks on the History.

In 1688 Dryden published Britannia Rediviva, a poem on the birth of the
Prince afterwards known by the title of the Pretender. The poem is to be
noticed only for its extravagant and ill-timed adulation, which
deservedly involved the author in the disgrace and fall of his party.
But even had he not so identified himself with the ejected dynasty, his
conversion to Popery disqualified him for holding his place. He was
accordingly dispossessed of it; and the mortification of its being
conferred on an object of his confirmed dislike, aggravated the
pecuniary loss, which he could ill afford. Shadwell, his successor, was
an old enemy, whom he had formerly stigmatized under the name of Og. In
consequence of this appointment, Dryden again attacked him in a poem
called MacFlecknoe; one of the severest as well as most witty satires in
the English language. The poetry of the new laureat was so indifferent,
as to give ample scope for ridicule:—

            This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
            Was call’d to empire, and had governed long;
            In prose and verse, was own’d, without dispute,
            Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.

Although these lines be written of Flecknoe, Shadwell is the hero of the
piece, introduced as if selected by Flecknoe to succeed him on the
throne of dulness. Richard Flecknoe was an Irish priest, well known
about the court; but notwithstanding Cibber’s assertion in his Lives of
the Poets, he was never poet laureat. The above is the story told by all
the biographers; but if Mr. Malone’s laborious and minute researches
have been pursued with his usual accuracy, they have been mistaken in
the date of the publication, which he fixes in October, 1682. If this be
correct, the satire must have been a sportive anticipation of an event,
which its author little expected to come to pass; and not the ebullition
of revenge for the loss of an honourable and lucrative employment.
Taking the earlier as the true date, we might suspect that the prophecy
was fulfilled in the person of Shadwell, as a vindictive aggravation of
the deposed laureat’s fall. Yet it is difficult to reconcile it to
probability that Dryden should have dishonoured an office which he had
been holding for the last twelve years, and must then have calculated on
holding for his life, by a fictitious successive inauguration of two
blockheads, who “never deviated into sense.”

Pope’s Dunciad, though more extended in its plan, and more diversified
in its incidents, was professedly written in imitation of this poem. The
leisure and pains bestowed on his performance gave the imitator the
superiority in point of elaborate execution; but there are bursts of
pleasantry in MacFlecknoe, and sallies of wit and humour, equal if not
superior to any thing in Pope or Boileau, or perhaps in any poet
excepting Horace. Dr. Joseph Warton says of it, that “in point of
satire, both oblique and direct, contempt and indignation, clear
diction, and melodious versification, this poem is perhaps the best of
its kind in any language.”

Dr. Johnson doubts whether Dryden was the translator of the Life of
Francis Xavier, by Father Bouhours, to which his name is affixed. The
borrowing of popular names for title-pages was very prevalent in those
days, and the loan probably not without profit to the lenders.

In 1693 a translation of Juvenal and Persius appeared. The first, third,
sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires of Juvenal, and the whole of
Persius, are Dryden’s: also the Dedication to Lord Dorset, a long and
ingenious discourse, in which the writer gives an account of a design,
which he never carried into effect, of writing an epic poem either on
Arthur or the Black Prince. Lord Dorset well deserved the compliment of
so masterly a dedication; for he continued to patronise the poet in the
reverse of his fortunes, and allowed him an annuity equal to the salary
which he had lost.

In 1694 Dryden published a prose translation of Du Fresnoy’s Art of
Painting, with a Preface, exhibiting a parallel between painting and
poetry. Pope addressed a copy of verses to Jervas, the painter, in
praise of this work.

The most laborious of Dryden’s works, the translation of Virgil, was
given to the world in 1697. The Pastorals were dedicated to Lord
Clifford, the Georgics to Lord Chesterfield, and the Æneid to Lord
Mulgrave: an economical and lucrative combination of flattery which the
wits suffered not to pass unnoticed. The translation had an extensive
sale, and has since passed through many editions. Like most of Dryden’s
longer productions, it has many careless passages, which do not well
accord with an original so remarkable for finish and correctness; but it
still stands its ground, and is a stock-book in the face of the more
careful and perhaps more scholarlike performances of Warton, Sotheby,
and Pitt.

Besides the original pieces and translations already mentioned, Dryden
wrote many others, the most important of which were published in six
volumes of Miscellanies, to which he was the principal contributor. They
consist of translations from the Greek and Latin poets; epistles,
prologues, and epilogues; odes, elegies, epitaphs, and songs.
Alexander’s Feast, an ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day, displays one of the
highest flights within the compass of lyric poetry. Dryden, although no
lover of labour, is said to have devoted a fortnight to this
masterpiece. Yet the poetic fervour is so supported throughout, that it
reads as if struck off at a heat; so much so, that the few negligences
which escaped the enthusiasm of the writer are scarcely ever noticed.
Dr. Johnson, seldom carried beyond the wariness of criticism by the
inspiration of his author, did not discover that some of the lines are
without correspondent rhymes, till after an acquaintance with it of many
years. The splendour of this poem eclipsed that of his first ode for
Saint Cecilia’s Day, which would have fixed the fame of any other poet.
In Alexander’s Feast the versification is brilliantly worked up, and
abruptly varied, according to the rapid transitions of the subject; the
language is natural though elevated, and the sentiments are suited to
the age and occasion. Had Dryden never written another line, his name
would yet be as undying as the tongue in which he wrote. His Fables in
English verse from Homer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, were his last
work; they were published in 1698. The preface gives a critical account
of the authors from whom the Fables are translated. In this work he
furnished us with the first example of the revival of ancient English
writers by modernizing their language. Yet those readers who can master
Chaucer’s phraseology, and have an ear so practised as to catch the tune
of his verse, will like him better in the simplicity of his native garb,
than in the elaborate splendour of his borrowed costume.

Dryden was a voluminous writer in prose as well as in verse, and quite
as great a master of the English language in the former as in the
latter. His performances in prose consist of Dedications, Prefaces, and
controversial pieces; the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the
translation of those authors by several hands; the Life of Polybius,
prefixed to the translation of that historian by Sir Henry Shears; and
the Preface to Walsh’s Dialogue concerning Women.

Dryden died on the 1st of May, 1701, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter to the Earl of
Berkshire. He had three sons by this lady; Charles, John, and Henry.
They were all educated at Rome, where John died of a fever. He
translated the fourteenth satire of Juvenal, and was author of a comedy.
Charles translated the seventh satire. There is a confused story
respecting some vexatious and tumultuary incidents occurring at Dryden’s
funeral, which rests on no satisfactory authority; and, even if true,
would occupy more room in the detail, than would square either with our
limits or its own importance.

Dryden was the father of English criticism; and his Essay on Dramatic
Poetry is the first regular and judicious treatise in our language on
the art of writing. Although, after so many valuable discourses have
been delivered to the public on the same subject during the century and
a half which has elapsed since his original attempts, his prose works
may now be read more for the charm of their pure idiomatic English, than
for their novelty or instructive matter, yet the merits of a discoverer
must not be underrated because his discoveries have been extended, or
his inventions improved upon. Before his time, those who wished to
arrive at just principles of taste, or a rational code of criticism, if
they were unacquainted with the works of the ancients and the modern
languages of Italy and France, had no guides to lead them on their way.
Dryden communicated to his own learning, which, though not deep nor
accurate, was various and extensive, the magic of his style and the
popular attraction of his mother tongue: the Spectator followed his
lead, in essays less diffusive, and therefore more within the reach of
the million: in our day, such is the accumulation of material, and so
cheap and copious the power of circulating knowledge, that the poorest
man who can read may inform his mind on subjects of general literature,
to the enlargement of his understanding, and the improvement of his
morals. But we must not forget our obligations to those who began that
hoard, whence we have the privilege of drawing at will.

With respect to those prose works of our author which are devoted to
controversy, their interest has quite passed away, farther than as they
may evince his powers in argument, or command of language. Dr. Johnson
gives a just estimate of his general character. “He appears to have a
mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired
knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius,
operating upon large materials.”

Dryden’s works have been constantly before the public, in various shapes
and successive editions. Those best deserving a place in the library
are, his Prose Works in four volumes, edited by Mr. Malone; his Poetical
Works in four volumes, with notes, by Dr. Joseph Warton, and his son,
the Rev. John Warton; and the whole of his Works in eighteen volumes
octavo, by Sir Walter Scott. The earlier authorities for his Life are
Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses; the Biographia Britannica; and a Life by
Derrick, poorly executed, prefixed to Tonson’s edition, in 1760.
Johnson’s admirable Essay on this subject is in the hands of every
reader, and is one of the most masterly among his Lives of the Poets. He
was peculiarly well qualified to appreciate a writer in whom, to use his
own words, “strong reason rather predominated than quick sensibility.”
Scott also has written a copious Life, occupying the first volume of his
edition of Dryden’s Works.

[Illustration: [Monument of Dryden in Westminster Abbey.]]

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by T. Woolnoth._

  LA PÉROUSE.

  _From a Miniature in the possession of
  La Perouse’s niece at Alby._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                              LA PEROUSE.


The latter half of the last century was distinguished by a rekindling of
that spirit of maritime discovery which, active at the close of the
sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, had lain
comparatively dormant for many years. The voyages of Wallis and
Carteret, the circumnavigation of the globe by Anson, had done something
to enlarge our knowledge, and to recall to mind the discoveries of
Dampier, Tasman, and other early navigators of the western world. The
leading objects, however, of those voyages were political and warlike;
the information gleaned in them was secondary and incidental; and the
first expedition sent out expressly for scientific purposes was that
under the command of Cook, of which we have formerly given a short
account. The brilliant success of that admirable navigator roused France
to emulation; and, under the auspices of Louis XVI., a voyage of
discovery was planned, and entrusted to La Perouse, a name well known
for the interest excited by his mysterious disappearance, and for the
frequent and (for a long time) fruitless attempts which have been made
to trace his fate, and which interest has been recently renewed, by the
unexpected discovery of the place and manner in which he perished.

Jean Francois Galaup de la Perouse was born at Albi, in 1741, where he
entered the French marine in 1756; and, after passing regularly through
the subordinate ranks, in the course of which he saw some active
service, was promoted to the command of a frigate in 1778. In that year
hostilities broke out between France and England, in the course of which
La Perouse had the honour of capturing more than one British ship of
war. In 1782 he was appointed to command a small squadron sent to attack
our settlements in Hudson’s Bay. The object of the expedition was
trifling, being confined to the capture of a few insignificant forts,
which made no resistance. But La Perouse had the opportunity of
displaying his merits as a seaman in the successful navigation of a
tempestuous and icy sea, rendered more dangerous by the prevalence of
thick fogs; and the credit which he thus acquired caused him to be
selected as a proper leader in an intended voyage of discovery. He is
entitled to still higher praise for his humanity, in leaving a provision
of food and arms for the support and protection of those English
residents who had fled into the woods on his approach.

The expedition in question was planned in conformity with the views of
Louis XVI. Attached to the science, and well versed in the study of
geography, he was desirous, on behalf of France, at once of emulating
the glory which England had just acquired through Cook’s discoveries,
and of opening new channels for her commerce in the most distant
regions. A rough draft of the intended course was made out in conformity
with the king’s views, and submitted to his perusal; and the nature of
the scheme is concisely explained in a few sentences appended to the
document by Louis himself. “To sum up the contents of this paper, and my
own observations on them, the objects in view belong to the two heads of
commerce and discovery. Of the former class there are two principal
ones: the whale fishery in the southern ocean, and the trade in furs in
the north-west of America, for transport to China, and, if possible, to
Japan. Among the points to be explored, the principal are the north-west
of America, which falls in with the commercial part of the scheme; the
seas round Japan, which do the same, but I think the season proposed for
this in the paper is ill chosen; the Solomon Islands, and the south-west
of New Holland. All other objects must be made subordinate to these: we
must confine ourselves to what is most useful, and can be accomplished
without difficulty in the three years proposed.”

La Perouse’s official instructions were only a development of this
sketch. Men of science were invited to communicate their views as to the
objects to be pursued, and the best manner of pursuing them; and the
expedition was fitted out with every appliance calculated to promote its
success. It consisted of two frigates, La Boussole, commanded by La
Perouse, and L’Astrolabe, commanded by an accomplished officer, his
friend, named Delangle; each of them with a complement of a hundred men.
They sailed August 1, 1785, doubled Cape Horn without adventures worthy
of notice, and cast anchor in the Bay of La Conception, February 22,
1786. Hence he steered northward, touching at Easter and the Sandwich
islands, until he reached the coast of America, at Mount St. Elias, in
about the sixtieth degree of north latitude. In prosecution of the first
part of his instructions, he ran down southwards, examining the coast
minutely, to the harbour of Monterey, in California, a distance between
five and six hundred leagues: hence he sailed for Japan, September 24.
In crossing the Pacific, the group of small islands named after the
statesman Necker was discovered. During this run, the two frigates,
which were instructed always to keep close to each other, were in
imminent danger of being wrecked on an unknown reef. They were upon it
so suddenly, that La Boussole was thought scarcely to have cleared the
rock by a hundred fathoms. They reached Macao without more adventures,
visited Manilla, where they spent some time, and then set sail for the
Japanese isles, and the coast of Tartary, a part of the globe little
known, except through the reports of missionaries. La Perouse sailed up
the narrow channel, called the Gulf of Tartary, lying between the
Asiatic continent and the almost unknown island of Segalien, or Sagalin.
His progress was stopped by shoals, consisting of the deposits brought
down by the river Amoor; but he went far enough to be satisfied that
Sagalin is not united to the continent; and his belief has since been
shown to be correct. He discovered and gave his own name to the strait
which separates that island from the neighbouring one of Jesso, or
Matsmai; and having thus ascertained that the land to the north of the
principal island of Japan, hitherto believed to be one island, consisted
of two, he sailed northward, traversing the Kurile Islands, visited
Kamtschatka, and passing southwards by the Friendly Islands, dropped
anchor in Botany Bay, January 16, 1788.

It should be mentioned that from the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul,
in Kamtschatka, M. de Lesseps was dispatched home overland, bearing the
navigator’s charts and journals up to the period of their arrival at
that place. To this precaution the world owes that any record of La
Perouse’s wanderings and discoveries has been preserved; for neither
vessel ever was seen or heard of, after they left Botany Bay. The last
communication which reached home from La Perouse was dated February 7,
1788; and expressed his intention of returning to the Friendly Islands,
of exploring the southern coast of New Caledonia, and the Louisiade of
Bougainville. He proposed to coast the western side of New Holland to
Van Dieman’s Land, so as to arrive at the Mauritius in the close of the
same year. Of this scheme but a small portion could have been executed.
Both ships were lost, there is every reason to believe, on the island of
Mallicolo, or Vanicoro, one of the New Hebrides, a group lying about the
sixteenth degree of south latitude; but the exact time and circumstances
remain unknown, for not one of the crews ever reached an European
settlement. When the non-arrival of La Perouse in France began to be the
subject of alarm, an expedition was fitted out under Admiral
d’Entrecasteaux, with orders strictly to pursue the route laid down
above, and to use every means of ascertaining the fate of, and if they
yet lived, ministering relief to, his unfortunate countrymen. The
service was performed with zeal and ability, but without success. Chance
led a private English trader to the solution of this question, vainly,
yet anxiously, sought for many years.

In 1813, Mr. Dillon, a subordinate officer on board a Calcutta trading
vessel, escaped almost by miracle from an affray with the natives of the
Fegee, or Beetee islands, a group lying to the west of the Friendly
Islands, about the eighteenth degree of south latitude, in which
fourteen of the ship’s crew were killed, and of his immediate companions
only two survived. One of these was a Prussian, named Martin Busshart,
who had been for some time on the island where this tragical event
occurred. This man, certain of being sacrificed to the revenge of the
natives, of whom many were killed, if he remained there, requested to be
transported to some other spot; and he was put ashore upon an island
named Tucopia. In time Mr. Dillon became owner and commander of a vessel
named the St. Patrick, and being again in those seas, he visited Tucopia
in May, 1826, to procure some tidings of his old companion in danger.
Here a silver sword-guard was offered for sale. Inquiry being made how
the article was obtained, it was replied, that “when the old men in
Tucopia were boys,” two ships had been wrecked on an island not very far
off, called Mallicolo, or Vanicoro, and that there yet remained large
quantities of the wreck. Captain Dillon guessed that these might be La
Perouse’s vessels, and made sail for the island pointed out; but he was
baffled by adverse circumstances, and forced to pursue his course to
Calcutta without obtaining the desired satisfaction. Arrived at the
capital of India, he laid before the government information and evidence
which was deemed sufficiently conclusive to warrant the fitting out a
ship, named the Research, with the design of fetching off two white men,
who were said to have escaped, and to be living on the island; or, at
least, to seek, by inquiry on the spot, some conclusive evidence of the
fate of La Perouse. Captain Dillon reached Vanicoro, and obtained an
ample harvest of European articles, both in wood and metal. The tale
told by the natives was simple and probable: “A long time ago the people
of this island, upon coming out one morning, saw part of a ship on the
reef opposite to Paiow, where it held together till the middle of the
day, when it was broken by the sea, fell to pieces, and large parts of
it floated on shore along the coast. The ship got on the reef in the
night, when it blew a tremendous hurricane, which broke down a
considerable number of our fruit-trees. We had not seen the ship the day
before. Four men were saved from her, and were on the beach at this
place, whom we were about to kill, supposing them to be spirits, when
they made a present to our chief of something, and thus saved their
lives. They lived with us a short time, and then joined their people at
Paiow, who built a small ship there, and went away in it. The things
which we sell you now have been procured from the ship wrecked on that
reef, on which, at low water, our people were in the habit of diving,
and bringing up what they could find. The same night another ship struck
on a reef near Whannow, and went down. There were several men saved from
her, who built a little ship and went away, five moons after the big one
was lost. While building it they had a great fence of trees round them,
to keep off the islanders, who being equally afraid of them, they
consequently kept up but little intercourse. The white men used often to
look at the sun through something, but we have none of those things. Two
white men remained behind after the last went away: the one was a chief,
and the other a common man, who used to attend on the white chief, who
died about three years ago. The chief, with whom the white man resided,
was obliged, about two years and a half ago, to fly from his country,
and was accompanied by the white man. The only white people the
inhabitants of this island have ever seen were, first, the people of the
wrecked ship; and, secondly, those before me now.”—Dillon’s Discovery of
the Fate of La Perouse, vol. ii. p. 194.

Whannow and Paiow are two villages about ten nautical miles distant from
each other in a straight line, on the western side of the island, which
is nearly surrounded by an abrupt and dangerous coral reef. The climate
is reported to be wet and hazy, so that probably the sufferers were not
aware of their approach to danger till all chance of escape was past.
The story just related is consistent and probable, and it was confirmed
by examination of the shore at Paiow, where a small cleared space, of
about an acre (the only one on the island), was found, in a place well
suited for building and launching a ship; and in the neighbourhood of
which stumps of trees, evidently felled with axes many years before,
were discovered. The spot where one of the ships had struck was
ascertained, and some heavy articles, as guns, raised in the shallow
water on the reef. No trace of the others could be found; and it was
said by the natives to have gone down in deep water. Captain Dillon
returned to Calcutta, and thence to England, bringing the articles he
had obtained along with him.

No doubt can be entertained but that two French ships, apparently ships
of war, were wrecked at Vanicoro. There are no other vessels whose loss
is to be accounted for, and the apparent length of time since their
destruction, corresponds with the date of La Perouse’s expedition. There
is therefore the strongest presumptive evidence for concluding that the
fate of that intrepid navigator is at length revealed: but the articles
collected, though indisputably belonging to French ships, could not be
conclusively identified as having been on board La Boussole and
L’Astrolabe. It was suggested that the point might be determined by
comparing the marks of the cannon with the registers of the French
ordnance, in which the numbers and weight of the guns supplied to each
ship would of course be set down. We do not know whether, or with what
success, this has been done. But the French government appears to have
been satisfied; for on visiting Paris Captain Dillon received the
personal thanks of Charles X., and the cross of the Legion of Honour,
together with a liberal pecuniary reward for his exertions.

The French, even during the excitement of the early part of the
revolution, manifested a lively interest for La Perouse and his crew.
D’Entrecasteaux, we have said, was sent out expressly in quest of them;
and a reward was offered to whosoever should bring intelligence of their
fate, which Captain Dillon was the first to claim. A narrative of the
voyage, compiled from the papers brought home by M. de Lesseps, was
printed in four quarto volumes, with an atlas, at Paris, 1797, at the
national expense, and a certain number of copies being reserved, the
rest of the impression was presented to La Perouse’s widow, who
continued to receive her husband’s pay. Recently the “Voyage de la
Perouse” has been compiled from the original documents, with notes by M.
de Lesseps, in an octavo volume, with an Appendix, containing an account
of Captain Dillon’s researches, and of the voyage of a French ship,
L’Astrolabe, which was engaged at the same time in the same office. To
this work, to Captain Dillon’s publication above quoted, and to the
“Bulletins de la Société de Géographie,” we refer the readers for a full
account of all that is known of the progress and catastrophe of this
celebrated expedition.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by W. Holl._

  CRANMER.

  _From an original Picture in the Collection
  at Lambeth Palace._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                CRANMER.


Thomas Cranmer was born July 2, 1489, at Aslacton, in Nottinghamshire.
He was descended from an ancient family, which had long been resident in
that county. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Jesus College,
Cambridge; where he obtained a fellowship, which he soon vacated by
marriage with a young woman who is said to have been of humble
condition. Within a year after his marriage he became a widower, and was
immediately, by unusual favour, restored to his fellowship. In 1523, he
was admitted to the degree of doctor of divinity, and appointed one of
the public examiners in that faculty. Here he found an opportunity of
showing the fruits of that liberal course of study which he had been for
some time pursuing. As soon as his teachers left him at liberty, he had
wandered from the works of the schoolmen to the ancient classics and the
Bible; and, thus prepared for the office of examiner, he alarmed the
candidates for degrees in theology by the novelty of requiring from them
some knowledge of the Scriptures.

It was from this useful employment that he was called to take part in
the memorable proceedings of Henry the Eighth, in the matter of his
divorce from Catherine.

Henry had been counselled to lay his case before the universities, both
at home and abroad. Cranmer, to whom the subject had been mentioned by
Gardiner and Fox, went a step farther, and suggested that he should
receive their decision as sufficient without reference to the Pope. This
suggestion was communicated to the king, who, observing, with his usual
elegance of expression, that the man had got the sow by the right ear,
summoned Cranmer to his presence, and immediately received him into his
favour and confidence.

In 1531, Cranmer accompanied the unsuccessful embassy to Rome, and in
the following year was appointed ambassador to the Emperor. In August,
1532, the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant by the death of
Warham, and it was Henry’s pleasure to raise Cranmer to the primacy. The
latter seems to have been truly unwilling to accept his promotion; and
when he found that no reluctance on his part could shake the king’s
resolution, he suggested a difficulty which there were no very obvious
means of removing. The Archbishop must receive his investiture from the
Pope, and at his consecration take an oath of fidelity to his Holiness,
altogether inconsistent with another oath, taken at the same time, of
allegiance to the king. All this had been done without scruple by other
bishops; but Cranmer was already convinced that the Papal authority in
England was a mere usurpation, and plainly told Henry that he would
receive the archbishopric from him alone. Henry was not a man to be
stopped by scruples of conscience of his own or others; so he consulted
certain casuists, who settled the matter by suggesting that Cranmer
should take the obnoxious oath, with a protest that he meant nothing by
it. He yielded to the command of his sovereign and the judgment of the
casuists. His protest was read by himself three times in the most public
manner, and solemnly recorded. It is expedient to notice that the
transaction was public, because some historians, to make a bad matter
worse, still talk of a private protest.

In 1533, he pronounced sentence of divorce against the unhappy
Catherine, and confirmed the marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn. He
was now at leisure to contemplate all the difficulties of his situation.
It is commonly said that Cranmer himself had, at this time, made but
small progress in Protestantism. It is true that he yet adhered to many
of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church; but he had reached, and
firmly occupied, a position which placed him by many degrees nearer to
the reformed faith than to that in which he had been educated. By
recognising the Scriptures alone as the standard of the Christian faith,
he had embraced the very principle out of which Protestantism flows. It
had already led him to the Protestant doctrine respecting the pardon of
sin, which necessarily swept away all respect for a large portion of the
machinery of Romanism. As a religious reformer, Cranmer could look for
no cordial and honest support from the king. Every one knows that Henry,
when he left the Pope, had no mind to estrange himself more than was
necessary from the Papal Church, and that the cause of religious
reformation owes no more gratitude to him, than the cause of political
liberty owes to those tyrants who, for their own security, and often by
very foul means, have laboured to crush the power of equally tyrannical
nobles. From Gardiner, who, with his party, had been most active and
unscrupulous in helping the king to his divorce and destroying papal
supremacy, Cranmer had nothing to expect but open or secret hostility,
embittered by personal jealousy. Cromwell, indeed, was ready to go with
him any lengths in reform consistent with his own safety; but a sincere
reformer must have been occasionally hampered by an alliance with a
worldly and unconscientious politician. The country at large was in a
state of unusual excitement; but the rupture with Rome was regarded with
at least as much alarm as satisfaction; and it was notorious that many,
who were esteemed for their wisdom and piety, considered the position of
the church to be monstrous and unnatural. The Lollards, who had been
driven into concealment, but not extinguished, by centuries of
persecution, and the Lutherans, wished well to Cranmer’s measures of
reform: but he was not equally friendly to them. They had outstripped
him in the search of truth; and he was unhappily induced to sanction at
least a miserable persecution of those men with whom he was afterwards
to be numbered and to suffer.

His first and most pressing care was by all means to reconcile the minds
of men to the assertion of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, because
all further changes must necessarily proceed from the royal authority.
He then addressed himself to what seem to have been the three great
objects of his official exertions,—the reformation of the clerical body,
so as to make their ministerial services more useful; the removal of the
worst part of the prevailing superstitious observances, which were a
great bar to the introduction of a more spiritual worship; and above
all, the free circulation of the Scriptures among the people in their
own language. In this last object he was opportunely assisted by the
printing of what is called Matthews’s Bible, by Grafton and Whitchurch.
He procured, through the intervention of Cromwell, the king’s licence
for the publication, and an injunction that a copy of it should be
placed in every parish church. He hailed this event with unbounded joy;
and to Cromwell, for the active part he took in the matter, he says, in
a letter, “This deed you shall hear of at the great day, when all things
shall be opened and made manifest.”

He had hardly witnessed the partial success of the cause of Reformation,
when his influence over the king, and with it the cause which he had at
heart, began to decline. He had no friendly feeling for those monastic
institutions which the rapacity of Henry had marked for destruction; but
he knew that their revenues might, as national property, be applied
advantageously to the advancement of learning and religion, and he
opposed their indiscriminate transfer to the greedy hands of the
sycophants of the court. This opposition gave to the more unscrupulous
of the Romanists an opportunity to recover their lost ground with the
king, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. They were strong
enough at least to obtain from Parliament, in 1539, (of course through
the good will of their despotic master,) the act of the Six Articles,
not improperly called the “Bloody Articles,” in spite of the determined
opposition of Cranmer: an opposition which he refused to withdraw even
at the express command of the king. Latimer and Shaxton immediately
resigned their bishoprics. One of the clauses of this act, relating to
the marriage of priests, inflicted a severe blow even on the domestic
happiness of Cranmer. In his last visit to the continent, he had taken,
for his second wife, a niece of the celebrated divine Osiander. By
continuing to cohabit with her, he would now, by the law of the land, be
guilty of felony; she was therefore sent back to her friends in Germany.

From this time till the death of Henry in 1546, Cranmer could do little
more than strive against a stream which not only thwarted his plans of
further reformation, but endangered his personal safety; and he had to
strive alone, for Latimer and other friends among the clergy had retired
from the battle, and Cromwell had been removed from it by the hands of
the executioner. He was continually assailed by open accusation and
secret conspiracy. On one occasion his enemies seemed to have compassed
his ruin, when Henry himself interposed and rescued him from their
malice. His continued personal regard for Cranmer, after he had in a
measure rejected him from his confidence, is a remarkable anomaly in the
life of this extraordinary king; of whom, on a review of his whole
character, we are obliged to acknowledge, that in his best days he was a
heartless voluptuary, and that he had become, long before his death, a
remorseless and sanguinary tyrant. It is idle to talk of the
complaisance of the servant to his master, as a complete solution of the
difficulty. That he was, indeed, on some occasions subservient beyond
the strict line of integrity, even his friends must confess; and for the
part which he condescended to act in the iniquitous divorce of Anne of
Cleves, no excuse can be found but the poor one of the general servility
of the times: that infamous transaction has left an indelible stain of
disgrace on the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the Convocation. But
Cranmer could oppose as well as comply: his conduct in the case of the
Six Articles, and his noble interference in favour of Cromwell between
the tiger and his prey, would seem to have been sufficient to ruin the
most accommodating courtier. Perhaps Henry had discovered that Cranmer
had more real attachment to his person than any of his unscrupulous
agents, and he may have felt pride in protecting one who, from his
unsuspicious disposition and habitual mildness, was obviously unfit, in
such perilous times, to protect himself. His mildness indeed was such,
that it was commonly said, “Do my Lord of Canterbury a shrewd turn, and
you make him your friend for life.”

On the accession of Edward new commissions were issued, at the
suggestion of Cranmer, to himself and the other bishops, by which they
were empowered to receive again their bishoprics, as though they had
ceased with the demise of the crown, and to hold them during the royal
pleasure. His object of course was to settle at once the question of the
new king’s supremacy, and the proceeding was in conformity with an
opinion which at one time he undoubtedly entertained, that there are no
distinct orders of bishops and priests, and that the office of bishop,
so far as it is distinguished from that of priests, is simply of civil
origin. The government was now directed by the friends of Reformation,
Cranmer himself being one of the Council of Regency; but still his
course was by no means a smooth one. The unpopularity, which the conduct
of the late king had brought on the cause, was even aggravated by the
proceedings of its avowed friends during the short reign of his son. The
example of the Protector Somerset was followed by a herd of courtiers,
and not a few ecclesiastics, in making reform a plea for the most
shameless rapacity, rendered doubly hateful by the hypocritical pretence
of religious zeal. The remonstrances of Cranmer were of course
disregarded; but his powerful friends were content that, whilst they
were filling their pockets, he should complete, if he could, the
establishment of the reformed church. Henry had left much for the
Reformers to do. Some, indeed, of the peculiar doctrines of Romanism had
been modified, and some of its superstitious observances abolished. The
great step gained was the general permission to read the Scriptures;
and, though even that had been partially recalled, it was impossible to
recall the scriptural knowledge and the spirit of inquiry to which it
had given birth. With the assistance of some able divines, particularly
of his friend and chaplain Ridley, afterwards Bishop of London, Cranmer
was able to bring the services and discipline of the church, well as the
articles of faith, nearly to the state in which we now see them. In
doing this he had to contend at once with the determined hostility of
the Romanists, with dissensions in his own party, and conscientious
opposition from sincere friends of the cause. In these difficult
circumstances his conduct was marked generally by moderation, good
judgment, and temper. But it must be acknowledged that he concurred in
proceedings against some of the Romanists, especially against Gardiner,
which were unfair and oppressive. In the composition of the New Service
Book, as it was then generally called, and of the Articles, we know not
what parts were the immediate work of Cranmer; but we have good evidence
that he was the author of three of the Homilies, those of Salvation, of
Faith, and of Good Works.

It should be observed, that Cranmer, though he early set out from a
principle which might be expected eventually to lead him to the full
extent of doctrinal reformation, made his way slowly and by careful
study of the Scriptures, of which he left behind sufficient proof, to
that point at which we find him in the reign of Edward. It is certain
that during the greater part, if not the whole, of Henry’s reign, he
agreed with the Romanists in the doctrine of the corporal presence and
transubstantiation.

The death of Edward ushered in the storms which troubled the remainder
of his days. All the members of the council affixed their signatures to
the will of the young king, altering the order of succession in favour
of the Lady Jane Grey. Cranmer’s accession to this illegal measure, the
suggestion of the profligate Northumberland, cannot be justified, nor
did he himself attempt to justify it. He appears, weakly and with great
reluctance, to have yielded up his better judgment to the will of his
colleagues, and the opinion of the judges.

Mary had not been long on the throne before Cranmer was committed to the
Tower, attainted of high treason, brought forth to take part in what
seems to have been little better than a mockery of disputation, and then
sent to Oxford, where, with Latimer and Ridley, he was confined in a
common prison. The charge of high treason, which might undoubtedly have
been maintained, was not followed up, and it was not, perhaps, the
intention of the government at any time to act upon it: it was their
wish that he should fall as a heretic. At Oxford he was repeatedly
brought before commissioners delegated by the Convocation, and, in what
were called examinations and disputations, was subjected to the most
unworthy treatment. On the 20th of April, 1554, Cranmer, Ridley, and
Latimer were publicly required to recant, and on their refusal were
condemned as heretics. The commission however having been illegally made
out, it was thought expedient to stay the execution till a new one had
been obtained; which, in the case of Cranmer, was issued by the Pope. He
was consequently dragged through the forms of another trial and
examination; summoned, whilst still a close prisoner, to appear within
eighty days at Rome; and then, by a sort of legal fiction, not more
absurd perhaps than some which still find favour in our own courts,
declared contumacious for failing to appear. Finally, he was degraded,
and delivered over to the secular power. That no insult might be spared
him, Bonner was placed on the commission for his degradation, in which
employment he seems to have surpassed even his usual brutality.

Cranmer had now been a prisoner for more than two years, during the
whole of which his conduct appears to have been worthy of the high
office which he had held, and the situation in which he was placed.
Whilst he expressed contrition for his political offence, and was
earnest to vindicate his loyalty, he maintained with temper and firmness
those religious opinions which had placed him in such fearful peril. Of
the change which has thrown a cloud over his memory, we know hardly any
thing with certainty but the fact of his recantation. Little reliance
can be placed on the detailed accounts of the circumstances which
accompanied it. He was taken from his miserable cell in the prison to
comfortable lodgings in Christchurch, where he is said to have been
assailed with promises of pardon, and allured, by a treacherous show of
kindness, into repeated acts of apostacy. In the mean while the
government had decreed his death. On the 21st of March, 1556, he was
taken from his prison to St. Mary’s Church, and exhibited to a crowded
audience, on an elevated platform, in front of the pulpit. After a
sermon from Dr. Cole, the Provost of Eton, he uttered a short and
affecting prayer on his knees; then rising, addressed an exhortation to
those around him; and, finally, made a full and distinct avowal of his
penitence and remorse for his apostacy, declaring, that the unworthy
hand which had signed his recantation should be the first member that
perished. Amidst the reproaches of his disappointed persecutors he was
hurried from the church to the stake, where he fulfilled his promise by
holding forth his hand to the flames. We have undoubted testimony that
he bore his sufferings with inflexible constancy. A spectator of the
Romanist party says, “If it had been either for the glory of God, the
wealth of his country, or the testimony of the truth, as it was for a
pernicious error, and subversion of true religion, I could worthily have
commended the example, and matched it with the fame of any Father of
ancient time.” He perished in his sixty-seventh year.

All that has been left of his writings will be found in an edition of
“The Remains of Archbishop Cranmer,” lately published at Oxford, in four
volumes 8vo. They give proof that he was deeply imbued with the spirit
of Protestantism, and that his opinions were the result of reflection
and study; though the effect of early impressions occasionally appears,
as in the manner of his appeals to the Apocryphal books, and a
submission to the judgment of the early fathers, in a degree barely
consistent with his avowed principles. See his First Letter to Queen
Mary.

This brief memoir does not pretend to supply the reader with materials
for examining that difficult question, the character of the Archbishop.
It is hardly necessary to refer him to such well-known books as Strype’s
Life of Cranmer, and the recent works of Mr. Todd and Mr. Le Bas.

The time, it seems, has not arrived for producing a strictly impartial
life of this celebrated man. Yet there is doubtless a much nearer
agreement among candid inquirers, whether members of the Church of
England or Roman Catholics, than the language of those who have told
their thoughts to the public might lead us to expect. Those who are cool
enough to understand that the credit and truth of their respective
creeds are in no way interested in the matter, will probably allow, that
the course of reform which Cranmer directed was justified to himself by
his private convictions; and that his motive was a desire to establish
what he really believed to be the truth. Beyond this they will
acknowledge that there is room for difference of opinion. Some will see,
in the errors of his life, only human frailty, not irreconcileable with
a general singleness of purpose; occasional deviations from the habitual
courage of a confirmed Christian. Others may honestly, and not
uncharitably, suspect, that the habits of a court, and constant
engagement in official business, may have somewhat marred the simplicity
of his character, weakened the practical influence of religious belief,
and caused him, whilst labouring for the improvement of others, to
neglect his own; and hence they may account for his unsteadfastness in
times of trial.

In addition to the works mentioned above, we may name as easily
accessible, among Protestant authorities, Burnet’s History of the
Reformation; among Roman Catholic, Lingard’s History of England.
Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, stands, perhaps, more nearly on
neutral ground, but can hardly be cited as an impartial historian.
Though a Protestant, in his hatred and dread of all innovators, and
especially of the Puritans, he seems ready to take refuge even with
Popery; and examines always with jealousy, sometimes with malignity, the
motives and conduct of Reformers, from his first notice of Wiclif to the
close of his history.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by Rob^t. Hart._

  TASSO.

  _From a Print by Raffaelle Morghen._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                 TASSO.


Torquato Tasso, born at Sorrento March 11, 1544, was the son of Bernardo
Tasso by Portia de Rossi, a lady of a noble Neapolitan family. His
father was a man of some note, both as a political and as a literary
character; and his poem of ‘Amadigi,’ founded on the well-known romance
of Amadis de Gaul, has been preferred by one partial critic even to the
Orlando Furioso. Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, chose him for
his secretary, and with him and for him Bernardo shared all the
vicissitudes of fortune. That Prince having been deprived of his
estates, and expelled from the kingdom of Naples by the court of Spain,
Bernardo was involved in his proscription, and retired with him to Rome.
Tarquato, then five years old, remained with his mother, who left
Sorrento and went to reside with her family in Naples.

Bernardo Tasso having lost all hopes of ever returning to that capital,
advised his wife to retire with his daughter into a nunnery, and to send
Torquato to Rome. Our young poet suffered much in parting from his
mother and sister; but, fulfilling the command of his parents, he joined
his father in October, 1554. On this occasion he composed a canzone, in
which he compared himself to Ascanius escaping from Troy with his father
Æneas.

The fluctuating fortunes of the elder Tasso caused Torquato to visit
successively Bergamo, the abode of his paternal relatives, and Pesaro,
where his manners and intelligence made so favourable an impression,
that the Duke of Pesaro chose him for companion to his son, then
studying under the celebrated Corrado of Mantua. In 1559, he accompanied
his father to Venice, and there perused the best Italian authors,
especially Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The next year he went to the
University of Padua, where, under Sperone Speroni, and Sigonio, he
studied Aristotle and the critics; and by Piccolomini and Pandasio he
was taught the moral and philosophical doctrines of Socrates and Plato.
However, notwithstanding his severer studies, Torquato never lost sight
of his favourite art; and, at the age of seventeen, in ten months, he
composed his _Rinaldo_, a poem in twelve cantos, founded on the then
popular romances of Charlemagne and his Paladins. This work, which was
published in 1562, excited great admiration, and gave rise to
expectations which were justified by the Gerusalemme Liberata. The plan
of that immortal poem was conceived, according to Serassi’s conjecture,
in 1563, at Bologna, where Tasso was then prosecuting his studies. The
first sketch of it is still preserved in a manuscript, dated 1563, in
the Vatican Library, and printed at Venice in 1722. Unfortunately, while
thus engaged, he was brought into collision with the civil authorities,
in consequence of some satirical attacks on the University, which were
falsely attributed to him. The charge was refuted, but not until his
papers had been seized and himself imprisoned. This disgusted him with
Bologna, and he returned to Padua in 1564. There he applied all his
faculties to the accomplishment of his epic poem; collected immense
materials from the Chronicles of the Crusades; and wrote, to exercise
his critical powers, the _Discorsi_ and the _Trattato sulla Poesia_.
While thus engaged, the Cardinal Luigi d’Este appointed him a gentleman
of his court. Speroni endeavoured to dissuade the young poet from
accepting that office, by relating the many disappointments which he had
himself experienced while engaged in a similar career. These
remonstrances were vain. Tasso joined the Cardinal at Ferrara at the end
of October, 1564, and soon attracted the favourable notice of the Duke
Alphonso, brother of the Cardinal, and of their sisters; one of whom,
the celebrated Eleonora, is commonly supposed to have exercised a
lasting and unhappy influence over the poet’s life. Ferrara continued to
be his chief place of abode till 1571, when he was summoned to accompany
his patron the Cardinal to France. The gaieties of a court, celebrated
in that age for its splendour, did not prevent his prosecuting his
poetic studies with zeal; for it appears from his will, quoted by Mr.
Stebbing, that, at his departure for France, he had written a
considerable portion of the Gerusalemme, besides a variety of minor
pieces. His reputation was already high at the court of France, where he
was received by Charles IX. with distinguished attention. But he
perceived, or fancied that he saw, a change in the Cardinal’s demeanour
towards him, and, impatient of neglect, begged leave to return to Italy.
In 1572, he was at Rome with the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. In the same
year he entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara, and resumed with
zeal the completion and correction of the Gerusalemme.

In 1573, Tasso wrote his beautiful pastoral drama Aminta. This new
production added greatly to his reputation. He chose simple Nature for
his model; and succeeded admirably in the imitation of her.

The Gerusalemme Liberata was completed in 1575. Tasso submitted it to
the criticism of the most learned men of that age. The great confusion
which prevailed in the remarks of his critics caused him extraordinary
uneasiness and labour. To answer their objections, he wrote the _Lettere
Poetiche_, which are the best key to the true interpretation of his
poem.

During 1575, Tasso visited Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and Rome, and in 1576
returned to Ferrara. His abode there never was a happy one; for his
talents, celebrity, and the favour in which he was held, raised up
enemies, who showed their spleen in petty underminings and annoyances,
to which the poet’s susceptible temper lent a sting. He was attracted,
however, by the kindness of the Duke and the society of the beautiful
and accomplished Eleonora, the Duke’s sister, for whom the poet
ventured, it is said, to declare an affection, which, according to some
historians, did not remain unrequited. The portrait of Olinda, in the
beautiful episode which relates her history, is generally understood to
have been designed after this living model: while some have imagined
that Tasso himself is not less clearly pictured in the description of
her lover Sofronio. But about this time, whether from mental uneasiness,
or from constitutional causes, his conduct began to be marked by a
morbid irritability allied to madness. The Gerusalemme was
surreptitiously printed without having received the author’s last
corrections; and he entreated the Duke, and all his powerful friends, to
prevent such an abuse. Alfonso and the Pope himself endeavoured to
satisfy Tasso’s demands, but with little success. This circumstance, and
other partly real, partly imaginary troubles, augmented so much his
natural melancholy and apprehension, that he began to think that his
enemies not only persecuted and calumniated him, but accused him of
great crimes; he even imagined that they had the intention of denouncing
his works to the Holy Inquisition. Under this impression he presented
himself to the Inquisitor of Bologna; and having made a general
confession, submitted his works to the examination of that holy father,
and begged and obtained his absolution. His malady, for such we may
surely call it, was continually exasperated by the arts of his rivals;
and on one occasion, in the apartments of the Duchess of Urbino, he drew
his sword on one of her attendants. He was immediately arrested; and
subsequently sent to one of the Duke’s villas, where he was kindly
treated and supplied with medical advice. But his fancied injuries (for
in this case they do not seem to have been real) still pursued him; and
he fled, destitute of every thing, from Ferrara, and hastened to his
sister Cornelia, then living at Sorrento. Her care and tenderness very
much soothed his mind and improved his health; but, unfortunately, he
soon repented of his hasty flight, and returned to Ferrara, where his
former malady soon regained its power. Dissatisfied with all about him,
he again left that town; but, after having wandered for more than a
year, he returned to Alfonso, by whom he was received with indifference
and contempt. By nature sensitive, and much excited by his misfortunes,
Tasso began to pour forth bitter invectives against the Duke and his
court. Alfonso exercised a cruel revenge; for, instead of soothing the
unhappy poet, he shut him up as a lunatic in the Hospital of St. Anne.
This act merits our unqualified censure; for if Tasso had in truth any
tendency to madness, what so likely to render it incurable as to shut
him up in solitary confinement, in an unhealthy cell, deprived of his
favourite books, and of every amusement? Yet, strange to say,
notwithstanding his sufferings, mental and bodily, for more than seven
years in that abode of misery and despair, his powers remained unbroken,
his genius unimpaired; and even there he composed some pieces both in
prose and verse, which were triumphantly appealed to by his friends in
proof of his sanity. To this period we may probably refer the ‘Veglie,’
or ‘Watches’ of Tasso, the manuscript of which was discovered in the
Ambrosian Library at Milan, towards the end of the last century. They
are written in prose, and express the author’s melancholy thoughts in
elegant and poetic language. The Gerusalemme had now been published and
republished both in Italy and France, and Europe rang with its praises;
yet the author lay almost perishing in close confinement, sick, forlorn,
and destitute of every comfort.

In 1584, Camillo Pellegrini, a Capuan nobleman, and a great admirer of
Tasso’s genius, published a Dialogue on Epic Poetry, in which he placed
the Gerusalemme far above the Orlando Furioso. This testimony from a man
of literary distinction caused a great sensation among the friends and
admirers of Ariosto. Two Academicians of the Crusca, Salviati and De
Rossi, attacked the Gerusalemme in the name of the Academy, and assailed
Tasso and his father in a gross strain of abuse. From the mad-house
Tasso answered with great moderation; defended his father, his poem, and
himself from these groundless invectives; and thus gave to the world the
best proof of his soundness of mind, and of his manly philosophical
spirit.

At length, after being long importuned by the noblest minds of Italy,
Alphonso released him in 1586, at the earnest entreaty of Don Vincenzo
Gonzaga, son of the Duke of Mantua, at whose court the poet for a time
took up his abode. There, through the kindness and attentions of his
patron and friends, he improved so much in health and spirits, that he
resumed his literary labours, and completed his father’s poem,
Floridante, and his own tragedy, Torrismondo.

But, with advancing age, Tasso became still more restless and impatient
of dependence, and he conceived a desire to visit Naples, in the hope of
obtaining some part of the confiscated property of his parents.
Accordingly, having received permission from the Duke, he left Mantua,
and arrived in Naples at the end of March, 1588. About this time he made
several alterations in his Gerusalemme, corrected numerous faults, and
took away all the praises he had bestowed on the House of Este. Alfieri
used to say, that this amended Gerusalemme was the only one which he
could read with pleasure to himself, or with admiration for the author.
But as there appeared no hope that his claims would be soon adjusted, he
returned to Rome, in November, 1588. Ever harassed by a restless mind,
he quitted, one after another, the hospitable roofs which gave him
shelter; and at last, destitute of all resources, and afflicted with
illness, took refuge in the hospital of the Bergamaschi, with whose
founder he claimed relation by the father’s side: a singular fate for
one with whose praises Italy even then was ringing. But it should be
remembered, ere we break into invectives against the sordidness of the
age which suffered this degradation, that the waywardness of Tasso’s
temper rendered it hard to satisfy him as an inmate, or to befriend him
as a patron.

Restored to health, at the Grand Duke’s invitation, he went to Florence,
where both prince and people received him with every mark of admiration.
Those who saw him, as he passed along the streets, would exclaim, “See!
there is Tasso! That is the wonderful and unfortunate poet!”

It is useless minutely to trace his wanderings from Florence to Rome,
from Rome to Mantua, and back again to Rome and Naples. At the latter
place he dwelt in the palace of the Prince of Conca, where he composed
great part of the Gerusalemme Conquistata. But having apprehended, not
without reason, that the prince wished to possess himself of his
manuscripts, Torquato left the palace to reside with his friend Manso.
His health and spirits improved in his new abode; and besides proceeding
with the Conquistata, he commenced, at the request of Manso’s mother,
‘Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato,’ a sacred poem in blank verse,
founded on the Book of Genesis, which he completed in Rome a few days
before his death.

He visited Rome in 1593. A report that Marco di Sciarra, a notorious
bandit, infested the road, induced him to halt at Gaeta, where his
presence was celebrated by the citizens with great rejoicing. Sciarra
having heard that the great poet was detained by fear of him, sent a
message, purporting, that instead of injury, Tasso should receive every
protection at his hands. This offer was declined; yet Sciarra, in
testimony of respect, sent word, that for the poet’s sake he would
withdraw with all his band from that neighbourhood; and he did so.

This time, on his arrival at Rome, Tasso was received by the Cardinals
Cinzio and Pietro Aldobrandini, nephews of the Pope, not as a courtier,
but as a friend. At their palace he completed the Gerusalemme
Conquistata, and published it with a dedication to Cardinal Cinzio. This
work was preferred by its author to the Gerusalemme Liberata. It is
remarkable that Milton made a similar error in estimating his Paradise
Regained.

In March, 1594, Tasso returned to Naples in hope of benefiting his
rapidly declining health. The experiment appeared to answer; but
scarcely had he passed four months in his native country, when Cardinal
Cinzio requested him to hasten to Rome, having obtained for him from the
Pope the honour of a solemn coronation in the Capitol. In the following
November the poet arrived at Rome, and was received with general
applause. The Pope himself overwhelmed him with praises, and one day
said, “Torquato, I give you the laurel, that it may receive as much
honour from you as it has conferred upon them who have worn it before
you.” To give to this solemnity greater splendour, it was delayed till
April 25, 1595; but during the winter Tasso’s health became worse.
Feeling that his end was nigh, he begged to be removed to the convent of
St. Onofrio, where he was carried off by fever on the very day appointed
for his coronation. His corpse was interred the same evening in the
church of the monastery, according to his will; and his tomb was covered
with a plain stone, on which, ten years after, Manso, his friend and
admirer, caused this simple epitaph to be engraved,—HIC JACET TORQUATUS
TASSO.

Tasso was tall and well proportioned; his countenance very expressive,
but rather melancholy; his complexion of a dark brown, with lively eyes.
Our vignette is taken from a cast in wax, made after his death. He has
left many beautiful and remarkable pieces, both in verse and prose; but
his fame is based upon the Gerusalemme Liberata: the others are
comparatively little read. Among his countrymen, the comparative merits
of this great work, and of the Orlando Furioso, have, ever since the
days of Pellegrini, been a favourite subject of controversy. Some who
persist in asserting that Ariosto was the greater poet, do not refuse to
allow the superiority of the Gerusalemme as a poem; and of this opinion
was (at least latterly) Metastasio, who, in his youth, was so great an
admirer of the Orlando, that he would not even read the Gerusalemme. In
after-life, however, having perused it with much attention, he was so
enchanted by its beauties and regularity, that, being requested to give
his opinion on the comparative merits of the two, he wrote in these
words:—“If it ever came into the mind of Apollo to make me a great poet,
and were he to command me to declare frankly whether I should like to
choose for model the Orlando or the Gerusalemme, I would not hesitate to
answer, the Gerusalemme.”

The principal biographers of Tasso, among his own countrymen, are his
friend Manso, who wrote his Life in 1600, six years only after the
poet’s death; and the Abate Serassi, whose work was first published at
Rome in 1785, and again at Bergamo in 1790. Besides these is his Life,
in French, by the Abbé de Charnes (1690); and that by M. Suard, prefixed
to the translation of the Gerusalemme by Prince Lebrun (1803, two tom.
8vo.): while in English we have a Life of Tasso by Mr. Black (1810); and
a Memoir by the Rev. Mr. Stebbing (1833). The best complete edition of
Tasso’s works is that of Molini, in eight volumes 8vo., Florence,
1822–6.

[Illustration: [From a Cast taken after death.]]




[Illustration]

                              BEN JONSON.


The rapid growth and early maturity of the drama form a remarkable
portion of the literary history of Britain. Within forty years from the
appearance of the first rude attempts at English comedy, all the most
distinguished of our dramatists had graced the stage by their
performances. Among the worthies, he whom we familiarly call Ben Jonson
holds a prominent place. He was born in Westminster, June 11, 1574, and
placed, at a proper age, at Westminster School, where Camden then
presided. He made unusual progress in classical learning, until his
mother, who was left in narrow circumstances, married a bricklayer, and
removed her son from school, that he might work with his step-father in
Lincoln’s-Inn. In his vexation and anger at this domestic tyranny, he
enlisted as a private soldier, was sent abroad to join the English army
in the Netherlands, and distinguished himself against the Spaniards by a
gallant achievement. In an encounter with a single man of the enemy, he
slew his opponent, and carried off his spoils in the view of both
armies.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by E. Scriven._

  BEN JONSON.

  _From a Picture in the possession of M^r. Knight._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

On his return home, he resumed his former studies at St. John’s,
Cambridge; but thither the miseries of slender means followed him, and
he quitted the University after a short residence. He then turned his
thoughts to the stage. The encouragement afforded to dramatic talent
coincided with his taste and inclination; and the example of Shakspeare,
who had successfully adopted the same course under similar difficulties,
determined his choice. He was admitted into an obscure theatre, called
the Green Curtain, in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch and Clerkenwell;
but his salary there must have been insufficient for his support, and
his merits were too meagre to entitle him to a place in any respectable
company. While in this humble station, he fought a duel with one of the
players, in which he was wounded in the arm, but killed his antagonist,
who had been the challenger. During his imprisonment for this offence,
he was visited by a Popish priest, who profited by his depressed state
of mind to win him over to the Church of Rome, within the pale of which
he continued for twelve years. Thus did melancholy produce a change in
his religious condition; but his spirits returned with his release, and
he ventured to offer up his recovered liberty on the altar of matrimony.

Considering that he was only about twenty-four years of age when he rose
to reputation as a dramatic writer, his life had been unusually, but
painfully, eventful. He had made some attempts as a playwright from his
first entrance into the profession, but without success. His connexion
with Shakspeare has been variously related. It has been stated that when
Jonson was unknown to the world, he offered a play to the theatre, which
was rejected after a very careless perusal; but our great dramatist,
having accidentally cast his eye on it, thought well of the production,
and afterwards recommended the author and his writings to the public.
For this candour he is said to have been repaid by Jonson, when the
latter became a poet of note, with an envious disrespect. Farmer, of all
Shakspeare’s commentators, was most inclined to depart from these
traditions, and to think the belief in Jonson’s hostility to Shakspeare
absolutely groundless. This question, triumphantly, but with needless
acrimony, argued by Mr. Gifford, we regard as now determined in Jonson’s
favour. Without any imputation of ingratitude, the acknowledged superior
in learning might chequer his commendations with reproof; as he
undeniably did, partly from natural temper, and partly from a habit of
asserting his own preeminence, as having first taught rules to the
stage. He has been loosely, not to say falsely, accused of endeavouring
to depreciate The Tempest, by calling it a _foolery_, a term which
unquestionably cannot be applied to any work without such design. But he
called it, not a _foolery_, but a _drollery_. In present acceptation the
terms may be nearly equivalent; but in that age, the word conveyed no
censure. Dennis says, in one of his letters, that he went to see the
Siege of Namur, a _droll_. In after-times, the word implied a farcical
dialogue in a single scene. Where Jonson says, “if there be never a
servant-monster in the fair, who can help it?”—he is supposed to fling
at Caliban; but the satire was general. Creatures of various kinds,
taught a thousand antics, were the concomitants of puppet-shows. In the
Dumb Knight, by Lewis Machin, 1608, Prate, the orator, cautions his wife
thus:—“I would not have you to step into the suburbs, and acquaint
yourself either with _monsters_ or _motions_; but holding your way
strictly homeward, show yourself still to be a rare housewife.” It has
been alleged in the controversy, that Jonson seems to ridicule the
conduct of Twelfth Night in his Every Man out of his Humour, where he
makes Mitis say, “that the argument of the author’s comedy might have
been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess,
and that countess to be in love with a duke’s son, and the son to love
the ladies’ waiting-maid; some such cross-wooing, with a clown to their
serving-men, better than to be thus near, and familiarly attired to the
time.” Unfortunately for Stevens’s application of this passage, Ben
Jonson could not have ridiculed Twelfth Night, which was produced at
least eight years after the play quoted. Among the commendatory poems
prefixed to the editions of Shakspeare, Jonson’s is not only the first
in date, but the most judicious, zealous, and affectionate. His personal
attachment is expressed on various occasions with more enthusiasm than
is apt to be felt by men of his temperament. We have no right to doubt
its sincerity.

We are told that, “having improved his fancy by keeping scholastic
company, he betook himself to writing plays.” The comedy entitled Every
Man in his Humour was his first successful piece. It was produced in
1598, on the stage with which Shakspeare was connected, and the generous
poet and proprietor sanctioned it by playing the part of Kno’well. This
was followed the next year by Every Man out of his Humour. After this
time he produced a play every year, for several years successively. In
1600 he paid his court to Queen Elizabeth, by complimenting her under
the allegorical character of the goddess Cynthia, in his Cynthia’s
Revels, which was acted that year by the choristers of the Queen’s
Chapel, In his next piece, The Poetaster, which was represented in 1601
by the same performers, he ridicules his rival Decker under the
character of Crispinus. Some reflections in it were also supposed to
allude to certain well-known lawyers and military men. A popular clamour
was raised against him; in vindication of himself, he replied in an
apologetical dialogue, which was once recited on the stage, and on the
publication of his works annexed to this play. But Decker was bent on
revenge, and resolved, if possible, to conquer Jonson at his own
weapons. He immediately wrote a play called Satiromastix, or the
Untrussing of the Humourous Poet, in which Jonson is introduced under
the character of Horace Junior. Jonson’s enemies industriously gave out
that he wrote with extreme labour, and was not less than a year about
every play. Had it been so, it was no disgrace: the best authors know by
experience, that what appears to be the most natural and easy writing is
frequently the result of study and close application. But the
insinuation was meant to convey, that Jonson had heavy parts, and little
imagination: a charge which applies only to two of his works, Sejanus
and Catiline. Jonson retorted upon Decker in the prologue to Volpone, or
The Fox. We are there told that this play, which is one of his best, was
finished in five weeks. He professes that, in all his poems, his aim has
been to mix profit with pleasure; and concludes with saying, that all
gall is drained from his ink, and “only a little salt remaineth.”

“Eastward Hoe” was the joint production of Ben Jonson, George Chapman,
and John Marston. What part each author had in it is not known; but the
consequences were near being very serious to them all. They were accused
of reflecting on the Scots, who crowded the court at that time to the
utter disgust of the English gentlemen; and, in perfect unison with the
arbitrary temper of the times, were all three not only committed to
prison, but in peril as to their ears and noses. On submission however
they received pardons. Jonson, on his releasement from prison, gave an
entertainment to his friends, among whom were Camden and Selden. His
mother seems now to have risen mightily in her ideas, and to have
affected the Roman matron, although the bricklayer’s wife would, in past
time, have bound her son to the hod and trowel. In the midst of the
entertainment she drank to him, and produced a paper of poison, which
she intended to have mixed with his liquor, having first taken a portion
of it herself, if the punishment of mutilation had not been remitted.

That mixture of poetry and spectacle, which, in our ancient literature,
is termed a masque, had been encouraged by Elizabeth, and became still
more fashionable during the reigns of James and Charles. The queens of
both monarchs, being foreigners, understood the English language but
imperfectly, so that the music, dancing, and decorations of a masque
were better adapted to their amusement than the more intellectual
entertainment of the regular drama. After Queen Elizabeth’s example,
they occasionally assisted in the representation, and probably were
still better pleased to be performers than spectators. Jonson was the
chief manufacturer of this article for the court; and a year seldom
passed without his furnishing more than one piece of this sort. They
were usually got up, as the phrase is, with the utmost splendour. In the
scenery, Jonson had Inigo Jones for an associate. As compositions, these
trifles rank little higher than shows and pageants; but they possessed a
property peculiarly acceptable at court—they abounded with incense and
servility. However crusty Jonson might be as a critical censor, he saw
plainly what food his royal master relished, and furnished the table
plentifully.

This occupation interrupted the periodical production of his regular
plays; but the interval had not been frivolously passed. In 1609, he
produced “Epicœne, or the Silent Woman.” This was generally esteemed to
be the most perfect pattern of a play hitherto brought out in England,
and might be selected as a proof that its author was a careful and
learned observer of the dramatic laws. We are assured that Jonson was
personally acquainted with a man quite as ridiculous as Morose is
represented to be. It may here be observed that the description of
humour, drawn from the knowledge and observation of particular persons,
was in the line of this author’s peculiar genius and talent. There is
more wit and fancy in the dialogue of this play than in any by the same
hand. Truewit is a scholar, with an alloy of pedantry; but he is the
best gentleman ever drawn by Jonson, whose strength, in general, was not
properly wit or sharpness of conceit, but the natural imitation of
various and contrasted follies. The Alchemist came out in 1610. Jonson
shows in it much learning relative to changes in the external appearance
of metals, and uses some of the very terms of art met with in Eastward
Hoe; which makes it probable that the passages in which they are
contained are from his pen. This piece was unusually free from personal
allusions; yet it was not popular at first. The partisans of inferior
writers were constantly let loose whenever Jonson brought out a new
play; but their censure was harmless, for he numbered among his friends
and admirers, Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, Camden, Selden, and
a host of worthies of every class. In 1613, he made the tour of France,
and was introduced to Cardinal Perron, who showed him his translation of
Virgil; but Perron not being his master and sovereign, but a foreign
cardinal, with his customary bluntness he told him it was a bad one.
About this time he and Inigo Jones quarrelled; and he ridiculed his
colleague of the Masques, under the character of Sir Lantern
Leatherhead, a Hobby-horse Seller. His next play was “The Devil is an
Ass,” 1616.

In 1617, the salary of poet-laureat was settled on him for life by King
James, and he published his works in one folio volume. His fame, both as
to poetry and learning, was now so fully established, that he was
invited to the University of Oxford by several members, and particularly
by Dr. Corbet, of Christ Church. That college was his residence during
his stay, and he was created Master of Arts in full convocation, in
July, 1619. In the following October, on the death of Daniel, he
received the appointment of Poet-laureat, after having discharged the
duties of the office for some time. At the latter end of this year he
travelled into Scotland on foot, to visit his correspondent, Drummond of
Hawthornden. Jonson had formed a design of writing on the history and
geography of Scotland, and had received some curious documents from
Drummond. The acquisition of additional materials appears to have been
the main object of his journey. In the freedom of social intercourse, he
expressed his sentiments strongly concerning the authors and poets of
his own time. Drummond committed the heads of their conversations to
writing, and has been severely censured on account of what he has left
us concerning his guest. He says that he was “a great lover and praiser
of himself; a contemner and scorner of others; chusing rather to lose
his friend than his jest; jealous of every word and action of those
about him, especially after drink, which was one of the elements in
which he lived; a dissembler of the parts which reigned in him; a
bragger of some good that he wanted; he thought nothing right, but what
either himself or some of his friends had said or done. He was
passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep;
vindictive, but if he was well answered, greatly chagrined; interpreting
the best sayings and deeds often to the worst. He was for either
religion, being versed in both; oppressed with fancy, which
over-mastered his reason, a general disease among the poets.” Drummond’s
letters exhibit Jonson in a much more favourable light; and this
inconsistency may, perhaps, be explained by supposing that they exhibit
the Scotch poet’s deliberate opinion of his guest, while the strictures
contained in his loose notes were probably penned in a moment of
irritation, to which he appears to have been subject. If, indeed, the
received notions of Jonson’s heat of temper had any foundation, we may
suppose him and his northern host to have been occasionally so far
advanced in disputation, that “testy Drummond could not speak for
fretting.” Jonson recorded his adventures on this journey in a poem,
which was accidentally burnt; a loss which he lamented in another poem
called “An Execration upon Vulcan.”

The laureateship obliged him annually to provide, besides other
entertainments of the court, the Christmas Masque: of these we have a
series in his works, from 1615 to 1625. In 1625, his comedy called The
Staple of News was exhibited. In 1627, The New Inn was performed at the
Blackfriars theatre, and deservedly hissed off the stage. Three of
Jonson’s plays underwent that fate. He was so much incensed against the
town, that in 1631 he published it with the following title: “The New
Inn, or the Light Heart, a comedy; as it was never acted, but most
negligently played, by some, the king’s servants, and more squeamishly
beheld and censured by others, the king’s subjects, 1629; and now at
last set at liberty to the readers.” To this he annexed an ode to
himself, threatening to leave the stage, which was sarcastically
parodied by Owen Feltham, a writer of note, and author of a book called
“Resolves.” Jonson’s mingled foibles and excellencies are pleasantly
touched by Sir John Suckling, in his “Session of the Poets.” An
improbable story is told by Cibber, and repeated by Smollet, that in
1629, Ben, being reduced to distress, and living in an obscure alley,
petitioned his Majesty to assist him in his poverty and sickness; but
that, on receiving ten pounds, he said to the messenger who brought the
donation, “His Majesty has sent me ten pounds, because I am poor and
live in an alley: go and tell him that his soul lives in an alley.” His
annual pension had been increased from a hundred marks to a hundred
pounds, with the welcome addition of a yearly tierce of Canary wine. He
received from the king a further present of one hundred pounds in that
very year, which he acknowledged in an epigram published in his works.
Could he, as he does in his “Epistle Mendicant,” have further solicited
the Lord Treasurer for relief in 1631, had he been guilty of such an
insult to royalty in 1629? There is reason to believe that he had
pensions from the city, and from several of the nobility and gentry;
particularly from Mr. Sutton, the founder of the Charter-house. Yet,
with all these helps, his finances were unredeemed from disorder.

In his distress, he came upon the stage again, in spite of his last
defeat. Two comedies without a date, “The Magnetic Lady,” and “The Tale
of a Tub,” belong to these latter compositions, which Dryden has called
his dotages; at all events, they are the dotages of Jonson. Alexander
Gill, a poetaster of the times, attacked him with brutal fury, on
account of his “Magnetic Lady.” Gill was a bad man as well as a bad
poet; and Jonson availed himself of his adversary’s weak points in a
short but cutting reply. His last masque was performed July 30, 1634,
and the only piece extant of later date is his “New Year’s Ode for
1635.” He died of palsy, August 6, 1637, in his sixty-third year, and
was buried in Westminster Abbey. His grave-stone only bears the quaint
inscription,—“O RARE BEN JONSON!”

In the beginning of 1638, elegies on his death were published, under the
title of “Jonsonius Virbius, or, the Memory of Ben Jonson Revived, by
the Friends of the Muses.” This collection contains poems by Lord
Falkland, Lord Buckhurst, Sir John Beaumont, Sir Thomas Hawkins, Mr.
Waller, Mayne, Cartwright, Waryng, the author of “Effigies Amoris,” and
other contributors of note. In 1640, the former volume of his works was
reprinted; with a second, containing the rest of his plays, masques, and
entertainments; Underwoods; English Grammar; his translation of Horace’s
Art of Poetry; and Discoveries. The latter is a prose work of various
and extensive learning, containing opinions on all subjects, worthy to
be weighed even at this distant period. In 1716, his works were
reprinted in six volumes octavo. Another edition appeared in 1756, under
the care of Mr. Whalley, of St. John’s, Oxford, with notes, and the
addition of a comedy not inserted in any former edition, called “The
Case is Altered.” But all former editions are superseded in value by
that of Mr. Gifford.

Jonson was married, and had children; particularly a son and a daughter,
both celebrated by him in epitaphs at their death; but none of his
children survived him.

As a dramatic writer, he is remarkable for judgment in the arrangement
of his plots; a happy choice of characters; and skill in maintaining
character throughout the piece. The manners of the most trifling persons
are always consistent. Dryden censures him for exhibiting _mechanic
humour_, “Where men were dull and conversation low.” This remark is so
far just, that Jonson chiefly aimed at mirth by the contrast and
collision of what Dryden terms _humour_. The reader, however, would do
the dramatist injustice, were he to apply the word humour to him in its
modern and confined sense. Jonson cultivated it according to a more
philosophical definition; as a technical term for characters swayed and
directed by some predominant passion, the display of which, under
various circumstances, formed the strength of the comedy. Among the
writers of that age, Jonson alone perhaps felt all the impropriety
arising from frequent and violent change of scene. Yet Jonson himself,
who disapproved of Shakspeare’s practice in that particular, was not
wholly free from it, as Dryden has remarked with some appearance of
triumph. Pope has touched on his genius in respect to dramatic poetry.
He says,—“That when Jonson got possession of the stage, he brought
critical learning into vogue; and this was not done without difficulty,
which appears from those frequent lessons, and indeed almost
declamations, which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and put
into the mouths of his actors the grex, chorus, &c., to remove the
prejudices and reform the judgment of his hearers. Till then the English
authors had no thoughts of writing upon the model of the ancients; their
tragedies were only histories in dialogue, and their comedies followed
the thread of any novel as they found it, no less implicitly than if it
had been true history.” In fact, this author’s object was to found a
reputation on understanding, and submitting to the discipline of the
ancient stage; but his success fell short of his just expectations, and
he growls on every occasion against the rude taste of an age which
preferred to his laboured and well-concocted scenes, the more glowing,
wild, and irregular effusions of his unlearned contemporaries. Beyond
this there appears nothing to confirm the eagerly propagated opinion of
his pride and malignity, at least in the earlier part of his life. At
that time he contributed an encomium to almost every play or poem that
appeared, from Shakspeare down to the translator of Du Bartas. His
antagonist, Decker, seems to hint at a personal failing, seldom allied
to malignity, when, in the “Satiromastix,” Sir Vaughan says to Horace,
that is, Jonson, “I have some cousin-german at court shall beget you the
reversion of the master of the king’s revels, or else to be his _Lord of
Misrule_ now at Christmas.” We have already quoted Drummond to the
purport, that “drink was one of the elements in which he lived;” which
accounts but too well for the poverty of his latter days, in spite of
royal and noble munificence. In reference to this unfortunate
propensity, the following amusing story is told:—Camden had recommended
him to Sir Walter Raleigh, who trusted him with the care and education
of his eldest son Walter, a gay spark, who could not brook Ben’s
rigorous treatment; but perceiving one foible in his disposition, made
use of that to throw off the yoke of his government. This was an unlucky
habit Ben had contracted, through his love of jovial company, of being
overtaken with liquor, which Sir Walter did of all vices most abominate,
and hath most exclaimed against. One day, when Ben had taken a plentiful
dose, and was fallen into a sound sleep, young Raleigh got a great
basket, and a couple of men, who laid Ben in it, and then with a pole
carried him between their shoulders to Sir Walter, telling him their
young master had sent home his tutor.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

  CANOVA.

  _From a Picture by_
  Sir Thomas Lawrence,
  _in the possession of the Abate Canova at Rome_.

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]




[Illustration]

                                CANOVA.


About the middle of the last century the art of Sculpture, which had
been long on the decline, may be said to have reached the lowest point
to which it has sunk since the revival of the arts; for, although the
seventeenth century was the great æra of bad taste, the genius which was
often apparent in the mannered productions of that time, no longer
survived in those of the imitators who succeeded. The works of Bernini
in Italy, and of Puget in France, both men of extraordinary talent but
most mistaken principles, were still regarded as types of excellence.
Their fame still produced a host of followers, who, with perhaps the
single exception of Duquesnoy, called Fiammingo, naturally aimed at the
extravagances and peculiarities of their models; and the consequence
was, a constantly increasing deviation from nature, and a total
misconception of the style and limits of the art. The works which were
produced in Rome about the period alluded to, thus fluctuated between
manner and insipidity; till the art had relapsed into a state of such
lethargic mediocrity, that even sculptors of note, such as Cavaceppi,
Pacetti, and Albacini, were content to occupy themselves in restoring
and mending antique statues. But the germs of a better taste, and a more
rational imitation, were already expanding. If the mania for collecting
antique statues had the temporary effect of paralysing invention in the
artist, and diverting the means of patronage, a gradual appreciation of
the principles of ancient art was, nevertheless, the result; while the
illustration and description of museums, and the works of Winkelmann,
all tended to awaken the attention of the connoisseur to the amazing
difference between the ill-advised caprices of the Bernini school and
the sagacious simplicity of the ancients.

These circumstances concurred ultimately to work a change and an
improvement of taste among the artists themselves, and thus prepared a
better æra of sculpture. The partiality of the Italians may be excused,
when they attribute the reformation of the art to the single efforts of
Canova, although the designs of Flaxman, composed about the same time
that the Italian artist was beginning his career, exhibit a more decided
feeling for the long-lost purity of the antique, and a more thorough
comprehension of the style and language of sculpture, than we find in
the works of his continental contemporaries. But it is time to give a
more particular account of the subject of this memoir.

Antonio Canova was born A.D. 1757, at Possagno, a small town in the
province of Treviso. His father, Pietro Canova, was a stonemason and
builder; and the first occupation of the future sculptor taught him to
use the chisel with dexterity. At the age of fourteen, he was introduced
to the notice of Giovanni Faliero, a Venetian senator, who used annually
to pass the autumn near Possagno. By the kind assistance of this
nobleman, the young Canova was placed with one Torretti, a sculptor who
had studied in Venice, and who resided in a neighbouring town. On the
return of this artist to Venice, Canova accompanied him. A year
afterwards however Torretti died, and the young sculptor, unwilling to
continue with Ferrari, his master’s nephew and heir, established himself
in a _studio_ of his own. While with Ferrari, he produced his first
work, a pair of baskets of fruit and flowers, done for the noble
Faliero. They are still to be seen in the stair-case of the Farsetti
palace, in Venice, more generally known as the Albergo della Gran
Bretagna. The same patron next employed him on two statues of Orpheus
and Eurydice, preserved in the villa of Pradazzi, near Possagno. After
one or two other less important performances, he executed his Dædalus
and Icarus, for the Procurator Pisani. In all these works he aimed at a
close imitation of individual nature, and this was carried so far in the
Dædalus, that, when it was afterwards shown in Rome, the sculptor was
hardly believed when he asserted that it was not moulded from a living
model.

The imitation of the softness, surface, and accidents of skin was an
early excellence and a lasting peculiarity of Canova; and however he may
have been smitten with the antique statues in Rome, it is certain that,
while in Venice, where he remained till the age of twenty-two, he paid
little attention to the specimens of ancient art in the Farsetti
Gallery. It is probable that the prejudice against the antique, which
had prevailed ever since Bernini’s time, was hardly yet effaced in
Venice; and if Canova’s admiration of the ancients increased in Rome, it
was undoubtedly greatly owing to the opinion and examples of those among
whom he had the good fortune to be first thrown.

In 1779, Girolamo Zulian being appointed ambassador of the Republic at
Rome, Faliero recommended Canova to his notice. The young sculptor had
already determined to visit the metropolis of the arts, and soon
followed the ambassador thither. The course of study which he adopted,
founded on the comparison of nature with the best specimens of art,
showed that he was earnest to improve; and his new patron Zulian, who
had introduced him to the distinguished amateurs and artists residing in
Rome, recommended him to send for a cast of his Dædalus and Icarus, in
order to show them what he had done, and profit by their advice. He did
so, and the day on which that group was submitted to the judgment of the
connoisseurs was a memorable one for Canova. His work by no means
excited unqualified approbation. It was, indeed, so different from the
style which was then prevalent, that his judges remained silent, till
the generous Gavin Hamilton openly declared, that it was a simple
imitation of nature, which showed that the artist had nothing to
unlearn; at the same time reminding him, that although the greatest
artists had always begun thus, they had subsequently refined their taste
by comparison and selection, and their execution by an ampler and larger
treatment; all which, aiming at the grandest impressions of nature, but
by no means departing from nature, approaches what is called the divine
and ideal in art. This opinion, from so good a judge as Hamilton,
delighted Zulian, who asked “what was to be done with the young man?”
“Give him a block of marble,” said Hamilton, “and let him follow his own
feeling.” From this hour the fate of the young artist was decided:
Zulian furnished him with a _studio_ and materials, and he began his
career in Rome.

Canova always spoke with gratitude of Gavin Hamilton, and acknowledged
that he owed to him every sound principle of art. The vast knowledge of
the antique which the Scotch artist possessed, gave more than common
weight and value to his advice respecting its imitation. Canova’s first
work in Rome, was an Apollo crowning himself. The sculptor himself was
not satisfied with it, and felt all the difficulty of uniting a purer
and broader style with a sufficient attention to the details of nature.
His engagements soon after recalled him to Venice, to complete an
unfinished work, the statue of the Marquis Poleni, placed in the Prato
della Valle, at Padua. It was probably hurried, that he might get back
sooner to Rome.

On his return to Rome, he produced his celebrated group of Theseus
sitting on the slain Minotaur. The moment chosen was recommended by
Hamilton, who observed, that it was generally safer for young artists
not to aim at too much action in their subjects. In this composition
Canova endeavoured to infuse still more of the style of the antique, and
he succeeded so well, that the exhibition of it may be considered an
epoch in the art. Quatremère de Quincy (an eminent French sculptor)
spoke of it in these words in 1804:—“This group struck foreigners even
more than the Romans, who were still attached to their accustomed
manner. Nevertheless, Canova, from that time, was considered the
sculptor who was destined to restore good taste, and to reduce the art
to its grand principles.” The fame which this work gained for its author
has been allowed, on all hands, to have been justly awarded; and, after
the efforts of the artist to fix his style and define the mode of
imitation which he believed to be the best, it may be supposed that the
praises he received would have confirmed him in the principles he had
formed to himself, and encouraged him to carry them farther. None of his
Italian biographers, however, have taken sufficient notice of the fact,
that he never followed up the style which is observable in this group.
His subsequent works were undoubtedly more refined in execution and more
anatomically studied; but it is quite certain that he never approached
the breadth of the antique so much in any later works. Hence it would
appear that, in this effort, he was in some degree doing violence to his
real feelings; and having once established his reputation, he was more
likely afterwards to exercise his own unbiassed taste. It was, indeed,
some time before he was occupied on a subject which afforded a display
of the figure.

His next work was the monument of Ganganelli (Clement XIV.), placed in
the Church de’ Santi Apostoli at Rome; in this he was again fortunate.
Its originality and simplicity, for such was the character of the
design, compared with the extravagant compositions of preceding artists,
gave very general satisfaction; but the advocates of the taste of a
former age did not remain silent. Pompeo Battoni, the most celebrated
Italian painter of his day, having condescended to accompany Hamilton to
see the model of the monument while it was in the clay, observed, in
Canova’s hearing, that the young artist had talent, but that it was a
pity he had chosen a bad road, and that it would be better to retrace
his steps while there was time. Hamilton, in consoling Canova
afterwards, reminded him, that it was the style of Pietro da Cortona,
Carlo Maratti, and Bernini, which Battoni considered synonymous with
excellence; and it was the departure from this, in search of the purer
style of sculpture, which he called “the bad road.” The fastidious
Milizia, on the other hand, gave this work unqualified approbation.

The monument of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), which was the next subject
the sculptor was invited to treat, was begun in 1787, and only placed in
St. Peter’s in 1795. While engaged on this, and the monument of
Ganganelli, other works of less extent were from time to time finished.
Among these were a group of Cupid and Psyche, a group of Venus and
Adonis, which, however, was not executed in marble, and a second
composition of Cupid and Psyche, the one in which Psyche is recumbent.
These were the works which first procured for their author, among his
Italian admirers, the reputation and title of the sculptor of the
Graces; and it was in these that a certain effeminacy of style—at least
what would be so called by less indulgent critics—seemed to supersede
the simplicity, and almost severity, which he had appeared to aim at in
the Theseus and Minotaur. To the same period belong most of the bassi
relievi of Canova. These were composed and executed when his imagination
was warmed by the study of the ancient poets; and although wrought in
the intervals of greater occupations, there can be no doubt that they
received his mature attention, and exhibited the free expression of his
own taste. Of all the works of the artist, these bassi relievi have,
perhaps, been most universally and deservedly condemned; but, defective
as they are, they are still purer in the forms and drapery than the
works of his predecessors.

The monument of Rezzonico completely established Canova’s reputation;
the expression and attitude of the kneeling Pope, and the novelty and
happy execution of the lions, excited the utmost admiration. The figure
of the Genius is again an instance of a total dereliction of the style
of the antique, for a soft and pulpy fleshiness without sufficient
characteristic marking; but even this was found to be new and agreeable,
and the drapery of the figure of Religion was almost the only part of
the work which was criticised. On revisiting Venice, after an illness
brought on by severe application, the Venetian government commissioned
him to execute a monument for the Procurator Angelo Emo, which was
afterwards placed in the arsenal. He returned to Rome to execute this
work; but first revisited his native village, where he was surprised,
and somewhat disconcerted, at finding a fête prepared for his welcome. A
deputation of the inhabitants lined the roads to receive him; the
streets were strewed with laurel; the bells of the campanile, and the
_mortaletti_, usually fired on festivals, saluted him as he entered; and
a band of music accompanied him to his mother’s house. The enthusiasm of
his countrymen went so far, that a statue was erected to him even in
early life, and placed in the Prato della Valle, at Padua.

A group of Venus and Adonis was next completed, and sent to Naples,
where it contributed to spread his fame. A new group of Cupid and
Psyche, standing, done for Murat, was sent to Paris, and being
fortunately one of his best works, it excited a great sensation when
exhibited there. The reputation Canova had acquired in Italy naturally
provoked a close and keen scrutiny into the merits and defects of this
work; but its success was complete, and from that time his great merit
was as fully acknowledged in France as elsewhere. Some of his subsequent
works exhibited in the Louvre were, it is true, severely criticised, but
they always found ardent defenders, and those among the most respectable
connoisseurs and artists.

The celebrated kneeling Magdalen, which ultimately became the property
of Count Sommariva, and adorned his house in Paris, was Canova’s next
performance; it was afterwards, like many of his works, copied, or
rather repeated, for other amateurs.

This statue created a still greater sensation than the Cupid and Psyche
when it was exhibited in Paris. The well-known Hebe was executed about
the same time; this, too, was often repeated, and one copy was exhibited
in the Louvre bearing a golden vase and cup, and with the lips and
cheeks slightly tinged with vermilion. These innovations were severely
objected to by the French critics, while the general taste of this and
other works of the artist was still less indulgently treated in London.
But the execution of individual parts of his statues was every where
allowed to be exquisite, and many a time, in Rome, artists who were his
professed rivals have purchased casts of the joints and extremities of
his figures as models of perfect imitation: such detached portions have
even been mistaken for casts from the antique.

Much has been said by the Italian eulogists of Canova of his skill in
painting, and a story is told of his having done a pretended portrait of
Giorgione on an old panel, which Angelica Kaufmann, and other very
sufficient judges, for a time believed to be an original by the Venetian
master. Canova’s attempts at painting were regarded with complacency, at
least by himself, remarkable as he was for great modesty in speaking of
his works in sculpture. He seems never to have forgotten that he was a
Venetian, and gloried in the perfections, and almost in the defects, of
the painters of that school. It is not impossible that this predilection
may have operated in some degree to check his pursuit of the severe
style of the ancients in sculpture, and it may, perhaps, account for the
picturesque licences which he sometimes indulged in, as, for instance,
in the Hebe; but if his efforts in painting were naturally defective in
execution, they were still more open to criticism in their invention and
taste, and, on the whole, call rather for indulgence than admiration.

The unsettled state of Italy consequent upon the French Revolution, and
the troubles in Rome, induced Canova, about the close of the century, to
retire for a time to his native province. From thence he accompanied the
Senator Rezzonico into Germany, and visited Munich, Vienna, Dresden, and
Berlin. At Vienna, he received from Duke Albert of Saxe Teschen, the
commission for the monument to Maria Christina of Austria.

His first ambition, however, on returning to Italy, was to embody in a
picture some of the impressions he had received from contemplating the
galleries of Germany, and particularly the Notte of Correggio; and he
actually painted a large altar-piece for the parochial church of
Possagno. This work, though since considered unworthy of criticism, was
highly extolled at the time it was done. On his return to Rome, he began
the model of his celebrated group of Hercules and Lichas, a work which
found favour even with those who had objected to the want of manliness
of taste in his treatment of most other subjects. It is indeed
impossible to contemplate this group, without feeling it to be the
production of a man of genius; while the patient elaboration of the
anatomical details, and the power and knowledge with which the
difficulties of the composition are overcome, have never failed to
excite the high praise which is awarded to rare excellence. The
originality of the idea has, however, been lately disputed; and a bronze
has come to light which, if its history be true, at least proves that
some earlier sculptor than Canova had conceived the subject nearly in
the same manner. This grand work, first intended for Naples, was
purchased by Torlonia, Duke of Bracciano, and is now the principal
ornament of the Bracciano Palace in Rome.

Soon after this the Perseus was produced, a statue which, by command of
Pius VII., received the unparalleled honour of being placed in the
Vatican, in a situation similar to that of the Apollo, or rather to
supply its place, for the Apollo at this time was not returned from
Paris. The honour was even greater when that statue was restored to
Rome, for the Perseus then remained as a companion or pendant to it. The
two Pugilists were modelled soon after for the same patron, Pope Pius
VII., and were placed, when finished, in the Vatican, together with the
Perseus. A cast of the Creugas, one of these figures, exhibited about
the same time at Paris, was very generally admired, and very ably and
generously defended from the hostile criticisms it called forth, by the
sculptor Quatremère de Quincy. The high estimation in which Canova was
held, and his zeal for the preservation of the ancient monuments in
Rome, as well as the frescoes of the Vatican, induced the Pope to confer
on him the appointment and title of Inspector-General of the Fine Arts.
Though at first unwilling to assume the responsibility of this charge,
Canova at last undertook it; and it appears that his conscientious
attention to the duties connected with it, gave a new impulse to the
Roman school, and excited in all a zeal and ardour for the preservation
of the precious remains of antiquity. The conduct of Canova in
furthering the general interests of the arts of his country is worthy of
all praise: his private benevolence is well known. It may be said that
his happy freedom from jealousy was owing to the quiet security of
established fame; but he was equally remarkable for magnanimity when
placed in competition with those whom he had reason to regard as
possible rivals.

After finishing a model of the colossal statue of the King of Naples,
Canova received a flattering invitation to visit the court of Bonaparte,
then First Consul; and in obedience to the wishes even of the Pope he
proceeded to Paris. His conversations with Bonaparte during this and a
subsequent visit have been preserved; and it appears that he lost no
opportunity of representing the fallen and impoverished state of Italy
(the consequence of the French invasion) to the arbiter of its
destinies, whom he dexterously reminded of his Pisan or Florentine
origin. His recommendation of the arts in Rome was at least successful,
for soon after his return thither ample funds were forwarded by command
of Bonaparte for the revival and extension of the Academy of St. Luke,
of which Canova was naturally appointed the Director, and for
prosecuting the excavations in the Forum. When Canova, in one of his
visits to Paris, ventured to ask for the restitution of the statues that
had been taken from Rome, the French ruler replied, that “they might dig
for more.”

Having modelled the bust of Bonaparte, Canova returned to Italy to
complete the colossal statue of Napoleon, now in the possession of the
Duke of Wellington. In this work, which he considered an heroic
representation, he elevated the forms to his highest conceptions of an
abstract style, and, probably in imitation of the statue of Pompey,
exhibited the figure naked. The censures which were passed on this bold
attempt were most satisfactorily answered by the celebrated Visconti. In
Canova’s second visit to Paris, Napoleon himself remarked, that his
statue should have been in the ordinary dress, to which Canova replied,
“Our art, like all the fine arts, has its sublime language; this
language in sculpture is the naked, and such drapery as conveys a
general idea.” The extensive monument for Vienna was next finished, and
Canova repaired to the Austrian capital to see it put together. The
artist’s general deviation from the style of sculpture practised by the
ancients, may be illustrated by this work, admirable as it is for its
details. The real aperture, or door of the tomb, into which the
procession is entering, the literal reality of the steps, the
accurately-imitated drapery, and other circumstances, are all nearer to
nature than the flesh, the reverse of the principle of the Greeks. The
partial or absolute truth of the accessories thus reminds us that colour
and life are wanting in the figures—a discovery the spectator should
never be permitted to make. Again, the indistinctness which must exist
more or less in an assemblage of figures similar in colour (the
unavoidable condition of the art), far from being obviated by
indiscriminate imitation, requires rather to be counteracted by those
judicious conventions which, in some measure, represent the varieties of
nature, and constitute the style of sculpture. The Venus for Florence,
(afterwards more than once repeated,) and the statues of the Princess
Borghese, and the mother of Napoleon, were the next works of Canova. The
attitude and treatment of the last seem to have been inspired by the
statue of Agrippina; it was completely successful in Paris. After these,
the well-known Dancing Nymphs occupied him, and seem to have been
favourite works of his own. Although these statues excited more
attention in Paris than perhaps any of his former works, and raised his
reputation more than ever, they have since been very generally censured
as meretricious in their taste. The portrait statues of the Princess
Borghese and Madame Letitia, invited many other commissions of the same
kind, which it would be long to recount. The monument of Alfieri, and
the statues of Hector and Ajax, the latter admirable for their details,
but with little of the antique character in their general treatment,
were successively produced, together with many busts of individuals and
of ideal personages. An opportunity was soon after afforded the
sculptor, in a statue of Paris for the Empress Josephine, of exhibiting
his best powers to the French critics. He was perhaps better satisfied
with this than with any other single figure he had done. It was much
admired when exhibited in the Louvre, and Quatremère de Quincy published
an eulogium on it.

In 1810, Canova again proceeded to the French capital to receive the
commands of Napoleon, and modelled the bust of Maria Louisa. The statue
of the Empress, as Concord, and of the Princess Eliza, in the character
of a Muse, were finished on his return to Rome. The group of the Graces,
and a statue of Peace, were next completed. The colossal horse, first
intended to bear Napoleon, and then Murat, was finally surmounted with
the statue of Charles III. of Naples, and placed in that city. A
recumbent nymph, Canova’s next work, was succeeded by one of his most
extraordinary productions, the Theseus and Centaur, a group now in
Vienna, where it is placed in a temple built for its reception. Opinions
are divided between the merits of this work and of his Hercules and
Lichas.

In 1815, when the Allies occupied Paris, Canova was sent there by Pope
Pius VII. on an honourable and interesting mission, namely, to intercede
with the French government and the invading powers, for the restitution
of the works of art which had been torn from Rome by the treaty of
Tolentino. The French ministry resisted his application, and it was
ultimately by the decision of the Allied Powers, and literally under the
protection of foreign bayonets, that Canova removed the objects in
question from the Louvre. The gratitude of the Pope to the British
government on this occasion led to Canova’s visit to London. The honours
he received in England from George IV., then Prince Regent, from the
nobility, and the professors of the arts, perhaps even exceeded the
homage which had been paid him on the continent; and it ought not to be
forgotten, that the great Flaxman, who was among the warmest in
welcoming him, wrote a letter to Canova on his return to Rome, which did
honour to both, and in which he says, “You will be always a great
example in the arts, not only in Italy, but in Europe.”

Canova’s return to Rome, in 1816, was little short of a triumph. The
Pope created him Marquis of Ischia, with an annual pension of three
thousand crowns; but the noble-minded artist divided this sum, till his
death, among the institutions of the arts, in premiums for the young and
in aids for the old and decayed. Long was his benevolence to rising
artists the general theme of gratitude and regret; and in every case of
ill-rewarded industry, or fancied oppression, the exclamation was, “Ah!
if Canova were alive!”

The statue of Washington; the Stuart monument in St. Peter’s; the group
of Mars and Venus, which was done for George IV.; the Sleeping Nymphs;
the recumbent Magdalen, executed for the Earl of Liverpool, were
successively produced at this highly-honoured period of his life; and a
third monument in St. Peter’s, viz., that of Pope Pius VI.

The last great act of Canova’s life was the foundation of a magnificent
church at Possagno, the first stone of which was laid by him July 11,
1819. The monument for the Marquis Salsa Berio, sent to Naples, the
figures of which are in basso relievo; seven mezzi relievi for the
metopes of the frieze of his church at Possagno, the design of which
combines the forms of the Parthenon and the Pantheon; and the beautiful
group of the Pietà, or dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin at the foot
of the cross, accompanied by the Magdalen, intended for the altar of the
same church, were the last works of Canova.

In 1822, he visited Possagno, partly to see the progress of the
building, and still more on account of his infirm state of health. After
a short stay in the neighbourhood, his illness increased so much that he
was forced to repair to Venice for medical assistance; but his recovery
was hopeless, and he died October 13, 1822, in the 65th year of his age.
Gratitude was among the prominent virtues of Canova, and among his
legacies, it is pleasing to observe that the sons of Faliero, his
earliest patron, were remembered. He was buried at Possagno; but his
funeral obsequies were celebrated throughout Italy, and a statue to his
memory was afterwards placed in the Academy of St. Luke, at Rome.

Ample details of Canova’s life, his precepts on art, and conversations
with Napoleon, will be found in the account of him by Missirini: for a
catalogue and eulogy of his works, Cicognara’s ‘Storia della Scultura’
may be consulted. The memoir of him by that nobleman, together with his
own ‘Thoughts on the Arts,’ taken down and recorded by Missirini, will
be found in the splendid edition of Canova’s works, engraved in outline
by Moses.

[Illustration: [Monument to the Archduchess Maria Christina.]]




[Illustration]

                                CHAUCER.


There is considerable discrepance between the generally received and the
probable date of Geoffrey Chaucer’s birth. In the life prefixed to the
edition of his works by Speght, it is stated, that he “departed out of
this world in the year of our Lord 1400, after he had lived about
seventy years.” The biographer’s authority for this is “Bale, out of
Leland.” Leland’s accuracy on this, as on many other points, may be
doubted, since he believed Oxfordshire or Berkshire to have been the
poet’s native county. But Chaucer himself, in his Testament of Love,
mentions London as the “place of his kindly engendure.” The received
date of his birth is 1328: if that be correct, he was fifty-eight in
1386. But a record in the Appendix to Mr. Godwin’s Life shows that in
that year he was a witness on oath, in a question between Sir Richard le
Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor. The point at issue occasioned an
inquiry to be made as to Chaucer’s age, which he stated to be “forty
years and upwards.” Eighteen years upon forty is a large _upwards_ on a
sworn examination. Mr. Sharon Turner, therefore, in his History of the
Middle Ages, suggests, with every appearance of reason, that 1340, or
thereabouts, is a date fairly corresponding with the witness’s “forty
years and upwards,” and even necessary to vindicate his accuracy in a
predicament requiring the most scrupulous adherence to truth. Chaucer
might not be certain as to the precise year of his birth; and, in that
case, it was natural to fix on the nearest round number. The chronology
of his Works must be deeply affected by this difference of twelve years:
it will be to be seen whether the few authenticated facts of his life
are to be reconciled with this presumptive later date.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Thomson._

  CHAUCER.

  _From a Limning in Occleve’s Poems
  in the British Museum._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
    East._
]

Chaucer is represented by Leland to have studied both at Cambridge and
at Oxford. At the latter University, he is said to have diligently
frequented the public schools and disputations, and to have affected the
opinions of Wiclif in religion. “Hereupon,” says Leland, “he became a
witty logician, a sweet rhetorician, a pleasant poet, a grave
philosopher, and a holy divine.” But Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks that nothing is
known as to his education, and doubts his having studied at either
University. The evidence that he was of the Inner Temple seems to rest
on a record of that house, seen some years afterwards by one Master
Buckley, showing that Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for
beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street. Mr. Tyrwhitt complains of
the want of date to this record. The sally is plainly a youthful one,
and inclines him to believe that Chaucer was of the Inner Temple before
he went into the service of Edward III. That he could have been engaged
in the practice of the law in after-life, as stated by Leland, is shown
by Mr. Tyrwhitt to be utterly inconsistent with his employments under
the crown. In the paucity of biographical anecdotes, Chaucer’s personal
career will be most satisfactorily ascertained by following the
succession of his appointments, as verified by the public documents in
Mr. Godwin’s valuable appendices. In 1367, Edward III. granted him, for
his good services, an annuity of twenty marcs, payable out of the
Exchequer. In 1370, he was sent to the Continent on the king’s business.
Two years afterwards, he, with two others, was employed on an embassy to
the Doge of Genoa. This negotiation probably regarded the hiring of
ships for the king’s navy. In those times, although the necessity for
naval armaments was frequent, very few ships were built by the English.
This deficiency was supplied by the free states either in Germany or
Italy. The age of thirty and thirty-two squares well enough with such
appointments. In 1374, the king granted to him a pitcher of wine daily,
to be delivered by the Butler of England. At the same time, he made him
Comptroller of the Customs of London, for wool, wool-fells, and hides,
on condition of his executing the office in person, and keeping the
accounts with his own hand. In the following year he obtained from the
king the wardship of the lands and body of Sir Edmund Staplegate, a
young Kentish heir. In 1377, the last year of King Edward, “Geoffrey
Caucher” is mentioned by Froissart as one of those envoys employed
abroad, as his protection expresses it, “on the king’s secret service.”
The object of the mission is divulged by the French historian; it was a
treaty between the Kings of England and France, in which the marriage of
Richard with the French Princess Mary was debated; but neither the peace
nor the marriage were brought about. Here end both the commissions and
benefactions received by Chaucer from Edward III.

Some time after 1370, and before 1381, according to Mr. Turner’s
calculation, but in 1360 according to others, Chaucer married a lady
who, according to documents taken from Rymer, had been one of the
“domicellæ,” damsels, or, in modern court phrase, maids of honour to
Queen Philippa. Mr. Turner places the marriage within those limits, on
the following grounds:—Chaucer, in his “Treatise on the Astrolabe,”
dates an observation as made in 1391, and mentions his son Lewis as
being then ten years old. A grant to the queen’s damsel, on quitting her
service, is dated 1370, and made to her by her maiden name. The
“Astrolabe” and the grant together furnish conclusive evidence in favour
of Mr. Turner’s limits; but the current story of the Duke and Duchess of
Lancaster having concocted the match, can only be reconciled with the
earlier date, as the duchess died in 1369. It is unnecessary to
enumerate those various grants made to Chaucer by Richard II., which
bear on no other events of his life. An important document of the year
1398, states that the king had ordered Chaucer to expedite several
urgent affairs for him, as well in his absence as in his presence, in
various parts of England. As a security against alarms expressed by
Chaucer respecting suits and other molestations, Richard granted him a
protection from arrest, injury, violence, or impediment, for two years.
Richard was deposed in August of the following year. In October, Henry
IV. confirmed Richard’s donations, with an additional annuity of forty
marcs. The last document as to Chaucer is an indenture of lease to him,
dated 24th December, 1399, of a tenement in the Priory Garden of
Westminster, for a term of fifty-three years. Chaucer, therefore, was
active at the end of 1399, and seems, from the length of his lease,
still to have thought himself a good life, as he well might, if his age
were only sixty; but his biographers (probably because they traced him
in no later documents, and thought seventy-two a good old age) in the
absence of any other positive evidence, than the date on a monument
erected in the sixteenth century, have fixed his death in 1400.

We have thought it expedient not to mix up the facts proved by official
documents, with the few others to be gleaned from passages in his works.
Such as are attested by neither of these vouchers have no claim to
implicit credit. In his Testament of Love, he speaks of having “endured
penance in a dark prison.” Again, “Although I had little in respect of
other great and worthy, yet had I a fair parcel, as methought for the
time; I had riches sufficiently to wave need. I had dignity to be
reverenced in worship; power methought that I had to keep from mine
enemies, and me seemed to shine in glory of renown.” With this picture
of former prosperity, he contrasts his present state. “For riches now
have I poverty; instead of power, wretchedness I suffer; and for glory
of renown, I am now despised and foully hated.” We cannot with certainty
connect this reverse of personal fortune with any passage of general
history. He alludes to it thus:—“In my youth I was drawn to be
assenting, and in my might helping to certain conjurations, and other
great matters of ruling of citizens, so painted and coloured, that at
first to me seemed then noble and glorious to all the people.” He
intimates that he had made some discoveries concerning certain
transactions in the city. He was, consequently, exposed to calumny, and
the charge of falsehood. To prove his veracity, he offered an appeal to
arms, and “had prepared his body for Mars’s doing, if any contraried his
saws.” He alludes to his escape out of the kingdom, when we are told by
his biographers that he spent his time in Hainault, France, and Zealand,
where he wrote many of his books. He himself says, that during his exile
those whom he had served never refreshed him with the value of the least
coined plate; those who owed him money would pay nothing, because they
thought his return impossible. Mr. Godwin, like preceding biographers,
refers these personal misfortunes to his support of John Comberton,
generally styled John of Northampton, who, in 1382, attempted reform in
the city on Wiclif’s principles. This was highly resented by the clergy;
Comberton was taken into custody, and Chaucer is stated to have fled the
kingdom. Mr. Turner thinks, that as the date assigned to these reverses
is purely conjectural, they may be referred with more probability to a
later period. He argues that, had Chaucer joined any party against the
court, he would not have enjoyed Richard’s continued favour. The
protection from the king, in 1398, implies that he was intermeddling in
hazardous concerns; and in the Testament of Love, which may be
considered as an autobiography composed of hints rather than facts,
there is this remarkable passage. “Of the confederacies made by my
sovereigns, I was but a servant; and thereof ought nothing in evil to be
laid to me wards, sithen as repentant I am turned.” Mr. Turner infers,
from the singular protection granted to Chaucer, in the very year when,
after Gloucester’s murder, Richard adopted his most illegal and
tyrannical measures, that the poet was prosecuted as an accomplice in
those measures; that Henry might have thrown him into prison, as
implicated in the deposed monarch’s unlawful acts; but on his
professions of repentance, and in consideration of his connexion and
alliance with his own father, might have pardoned him with others, at
his coronation. In this difference of opinion, or rather of conjecture,
between the biographers and the historian, we may, perhaps, be allowed
to hazard the supposition, that those scattered allusions in the
Testament may refer not to the same, but to different periods of evil
fortune; indeed, the very expressions quoted seem hardly reconcileable
with any one event. The “conjurations, noble and glorious to the
people,” seem to point at some measures distasteful to the higher
powers: and as both Chaucer and his patron the Duke of Lancaster had
adopted many of Wiclif’s tenets, it seems not improbable that the
conspiracy alluded to may be identified with that of John of
Northampton. Delicately as the circumstance is glossed over by the poet,
he appears to have turned what in homely phrase is called _king’s
evidence_, the imputation of which he parries by a chivalrous appeal to
“Mars’s doing.” This will account for his being received back into royal
favour, and for his lending himself in after-time, no longer to the
conjurations of the people, in plain English, the rebellion of the
commons, but to the confederacies of his sovereigns. If his allusion to
his personal misfortunes, and his expressions of conscientious remorse,
may be referred to different periods, and to events of opposite
character; in that view of the case, neither Mr. Godwin nor Mr. Turner
may be in the wrong.

Few particulars of Chaucer’s private history are to be gathered from his
poems. In his Dream, of which Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, is the
subject, the poet describes himself as a victim to nervous melancholy
from habitual want of sleep, accompanied with a dread of death. The
translation of Boethius, and occasional quotations from Seneca and
Juvenal, attest that he retained through life his juvenile acquaintance
with the Latin classics. The chronology of his works must be rendered
doubtful by the uncertainty respecting that of his life. Mr. Turner
places the time of his death later than 1400, but before 1410. The poet
is said to have had the unusual honour of being brother-in-law to a
prince of the blood, by the marriage of John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster, with Catherine, widow of Sir Hugh Swinford, and sister to
Chaucer’s wife. He is said to have lived at Woodstock at a late period
of his life, and finally, to have retired to Donnington Castle on the
Duke of Lancaster’s death. By his wife, Philippa, he had two sons,
Thomas and Lewis. Thomas was Speaker of the House of Commons in the
reign of Henry IV., ambassador to France and Burgundy, and discharged
other public duties. Chaucer’s principal biographers are Leland, Thomas
Speght, Mr. Tyrwhitt, and Mr. Godwin. The work of the latter would have
been more valuable had it been less voluminous, less discursive, and
less conjectural. Mr. Tyrwhitt’s edition of the Canterbury Tales is a
model of criticism on an old English classic. His Introductory Discourse
on the Language and Versification of Chaucer will enable its readers to
form just and clear ideas of the history of our ancient tongue, and
Chaucer’s peculiar use of it.

Chaucer was held in high estimation by his most distinguished
contemporaries. John the Chaplain, who translated Boethius into English
verse, as Chaucer had into prose, calls him the Flower of Rhetoric.
Occleve laments him with personal affection as his father and master,
and styles him the honour of English tongue. Lydgate, the monk of Bury,
mentions him as a chief poet of Britain; the loadstar of our language;
the notable rhetor. Dryden says, in the preface prefixed to his
Fables,—“As Chaucer is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in
the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans
Virgil; he is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all
sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects; as he knew what
to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which is
practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting
Virgil and Horace.”

Our account of his principal works must be brief. The Romaunt of the
Rose is professedly a translation of the French Roman de la Rose. It is
a long allegory, representing the difficulties and dangers encountered
by a lover in the pursuit of his mistress, who is emblematically
described as a Rose, and the plot, if so it may be called, ends with his
putting her in a beautiful garden.

Troilus and Creseide is for the most part a translation of the
Filostrato of Boccaccio, but with many variations and large additions.
As a tale, it is barren of incident, although, according to Warton, as
long as the Æneid; but it contains passages of great beauty and pathos.

The story of Queen Annelida and false Arcite is said to have been
originally told in Latin. Chaucer names the authors whom he professes to
follow. “First folwe I Stace, and after him Corinne.” The opening only
is taken from Statius, so that Corinne must be supposed to have
furnished the remainder; but who she was has never yet been discovered.
False Arcite is a different person from the Arcite of the Knight’s Tale.
It is probable therefore that this poem was written before Chaucer had
become acquainted with the Teseide of Boccaccio.

The opening of the Assembly of Foules is built on the Somnium Scipionis
of Cicero. The description of a garden and temple is almost entirely
taken from the description of the Temple of Venus in the Fourth Book of
the Teseide. Mr. Tyrwhitt suspects this poem to allude to the intended
marriage between John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, which took
place in 1359.

Warton, in his History of English Poetry, intimates his belief that the
House of Fame was originally a Provençal composition. But Mr. Tyrwhitt
differs from him in opinion, and states that he “has not observed, in
any of Chaucer’s writings, a single phrase or word which has the least
appearance of having been fetched by him from the South of the Loire.”
With respect to the matter and manner of his compositions, Mr. Tyrwhitt
adds, that he “shall be slow to believe that in either he ever copied
the poets of Provence,” or that he had more than a very slender
acquaintance with them. The poem is an allegorical vision; a favourite
theme with all the poets of Chaucer’s time, both native and foreign.

The Flower and the Leaf was printed for the first time in Speght’s
edition of 1597. Mr. Tyrwhitt suggests a doubt of its correct ascription
to Chaucer; but it seems to afford internal evidence of powers at all
events congenial with those of Chaucer, in its description of rural
scenery and its general truth and feeling. Dryden has modernised it,
without a suspicion of its authenticity.

Chaucer’s prose works are—his Translation of Boethius, the Treatise on
the Astrolabe, and the Testament of Love. The Canterbury Tales were his
latest work. The general plan of them is, that a company of Pilgrims,
going to Canterbury, assemble at an inn in Southwark, and agree that
each shall tell at least one tale in going and another on returning; and
that he who shall tell the best tales shall be treated by the rest with
a supper at the inn, before they separate. The characters of the
Pilgrims, as exhibited in their respective Prologues, are drawn from the
various departments of middle life. The occurrences on the journey, and
the adventures of the company at Canterbury, were intended to be
interwoven as Episodes, or connected by means of the Prologues; but the
work, like its prototype the Decameron, was undertaken when the author
was past the meridian of life, and was left imperfect. Chaucer has, in
many respects, improved on his model, especially in variety of character
and its nice discrimination; but the introductory machinery is not
contrived with equal felicity. Boccaccio’s narrators indulge in the ease
and luxury of a palace; a journey on horse-back is not the most
convenient opportunity of telling long stories to a numerous company.

The works of Chaucer, notwithstanding the encomiums of four successive
centuries, emanating from poets and critics of the highest renown and
first authority, are little read excepting by antiquaries and
philologers, unless in the polished versions of Dryden and Pope. This is
principally to be attributed neither to any change of opinion respecting
the merit of the poet, nor to the obsoleteness of the language; but to
the progressive change of manners and feelings in society, to the
accumulation of knowledge, and the improvement of morals. His command
over the language of his day, his poetical power, and his exhibition of
existing characters and amusing incidents, constitute his attractions;
but his prolixity is ill suited to our impatient rapidity of thought and
action. Unlike the passionate and natural creations of Shakspeare, which
will never grow obsolete, the sentiments of Chaucer are not congenial
with our own: his love is fantastic gallantry; he is the painter and
panegyrist of exploded knight-errantry. Hence the preference of the
Canterbury Tales above all his other works; because the manners of the
time are dramatized, in other ranks of life than that of chivalry; his
good sense, and capacity for keen observation are called forth, to the
exclusion of conventional affectations. With respect to his prose, it is
curious as that “strange English” and “ornate style,” adopted by him as
a scholar for the sake of distinction, rather than as a specimen of the
language and mode of expression characteristic of his age.

[Illustration: [The Wife of Bath, from Stothard’s Canterbury
Pilgrimage.]]




[Illustration]

                               SOBIESKI.


So rapid and complete has been the decay of the Ottoman empire as an
aggressive power, that any person now living, unacquainted with history
anterior to the date of his own birth, would treat the notion of danger
to Christian Europe from the ambition of Turkey, as the idle fear of an
over-anxious mind. Yet there was a time, and that within a century and a
half, when Popes summoned the princes of Europe to support the Cross,
and the Eastern frontier of Christendom was the scene of almost constant
warfare between Christian and Moslem. That period of danger was to
Poland a period of glory; and the brightest part of it is the reign of
the warrior-king, John Sobieski. It proved, indeed, no better than an
empty glitter, won at a vast expense of blood and treasure, the benefits
of which were chiefly reaped by the faithless and ungrateful Austria.

[Illustration:

  _Engraved by J. Thomson._

  JOHN SOBIESKI.

  _From an original Picture, in the
  Gallery of the Louvre._

  Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
    Knowledge.

  _London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

Sobieski was the younger son of a Polish nobleman, high in rank and
merit. He was born in 1629. The death of his brother, slain in warfare
with the Cossacks of the Ukraine, in 1649, placed him in possession of
the hereditary titles and immense estates of his house. To these
distinctions he added high personal merits, an athletic body, a
powerful, active, and upright mind, and, as the result proved, the
qualities which make a general and statesman. It is no wonder therefore
that, in the wars carried on by Poland during his youth against Tartars,
Cossacks, and Swedes, he won laurels, though the Republic gained neither
honour nor advantage. At an early age he acquired the confidence of
Casimir, the reigning king of Poland, and was employed in various
services of importance. On the revolt of Lubomirski, Grand Marshal of
Poland, Sobieski was invested with that office, and soon after made
Lieutenant-General (if we may so translate it) of the Polish army. In
that capacity he led the royal troops against Lubomirski. The king’s
obstinacy forced him to give battle at a disadvantage, and he was
defeated, July 13, 1666; but the blame of this mishap was universally
thrown on the right person, while the skilful conduct of Sobieski’s
retreat obtained general admiration.

He married Marie de la Grange d’Arquien, a French lady of noble birth,
who had accompanied the queen into Poland. She was a woman of wit and
beauty, who exercised throughout life an unusual and unfortunate
influence over a husband devotedly attached to her. Aided by her favour
with her mistress, Sobieski obtained the highest military office, that
of Grand General, in 1667. Happy for Poland, that in this instance
favour and merit went hand in hand: for a host of fourscore thousand
Tartars broke into the kingdom, when its exhausted finances could not
maintain an army, and its exhausted population could hardly supply one.
By draining his own purse, pledging his own resources, and levying
recruits on his immense estates, the General raised his troops from
twelve to twenty thousand, and marched fearlessly against a force four
times as great. The scheme of his campaign was singularly confident, so
much so as to excite the disapprobation even of the intrepid Condé. He
detached eight thousand men in several corps, with secret orders, and
took post with the remaining twelve thousand in a fortified camp at
Podahiecz, a small town in the Palatinate of Russia, to stand the attack
of eighty thousand Tartars, while his detachments were converging to
their assigned stations. The assault was renewed for sixteen successive
days; and day after day the assailants were repulsed with slaughter. On
the seventeenth, Sobieski offered battle in the open field. A bloody
contest ensued; but while victory was doubtful, the Polish detachments
appeared on the Tartar flanks, and turned the balance. Disheartened by
their loss, the Tartars made overtures of peace, which was concluded
equally to the satisfaction of both the belligerents, October 19, 1667.

The circumstances attendant on the abdication of Casimir, in 1668, and
the election of his successor Michael Wiesnowieski, do not demand our
notice, for Sobieski took little part in the intrigues of the
candidates, or the deliberations of the Diet. The new king wept and
trembled as he mounted a throne to which he had never aspired, and which
he protested himself incapable to fill; and the event proved that he was
right. Yet, when he had tasted the sweets of power, he looked jealously
on the man most highly esteemed and most able to do his country service,
and therefore most formidable to a weak and suspicious prince. The
Ukraine Cossacks had been converted by oppression from good subjects
into bad neighbours, and on the accession of Michael they again raised
the standard of war. Partly by negotiation, partly by force, the Grand
General reduced all the country from the Bog to the Dniester in the
campaign of 1671, and he received the thanks of the Republic for
performing such eminent services with such scanty means. It is still
more to his credit that he interfered, not for the first time, in favour
of the revolted Cossacks, and insisted on their being received into
allegiance with kindness, and encouraged to good behaviour by equitable
and friendly treatment.

King Michael was of a very different mind in this matter. Determined on
the subjugation of the whole Ukraine, he intrigued to hinder the Diet
from confirming the peace, and thus induced the Cossacks to call in the
help of Turkey, by threatening which they had stopped the progress of
Sobieski. This brought on a fresh discussion in the Diet, in which
Sobieski warmly urged the expediency of concession. Michael, however,
persisted in his course; and from this period we may date the
commencement of a league to dethrone him. In this, at first, Sobieski
took no active, certainly no open, part. When compelled to declare
himself, he asserted, with zeal, the right of the Republic to depose a
prince who had shown himself unfit to reign. The consequences of this
discord were very serious. At a Diet held in the spring of 1672, Michael
was openly required to abdicate. To avoid this he summoned the minor
nobility, who had no seats in the Diet, and with whom, having formerly
been of their body, he was more popular, to meet in the field of
Golemba, on the bank of the Vistula; and he thus raised a sort of
militia, to the number of a hundred thousand, ready to uphold him as the
king. Sobieski, encamped at Lowicz with an army devoted to him,
maintained the cause of the confederate nobles. Neither party, however,
was in haste to appeal to arms; and in the interim, Mahomet IV., with
150,000 Turks and 100,000 Tartars, invaded Poland. The king, instead of
marching against the enemy, contented himself with setting a price on
Sobieski’s head, in whom alone the hope of Poland rested. Too weak
however to oppose the Turks, he sought the Tartars, who had dispersed to
carry ruin through the country, routed them in five successive battles,
and recovered an immense booty and thirty thousand prisoners from their
hands. Meanwhile the Turks overran Podolia, and took its capital town,
the strong fortress of Kaminiec, the bulwark of Poland. Incapable
himself of action, and apprehensive alike of the failure or success of
Sobieski, Michael hastily concluded an ignominious peace, by which the
Ukraine and part of Podolia were ceded to Turkey, and the payment of an
annual tribute was agreed upon.

This treaty of Boudchaz, signed October 8, 1672, prevented Sobieski from
continuing the war, and he returned indignantly to his camp at Lowicz.
Before the end of the year, the king found it necessary to adopt
conciliatory measures, and Sobieski, and other nobles who had been
outlawed with him, were restored to civil rights and the enjoyment of
their property. At the Diet held in February, 1673, he inveighed against
the scandalous treaty of Boudchaz, which, in truth, was void, being
concluded without the sanction of that body, and it was resolved to
renounce the treaty, and renew the war. Eighty thousand Turks were
stationed in a fortified camp at Choczim, to overawe the newly-conquered
provinces. November 12, 1673, Sobieski stormed their camp. Observing
that the infantry wavered, he dismounted his own regiment of dragoons,
and led them to the ramparts, which they were the first to scale. The
infantry rushed forward to support their general; the entrenchments were
won, and the Turks routed with great slaughter, and entirely
disorganized. This victory was disgraced by the massacre of a great
number of prisoners in cold blood. Soon after it the death of Michael
relieved Poland from the burden of a weak king, and the Interrex stopped
the victorious general’s progress, by requiring his attendance in
Poland.

The diet of election commenced its sittings May 1, 1674. As before,
there were a number of foreign candidates, but none who commanded a
decisive majority among the electors; and at last the choice of the
assembly fell on Sobieski, who, whatever his secret wishes or intrigues
may have been, had never openly pretended to the crown. That choice was
received with general rejoicing. The new king’s first care was to follow
up the blow struck at Choczim, and wrest the Ukraine from Turkey. During
this and the two following years, that unhappy country was again the
scene of bloodshed and rapine. There is little in the history of the war
to claim our attention. It was concluded at the memorable leaguer of
Zurawno, where, with a policy somewhat similar to that which he pursued
at Podahiecz, he advanced to meet an invading army outnumbering his own
six to one. Fortunately the Turkish government stood in need of peace,
and their general had authority and orders to put an end to the war in
the best manner he could; and after besieging the Polish camp for five
weeks, he consented to a treaty, signed October 29, 1676, the terms of
which were far more favourable than could have been anticipated by
Poland. Two-thirds of the Ukraine, and part of Podolia, were restored to
her, and the tribute imposed by the treaty of Boudchaz was given up.
These terms were ratified by the Porte, and seven years of peace
succeeded to almost constant war.

This interval of rest from arms is not important in the history of
Sobieski’s life. As he had anticipated, he found the throne no easy
seat; and his criminal weakness in admitting the queen, who never
scrupled at disturbing public affairs to gratify her own passions or
prejudices, to an undue weight in his counsels, lessens our sympathy
with his vexations, and casts a shade over his brilliant qualities. In
1680, greater matters began to be moved. Ever watchful of the Porte,
Sobieski knew through his spies that Mahomet was preparing for war with
Austria, as soon as the existing truce expired; and he conceived the
project of uniting the money of Rome, and the arms of Austria and
Venice, with those of Poland; and, by thus distracting the power of
Turkey, to regain more easily the much coveted fortress of Kaminiec, and
the remnant of Podolia. He had, indeed, sworn solemnly to maintain a
treaty, which the Turks religiously observed; but the Pope was ready to
absolve him from the oath, and this the morality of the age thought
quite sufficient. For a time his views were frustrated, both at home and
abroad; but as the political storm which was collecting grew darker and
darker, both Pope and Emperor entered more heartily into the scheme, and
an offensive and defensive treaty was concluded between Austria and
Poland.

The Turkish troops assembled in the plains of Adrianople, in May, 1683,
in number, according to the calculations of historians, upwards of
200,000 fighting men. The brave Hungarians, heretofore the bulwark of
Austria against the Ottoman, but now alienated by oppression and
misgovernment, revolted under the celebrated Tekeli, and opened a way
into the heart of the Austrian empire. Kara Mustapha commanded the
immense army destined by the Porte for this warfare, and for once he
showed judgment and decision in neglecting small objects and pushing
forward at once to Vienna. Leopold fled in haste with his court: the
Imperial General, the brave Charles of Lorraine, threw in part of his
small army to reinforce the garrison, but was unable to oppose the
progress of the besiegers. The trenches were opened July 14, and the
heavy artillery of the Turks crumbled the weak ramparts, and carried
destruction into the interior of the city. Unhappy is the country which
trusts to foreign aid in such a strait! The German princes had not yet
brought up their contingents; and even Sobieski, the last man to delay
in such a cause, could not collect his army fast enough to meet the
pressing need of the occasion. Letter reached him after letter,
entreating that he would at least bring the terror of his name and
profound military skill to the relief of Austria; and he set off to
traverse Moravia with an escort of only two thousand horse, leaving the
Grand General Jablonowski to bring up the army with the utmost speed.
After all, the Polish troops reached Tuln, on the Danube, the place of
rendezvous, before the Bavarians, Saxons, and other German auxiliaries
were collected. September 7, the whole army was assembled, in number
about 74,000. Vienna was already in the utmost distress. Stahremberg,
the brave commandant, had written to the Duke of Lorraine a letter,
containing only these pithy words, “No more time to lose, my Lord; no
more time to lose.” Incapable of resisting with its enfeebled garrison a
general assault, the place must have fallen but for the avarice and
stupid pride of Mustapha, who thought that the imperial capital must
contain immense treasures, which he was loth to give up to
indiscriminate plunder; and never dreamed that any one would be hardy
enough to contest the prize with his multitudes before it fell into his
hands from mere exhaustion. There was indeed no more time to lose: it
was calculated on August 22, that Vienna could only hold out three days
against a general assault; and September 9 arrived before the Christian
army moved from Tuln. Five leagues of mountain road still separated it
from Vienna, in any part of which its progress might have been stopped
by such a detachment as the immense Turkish army might well have spared.

The battle of deliverance, fought September 12, 1683, was short and
decisive: the Turks were disgusted and disheartened by their general’s
misconduct. Sobieski was not expected to command in person; but the
Tartars had seen him lead his cavalry to the charge too often to
overlook the signs which marked his presence, and the knowledge of it
sunk their hearts still more. “Allah!” said the brave Khan of the
Tartars, as he pointed out to the Visir the pennoned lances of the
Polish Horse Guards, “Allah! but the wizard is amongst them, sure
enough.” The Visir attempted to atone by courage for his past errors,
but despair or disaffection had seized on soldiers and officers. Even
the veteran Tartar chief replied to his entreaties,—“The Polish king is
there. I know him well. Did I not tell you that all we had to do was to
get away as fast as possible?” The Polish cavalry pushed forward to the
Visir’s tent, and cut their way through the Spahis, who alone disputed
the victory; and with the capture of their great standard the
consternation and confusion of the Turks became final and complete.
Entering Vienna the next day, Sobieski was received with an enthusiasm
little pleasant to the jealous temper of the Emperor, who manifested his
incurable meanness of disposition, not only in his cold reception and
ungracious thanks of the deliverer of his kingdom, but in the
ingratitude and perfidy of all his subsequent conduct.

Whether from pure love of beating the Turks, or from a false hope that
Leopold might be induced to perform his promises, Sobieski, contrary to
the wishes of the Republic, pursued the flying enemy into Hungary. Near
Gran, on the Danube, he met with a severe check, in which his own life
had nearly been sacrificed to the desire of showing the Imperialists
that he could conquer without their help. This he acknowledged after his
junction with the Duke of Lorraine. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I confess I
wanted to conquer without you, for the honour of my own nation. I have
suffered severely for it, being soundly beat; but I will take my revenge
both with you and for you. To effect this must be the chief object of
our thoughts.” The disgrace was soon wiped off by a decisive victory
gained nearly on the same spot. Gran capitulated, and the king led his
army back to Poland in the month of December.

The glory of this celebrated campaign fell to Poland, the profit accrued
to Austria. Kaminiec was still in the possession of Turkey, and
continued so during the whole reign of Sobieski: not from want of
effort, for the recovery of that important fortress was the leading
object of the campaigns of 1684, 5, and 7; but the Polish army was
better suited for the open field than for the tedious and expensive
process of a siege. In 1686, Leopold, apprehensive lest Sobieski should
break off an alliance distasteful to his subjects and unsatisfactory to
himself, (for the Emperor had broken every promise and failed in every
inducement which he had held out to the Polish sovereign,) threw out
another bait, which succeeded better than the duplicity and ingratitude
of the contriver deserved. He suggested the idea of wresting from the
Turks Moldavia and Wallachia, to be held as an independent and
hereditary kingdom by Sobieski and his family, and promised a body of
troops to assist in the undertaking. The great object of Sobieski’s
ambition, by pursuing which he lost much of his popularity and incurred
just censure, as aiming at an unconstitutional object by
unconstitutional means, was to hand the crown of Poland to his son at
his own decease, and render it, if possible, hereditary in his family.
The possession of the above-named provinces was most desirable as a step
to this; or, if this wish were still frustrated, it was yet desirable as
placing his posterity among the royal houses of Europe: and with a
preference of private to public interest, which is not less censurable
for being common, he rejected an offer made by Mahomet to restore
Kaminiec, and to pay a large sum to indemnify Poland for the expenses of
the war, that he might pursue his favourite scheme of family
aggrandizement. Satisfied, however, with having engaged him in this new
diversion of the Turkish power, Leopold had not the smallest intention
of sending the promised troops; and the King of Poland was involved in
great danger from their non-appearance at the expected place. This
campaign, however, was so far satisfactory, that Moldavia yielded
without resistance or bloodshed; a second and a third expedition,
undertaken in 1688 and 1691, to consolidate and extend this conquest,
were unsuccessful, and the sovereignty soon passed back into the hands
of Turkey. The campaign of 1691 was the last in which Sobieski appeared
in the field.

The reader will see from this brief account that he added few laurels,
after the campaign of Vienna, to those by which his brows were so
profusely garlanded. Indeed he scarcely deserved to do so; for great and
disinterested as his conduct often was, in this juncture he sacrificed
national to family interests, and consumed the blood and riches of his
countrymen in a needless and fruitless war.

Sobieski’s internal policy has little to recommend it, or to exalt his
fame. Devoted to his wife, who proved herself unworthy his affection by
the most harassing demands upon his time and attention, and still more
by a pertinacious, unwise, and unconstitutional interference in state
affairs, which had not even the excuse of being well directed, but was
continually employed to promote private interests, to gratify private
prejudices, and, ultimately, at once to violate the laws and sow
dissension in her own family by securing the crown of Poland to her own
son, and choosing a younger in preference to the elder branch, the king
lowered his popularity and reputation by thus weakly yielding to an
unworthy influence, and, as the natural consequence, he was continually
thwarted by a harassing and often factious opposition. Civil discord,
family quarrels, and the infirmities of a body worn out prematurely by
unsparing exposure for more than forty years to the toils of war,
combined to embitter the decline of his life. In the five years which
elapsed from Sobieski’s last campaign to his death, the history of
Poland records much of unprincipled intriguing, much personal
ingratitude, and some upright opposition to his measures, but nothing of
material importance to his personal history. He died June 17, 1696, on
the double anniversary, it is said, of his birth and his accession to
the throne; and by another singular coincidence, his birth and death
were alike heralded by storms of unusual violence.

The character of Sobieski is one of great brilliancy and considerable
faults. As a subject, he displayed genuine, disinterested patriotism; as
a king, the welfare of his family seems to have been dearer to him than
that of his country. Nor did his domestic government display the vigour
and decision which we might reasonably have expected from his powerful
mind. But his justice was unimpeachable; he was temperate, and
unrevengeful even when personally affronted, which often happened in the
tumultuous Diets of Poland; and, in a bigoted age, he displayed the
virtue of toleration. The constant labours of an active life did not
choke his literary taste, and his literary attainments were
considerable; he spoke several languages, aspired to be a poet, and
loved the company of learned men. He was remarkable for the suavity of
his temper and the charms of his conversation. Such a character, though
far from perfection, is entitled to the epithet GREAT, which he won and
enjoyed; and, as a soldier, he has a claim to our gratitude, which not
every soldier possesses. His warfare was almost uniformly waged against
an aggressive and barbarian power, which, in the utmost need of
Christian Europe, he stood forward to resist, and finally broke. Like
other nations, Turkey has had its alternations of success and loss; but
never, since the campaign of Vienna, have the arms of the East
threatened the repose of Europe.

The history of Sobieski’s life and reign is told at large in the works
of his countryman Zaluski; in the Life by the Abbé Coyer, of which there
is an English translation; and in a recent publication by M. Salvandy.
The same writer has republished a most interesting collection of
Letters, written by Sobieski to his queen during the campaign of Vienna,
printed for the first time in Poland about ten years ago.

[Illustration]

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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Changed “General Keith” to “Governor Keith” on p. 78.
 2. Changed “well worthy attention” to “well worth attention” on p. 119.
 3. Changed “Geographie” to “Géographie” on p. 140.
 4. Silently corrected typographical errors.
 5. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
 7. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
      character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
      curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.