finished composition, seduce the public; and we may forgive the latent spark of envy in the honest feelings of the man, who was profoundly skilled in delving in the native beds of ore, but not in fashioning it; and whose own neglected historical works, constructed on the true principle of secret history, we may often turn over to correct the erroneous, the prejudiced, and the artful accounts of those who have covered their faults by the pomp of style, and the eloquence of the historian.' The large manuscript collections of original documents, from whence may be drawn what I have called positive secret history, are, as I have observed, comparatively of modern existence. Formerly they were widely dispersed in private hands; and the nature of such sources of historic discovery but rarely occurred to our writers. Even had they sought them, their access must have been partial and accidental. Lord Hardwicke has observed, that there are still many untouched manuscript collections within these kingdoms, which, through the ignorance or inattention of their owners, are condemned to dust and obscurity; but how valuable and essential they may be to the interests of authentic history and of sacred truth, cannot be more strikingly demonstrated than in the recent publications of the Marlborough and the Shrewsbury papers by Archdeacon Coxe.* The editor was fully authorized to observe: It is singular that those transactions should either have been passed over in silence, or imperfectly represented by most of our national historians.' Our modern history would have been a mere political romance, without the astonishing picture of William and his ministers, exhibited in those unquestionable documents. Burnet was among the first of our modern historians who showed the world the preciousness of such materials, in his History of the Reformation, which he largely drew from the Cottonian Collection. Our earlier historians only repeated a tale ten times told. Milton, who wanted not for literary diligence, had no fresh stories to open for his History of England; while Hume despatches, comparatively in a few pages, a subject which has afforded to the fervent diligence of my learned friend Sharon Turner, volumes precious to the antiquary, the lawyer, and the philosopher. To illustrate my idea of the usefulness, and of the absolute necessity of secret history, I fix first on a public event, and secondly on a public character; both remarkable in our own modern history, and both serving to expose the fallacious appearances of popular history by authorities indisputably genuine. The event is the restoration of Charles the Second: and the character is that of Mary the queen of William the Third. In history, the Restoration of Charles appears in all its splendour-the king is joyfully received at Dover, and the shore is covered by his subjects on their knees-crowds of the Great hurry to Canterbury-the army is drawn up, in number and with a splendour that had never been equalled -his enthusiastic reception is on his birth-day, for that was the lucky day fixed on for his entrance into the me tropolis-in a word, all that is told in history describes a monarch the most powerful and the most happy. One of the tracts of the day, entitled 'England's Triumph,' in the mean quaintness of the style of the time tells us, that The soldiery, who had hitherto made clubs trump, resolved now to enthrone the king of hearts.' Turn to the faithful memorialist, who so well knew the secrets of the king's heart, and who was himself an actor behind the curtain; turn to Clarendon, in his own life; and we shall find that the power of the king was then as dubious as when he was in exile; and his feelings were so much racked, that he had nearly resolved on a last flight. Clarendon, in noticing the temper and spirits of that time, observes, 'Whoever reflects upon all this composition of contradictory wishes and expectations, must con * Whenever that vast collection, which from their former possessor, may be called the Conway papers,' shall be given to the public, from what I have already been favoured with the sight of, I may venture to predict that our history will receive a new form, and our literature an important accession. They are now in the possession of John Wilson Croker, Esq, M. P. and Secretary of the Admiralty, and placed at his disposal by the Marquis of Herford, with a view of making a selection for the use of the public. The reader may find a lively summary of the contents of these papers, in Horace Walpole's account of his visit to Ragley, in his letter to George Montague, 20th August, 1758. Mr Croker is also so fortunate as to be the possessor of the Throckmorton papers of which the reader may likewise observe a particular notice in Sir Henry Wooton's will, in Isaac Walton's Lives. fess that the king was not yet the master of the kingdom, nor his authority and security such as the general noise and acclamation, the bells and the bonfires, proclaimed it to be.”The first mortification the king met with was as soon as he arrived at Canterbury, within three hours after he landed at Dover.' Clarendon then relates how many the king found there, who while they waited with joy to kiss his hand, also came with importunate solicitations for themselves; forced him to give them present audience, in which they reckoned up the insupportable losses undergone by themselves or their fathers; demand some grant, or pro mise of such offices; some even for more!" pressing for two or three with such confidence and importunity, and with such tedious discourses, that the king was extremely nauseated with their suits, though his modesty knew not how to break from them; that he no sooner got into his chamber, which for some hours he was not able to do, than he lamented the condition to which he found he must be subs ject; and did, in truth, from that minute, contract such a prejudice against some of those persons." But a greater mortification was to follow, and one which had nearly thrown the king into despair. General Monk had from the beginning to this instant acted very mysteriously, never corresponding with nor answering & letter of the king's, so that his majesty was frequently doubtful whether the general designed to act for himself or for the king: an ambiguous conduct which I attribute to the power his wife had over him, who was in the opposite interest. The general in his rough way, pre sented him a large paper, with about seventy names for his privy council, of which not more than two were accepta ble. The king,' says Clarendon,' was in more than or dinary confusion, for he knew not well what to think of the general, in whose absolute power he was-so that at this moment his majesty was almost alarmed at the demand and appearance of things.' The general afterwards undid this unfavourable appearance, by acknowledging that the list was drawn up by his wife, who had made him promise to present it; but he permitted his majesty to act as he thought proper. At that moment General Monk was more King than Charles. We have not yet concluded. When Charles met the army at Blackheath, 50,000 strong, he knew well the ill constitution of the army, the distemper and murmuring that was in it, and how many diseases and convulsions their infant loyalty was subject to; that how united soever their inclinations and acclamations seemed to be at Blackheath, their affections were not the same-and the very countenances there of many officers, as well as soldiers, did sufficiently manifest that they were drawn thither to a service they were not delighted in. The old soldiers had little regard for their new officers; and it quickly appeared, by the select and affected mixtures of sullen and melancholic parties of officers and soldiers'- And then the chancellor of human nature adds, And in this melancholic and perplexed condition the king and all his hopes stood, when he appeared most gay and exalted, and wore a pleasantness in his face that became him, and looked like as full an assurance of his security as was possible to put on." It is imagined that Louis the Eighteenth would be the ablest commentator on this piece of secret history, and add another twin to Pierre de Saint Julien's Gemelles ou Pareilles,' an old French treatise of histories which resemble one another; a volume so scarce, that I have never met with it. Burnet informs us, that when Queen Mary held the administration of government during the absence of William, it was imagined by some, that as every woman of sense loved to be meddling, they concluded that she had but a small portion of it, because she lived so abstracted from all affairs. He praises her exemplary behaviour; ' regular in her devotions, much in her closet, read a great deal, was often busy at work, and seemed to employ her time and thoughts in any thing rather than matters of state, Her conversation was lively and obliging; every thing in her was easy and natural. The King told the Earl of Shrewsbury, that though he could not hit on the right way of pleasing England, he was confident she would, and that we should all be very happy under her.' Such is the miniature of the queen which Burnet offers; we see nothing but her tranquillity, her simplicity, and her carelessness, amidst the important transactions passing under her eye: but I lift the curtain from a longer picture. The districted state amidst which the queen lived, the vexations, the secret sorrows, the agonies and the despair of Mary in the absence of William, nowhere appears in history! and, as we see, escaped the ken of the Scotch bishop! They were reserved for the curiosity and the instruction of posterity; and were found by Dalrymple, in the letters of Mary to her husband, in King William's cabinet. It will be well to place under the eye of the reader the suppressed cries of this afflicted queen, at the time when every thing in her was so easy and natural, employing her time and thoughts in any thing rather than matters of state-often busy at work! I shall not dwell on the pangs of the queen for the fate of William-or her deadly suspicions that many were unfaithful about her: a battle lost might have been fatal; a conspiracy might have undone what even a victory had obtained; the continual terrors she endured were such, that we might be at a loss to determine who suffered most, those who had been expelled from, or those who had ascended the throne. So far was the queen from not employing her thoughts' on matters of state,' that every letter, usually written towards evening, chronicles the conflicts of the day; she records not only events, but even dialogues and personal characteristics; hints her suspicions, and multiplies her fears: her attention was incessant.-'I never write but what I think others do not ;' and her terrors were as ceaseless, I pray God, send you back quickly, for I see all breaking out into all flames. The queen's difficulties were not eased by a single confidential intercourse. On one occasion she observes, As I do not know what I ought to speak, and when not, I am as silent as can be.'-' I ever fear not doing well, and trust to what nobody says but you. It seems to me that every one is afraid of themselves.I am very uneasy in one thing, which is want of somebody to speak my mind freely to, for it's a great constraint to think and be silent; and there is so much matter. that I am one of Solomon's fools, who am ready to burst.' I must tell you again how Lord Monmouth endeavours to frighten me, and indeed things have but a melancholy prospect. She had indeed reason to fear Lord Monmouth, who, it appea.s, divulged all the secrets of the royal councils to Major Wildman, who was one of our old republicans; and, to spread alarm in the privy council, conveyed in lemon-juice all their secrets to France, often on the very day they had passed in council! They discovered the fact, and every one suspected the other as the traitor! Lord Lincoln even once assured her, that the Lord President and all in general, who are in trust, were rogues. Her council was composed of factions, and the queen's suspicions were rather general than particular for she observes on them, Till now I thought you had given me wrong characters of men; but now I see they answer my expectation of being as little of a mind as of a body.'-For a final extract, take this full picture of royal misery-I must see company on my set days; I must play twice a week; nay, I must laugh and talk, though never so much against my will; I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know me: at least, it is a great constraint to myself, yet I must endure it. All my motions are so watched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat less, or speak less, or look more grave, all is lost in the opinion of the world; so that I have this misery added to that of your absence, that I must grin when my heart is ready to break, and talk when my heart is so oppressed that I can scarce breathe. I go to Kensington as often as I can for air; but then I never can be quite alone, neither can I complain that would be some ease; but I have nobody whose humour and circumstances agree with mine enough to speak my mind freely to. Besides, I must hear of business, which being a thing I am so new in, and so unfit for, does but break my brains the more, and not ease my heart. Thus different from the representation of Burnet was the actual state of Queen Mary; and I suspect that our warm and vehement bishop had but little personal knowledge of her majesty, notwithstanding the elaborate character of the queen which he has given in her funeral euiogum.-He must have known that she did not always sympathize with his party-feelings: for the queen writes, The bishop of Salisbury has made a long thundering sermon this morning, which he has been with me to desire to print; which I could not refuse, though I should not have ordered it, for reasons which I told him.' Burnet (whom I am very far from calling what an inveterate Tory, Edward Earl of Oxford, does in one of his manuscript notes, that lying Scot,') unquestionably has told many truths in his garrulous page; but the canse in which he stood so deeply engaged, coupled to his warm sanguine temper, may have sometimes dimmed his sagacity, so as to have caused him to have mistaken, as in the present case, a mask for a face, particularly at a time when almost every individual appears to have worn one! Both these causes of Charles the Second and Queen Mary show the absolute necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances and the fallacies which so often deceive us in public history. The appetite for Remains,' as the noble author whom I have already alluded to calls it, may then be a very wholesome one, if it provides the only materials by which our popular histories can be corrected, and since it often infuses a freshness into a story which, after having been copied from book to book, inspires another to tell it for the tenth time! Thus are the sources of secret history unexpected by the idler and the superficial, among those masses of untouched manuscripts-that subterraneous history!which indeed may terrify the indolent, bewilder the inexperienced, and confound the injudicious, if they have not acquired the knowledge which not only decides on facts and opinions, but on the authorities which have furnished them. Popular historians have written to their readers; each with different views, but all alike form the open documents of history; like feed advocates, they declaim, or like special pleaders, they keep only on one side of their case they are seldom zealous to push on their crossexaminations; for they come to gain their cause, and not to hazard it! Time will make the present age as obsolete as the last, for our sons will cast a new light over the ambiguous scenes which distract their fathers; they will know how some things happened, for which we cannot account; they will bear witness to how many characters we have mistaken; they will be told many of those secrets which our contemporaries hide from us; they will pause at the ends of our beginning; they will read the perfect story of man, which can never be told while it is proceeding. All this is the possession of posterity, because they will judge without our passions; and all this we ourselves have been enabled to possess, by the secret history of the last two ages!* LITERARY RESIDENCES. Men of genius have usually been condemned to compose their finest works, which are usually their earliest ones, under the roof of a garret; and few literary characters have lived, like Pliny and Voltaire, in a villa or chateau of their own. It has not therefore often happened, that a man of genius could raise local emotions by his own intellectual suggestions. Ariosto, who built a palace in his verse, lodged himself in a small house, and found that stanzas and stones were not put together at the same rate: old Montaigne has left a description of his library; over the entrance of my house, where I view my court-yards, and garden, and at once survey all the operations of my family! There is, however, a feeling among literary men, of building up their own elegant fancies, and giving a permanency to their own tastes: we dwell on their favourite scenes as a sort of portraits, and we eagerly collect those few prints, which are their only vestiges. A collection might be formed of such literary residences chosen for their amenity and their retirement, and adorned by the objects of their studies; from that of the younger Pliny, who called his villa of literary leisure by the endearing term of villula, to that of Cassiodorus, the prime minister of Theodoric, who has left so magnificent a description of his literary retreat, where all the elegances of life were at hand; where the gardeners and the agriculturists laboured on scientific principles; and where, amidst gardens and * Since this article has been sent to press, I rise, from reading one in the Edinburg Review on Lord Oxford's and Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs. This is one of the very rare articles which could only come from the hand of a master, long exercised in the studies he criticises. The critic, or rather the historian, observes, that of a period remarkable for the esta blishment of our present system of government, no authentic materials had yet appeared. Events of public notoriety are to be found, though often inaccurately told, in our common histories; but the secret springs of action, the private views and motives of individuals, &c, are as little known to us, as if the events to which they relate had taken place in China or Japan. The clear, connected, dispassionate, and circumstan tial narrative, with which he has enriched the stores of Eng. lish history, is drawn from the sources of secret history; from published memoirs and contemporary correspondence. parks, stood his extensive library, with scribes to multiply his manuscripts;-From Tycho Brahe's, who built a magnificent astronomical house on an island, which he named after the sole objects of his musings, Uranienburgh, or the castle of the Heavens;-to that of Evelyn, who first began to adorn Wotton, by building a little study,' till many years after he dedicated the ancient house to contemplation, among the delicious streams and venerable woods, the gardens, the fountains, and the groves most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse; and indeed gave one of the first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue.' From Pope, whose little garden seemed to multiply its scenes by a glorious union of nobility and literary men conversing in groupes; -down to lonely Shenstone, whose 'rural elegance,' as he entitles one of his odes, compelled him to mourn over his hard fate, when Expense Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught We have all by heart the true and delightful reflection of Johnson on local associations, when the scene we tread suggests to us the men or the deeds, which have left their celebrity to the spot. We are in the presence of their fame, and feel its influence! A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old tower in the garden of Buffon, where the sage retired every morning to compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment, as to have raised some solicitude among the honest folks of Montbar, who having seen the Englishman' enter, but not return, during a heavy thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous state of the stranger. My friend is, as is well known, a genius of that cast, who could pass two hours in the Tower of Buffon, without being aware that he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries, which in some minds such a locality may excite. He was also busied with his pencil; for he has favoured me with two drawings of the interior and the exterior of this old tower in the garden: the nakedness within can only be compared to the solitude without. Such was the studying room of Buffon, where his eye resting on no object, never interrupted the unity of his meditations on Nature. In return for my friend's kindness, it has cost me, I think, two hours, in attempting to translate the beautiful picture of this literary retreat, which Vicq D'Azyr has finished with all the warmth of a votary. At Montbar, in the midst of an ornamented garden, is seen an antique tower; it was there that Buffon wrote the History of Nature, and from that spot his fame spread through the universe. There he came at sunrise, and no one, however importunate, was suffered to trouble him. The calm of the morning hour, the first warbling of the birds, the varied aspect of the country, all at that moment which touched the senses, recalled him to his model. Free, independent, he wandered in his walks; there was he seen with quickened or with slow steps, or standing rapt in thought, sometimes with his eyes fixed on the heavens in the moment of inspiration, as if satisfied with the thought that so profoundly occupied his soul; sometimes, collected within himself, he sought what would not always be found; or at the moments of producing, he wrote, he effaced, and rewrote, to efface once more; thus he harmonized, in silence, all the parts of his composition, which he frequently repeated to himself, till, satisfied with his corrections, he seemed to repay himself for the pains of his beautiful prose, by the pleasure he found in declaiming it aloud. Thus he engraved it in his memory, and would recite it to his friends, or induce some to read it to him. At those moments he was himself a severe judge, and would again re-compose it, desirous of attaining to that perfection which is denied to the impatient writer." A curious circumstance, connected with local associations, occurred to that extraordinary oriental student Fourmont. Originally he belonged to a religious community, and never failed in performing his offices; but he was expelled by the superior for an irregularity of conduct, not likely to have become contagious through the brotherhood -he frequently prolonged his studies far into the night, and it was possible that the house might be burnt by such superfluity of learning. Fourmont retreated to the college of Montaign, where he occupied the very chambers which had formerly been those of Erasmus; a circumstance The fifth volume of Homer.* It was the same feeling which induced him one day, when taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, to desire Harte to enter a little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, 'In this garret Addison wrote his Campaign! Nothing less than a strong feeling impelled the poet to ascend this garret-it was a consecrated spot to his eve; and certainly a curious m stance of the power of genius contrasted with its miserable locality! Addison, whose mind had fought through 'a campaign' in a garret, could he have caled about him 'the pleasures of imagination,' had probably planned a a house of literary repose, where all parts would have been in harmony with his mind. Such residence of men of genius have been enjoved by some; and the vivid descriptions which they have left us convey something of the delightfulness which charmed their studious repose. The Italian Paul Jovins has composed more than three hundred concise eulogies of statesmen, warriors, and liter ary men of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth ceniuries; but the occasion which induced him to compose them is perhaps more interesting than the compositions. Jovius had a country-house, situated on a peninsula, bordered by the lake of Como. It was built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny, and in his time the foundations were still visible. When the surrounding lake was calm, the sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the frag ments of those pyramids which had once adorned the resi dence of the friend of Trajan, were stil viewed in its lucid bosom. Jovius was the enthusiast of literature, and the leisure which it loves. He was an historian, with the imagination of a poet, and though a christian prelate, almost a worshipper of the sweet fictions of pazan mythology; and when his pen was kept pure from satire or adulation, to which it was too much accustomed, it becomes a pencil. He paints with rapture his gardens bathed w the waters of the lake; the shade and freshness of hie woods; his green slopes, his sparkling fountains, the deep silence and calm of his solitude! A statue was raised in his gardens to Nature! In his hall stood a fine statue of Apollo, and the Muses around, with their attributes. His library was guarded by a Mercury, and there was an apartment adorned with Doric columns, and with pictures of the most pleasing subjects, dedicated to the Graces! Such was the interior! Without, the transparent lake here spread its broad mirror, and there was seen luminously winding by banks covered with olives and laurels; in the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphithe atre, blushing with vines, and the first elevation of the Alps, covered with woods and pasture, and sprinkled with herds and flocks. It was in a central spot of this enchanting habitation that a cabinet or gallery was erected, where Jovius had collected, with prodigal cost,the portraits of celebrated men; and it was to explain and describe the characteristics of those illustrious names that he had composed his euingies. This collection became so remarkable, that the great men, his contemporaries, presented our literary collector with their own portraits, among whom the renowned Fernan dez Cortes sent Jovius his before he died, and probably others who were less entitled to enlarge the collection: but it is equally probable that our caustic Jorins woold throw them aside. Our historian had often in descnbe men more famous than virtuous; sovereigns, politicians, * On a late inquiry it appears that this consecrated pase has been removed-and the relic is said to be preserved at Nuneham. If he poets, and philosophers, men of all ranks, countries, and ages, formed a crowded scene of men of genius or of celebrity: sometimes a few lines compress their character, and sometimes a few pages excite his fondness. sometimes adulates the living, we may pardon the illusions of a contemporary; but he has the honour of satirizing some by the honest freedom of a pen which occasionally broke out into premature truths. Such was the inspiration of literature and leisure which had embellished the abode of Jovius, and had raised in the midst of the lake of Como a cabinet of portraits; a noble tribute to those who are the salt of the earth.' We possess prints of Rubens's house at Antwerp. That princely artist perhaps first contrived for his studio the circular apartment with a dome, like the rotunda of the Pantheon, where the light descending from an aperture or window at the top, sent down a single equal light,-that perfection of light which distributes its magical effects on the objects beneath. Bellori describes it, una stanza rotunda con un solo occhio in cima; the solo occio is what the French term oil de bœuf; we ourselves want this single eye in our technical language of art. This was his precious museum, where he had collected a vast number of books, which were intermixed with his marbles, statues, cameos, intaglios, and all that variety of the riches of art which he had drawn from Rome: but the walls did not yield in value; for they were covered by pictures of his own composition, or copies by his own hand, made at Venice and Madrid, of Titian and Paul Veronese. No foreigners, men of letters, or lovers of the arts, or even princes, would pass through Antwerp without visiting the house of Rubens, to witness the animated residence of genius, and the great man who had conceived the idea. Yet, great as was his mind, and splendid as were the habits of his life, he could not resist the entreaties, of the hundred thousand florins of our Duke of Buckingham, to dispose of this studio. The great artist could not, however, abandon for ever the delightful contemplations he was depriving himself of; and as substitutes for the miracles of art he had lost, he solicited and obtained leave to replace them by casts, which were scrupulously deposited in the places where the originals had stood. Of this feeling of the local residences of genius, the Italians appear to have been, not perhaps more susceptible than other people, but more energetic in their enthusiasm. Florence exhibits many monuments of this sort. In the neighbourhood of Santa Maria Novella, Zimmerman has noticed a house of the celebrated Viviani, which is a singular monument of gratitude to his illustrious master Gafileo. The front is adorned with the bust of this father of science, and between the windows are engraven accounts of the discoveries of Galileo; it is the most beautiful biography of genius! Yet another still more eloquently excites our emotions-the house of Michael Angelo: his pupils, in perpetual testimony of their admiration and gratitude, have ornamented it with all the leading features of his life; the very soul of this vast genius put in action: this is more than biography-it is living as with a contemporary! WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO RUIN ONESELF? One of our old dramatic writers, who witnessed the singular extravagance of dress among the modellers of fashion, our nobility, condemns their superfluous bravery,' echoing the popular cry, There are a sort of men, whose coining heads Our poet might have been startled at the reply of our political economist. If the nobility, in follies such as these, only preserved their titles,' while their lands' were dispersed among the industrious classes, the people were not sufferers. The silly victims ruining themselves by their excessive luxury, or their costly dress, as it appears some did, was an evil which, left to its own course, must check itself; if the rich did not spend, the poor would starve, Luxury is the cure of that unavoidable evil in societygreat inequality of fortune! Political economists therefore tell us, that any regulations would be ridiculous which, as Lord Bacon expresses it, should serve for the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws.' Adam Smith is not only indignant at sumptuary laws,' but asserts, with a democratic insolence of style, that it is the highest impertinence and presumption in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense by sumptuary laws. They are themselves always the greatest spendthrifts in the society: let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.' We must therefore infer, that governments, by extravagance, may ruin a state, but that individuals enjoy the remarkable privilege of ruining themselves, without injuring society! Adain Smith afterwards distinguishes two sorts of luxury; the one, exhausting itself in durable commodities, as in buildings, furniture, books, statues, pictures,' will increase 'the opulence of a nation; but of the other, wasting itself in dress and equipages, in frivolous ornaments, jewels, baubles, trinkets, &c, he acknowledges no trace or vestige would remain; and the effects of ten or twenty years' profusion would be as completely annihilated as if they had never existed.' There is, therefore a greater or lesser evil in this important subject of the opulent, unrestricted by any law, ruining his whole generation. Where the wealth of nations' is made the solitary standard of its prosperity, it becomes a fertile source of errors in the science of morals; and the happiness of the individual is then too frequently sacrificed to what is called the prosperity of the state. If an individual, in the pride of luxury and selfism, annihilates the fortunes of his whole generation, untouched by the laws as a criminal, he leaves behind him a race of the discontented and the seditious, who having sunk in the scale of society, have to reascend from their degradation by industry and by humiliation; but for the work of industry their habits have made them inexpert; and to humiliation, their very rank presents a perpetual obstacle. Sumptuary laws, so often enacted, and so often repealed, and always eluded, were the perpetual, but ineffectual, attempts of all governments to restrain what, perhaps, cannot be restrained-criminal folly! And to punish a man for having ruined himself would usually be to punish a most contrite penitent! It is not surprising that before 'private vices were considered as public benefits,' the governors of nations instituted sumptuary laws-for the passion for pageantry, and an incredible prodigality in dress, were continually impoverishing great families-more equality of wealth has now rather subdued the form of private ruin than laid this evil domestic spirit. The incalculable expenditure, and the blaze of splendour, of our ancestors, may startle the incredulity of our elegantes. We find men of rank exhausting their wealth and pawning their castles, and then desperately issuing from them, heroes for a crusade, or brigands for their neighbourhood-and this frequently from the simple circumstance of having for a short time maintained some gorgeous chivalric festival on their own estates, or from having melted thousands of acres into a cloth of gold; their sons were left to beg their bread on the estates which they were to have inherited. It was when chivalry still charmed the world by the remains of its seductive splendours, towards the close of the fifteenth century, that I find an instance of this kind occurring in the Pas de Sandricourt, which was held in the neighbourhood of the sieur of that name. It is a memorable affair, not only for us curious inquirers after manners and morals, but for the whole family of the Sandricourts; for though the said sieur is now receiving the immortality we bestow on him, and la dame, who presided in that magnificent piece of chivalry, was infinitely gratified, yet for ever after was the lord of Sandricourt ruined-and all for a short, romantic three months! This story of the chivalric period may amuse. A pas d'armes, though consisting of military exercises and deeds of gallantry, was a sort of festival distinct from a tournament. It signified a pas or passage to be contested by one or more knights against all comers. It was necessary that the road should be such that it could not be passed without encountering some guardian knight. The chevaliers who disputed the pas hung their blazoned shields on trees, pales, or posts raised for this purpose. The as pirants after chivalric honours would strike with their lance one of these shields, and when it rung it instantly summoned the owner to the challenge. A bridge or a road would sometimes serve for this military sport, for such it was intended to be, whenever the heat of the rivals proved not too earnest. The sieur of Sandricourt was a finedreamer of feasts of chivalry, and in the neighbourhood of his castle he fancied that he saw the very spot adapted for every game: there was one admirably fitted for the barrier of a tilting-match; another embellished by a solitary pinetree; another which was called the meadow of the thorn; there was a carrefour, where, in four roads, four knights might meet; and, above all, there was a forest called devoyable, having no path, so favourable for errant knights, who might there enter for strange adventurers, and, as chance directed, encounter others as bewildered as themselves. Our chivalric Sandricourt found nine young signeurs of the court of Charles the Eighth of France, who answered all his wishes. To sanction this glorious feat it was necessary to obtain leave from the king, and a herald of the Duke of Orleans to distribute the cartel or challenge all over France, announcing that from such a day, ten young lords would stand ready to combat, in those different places, in the neighbourhood of Sandricourt's chateau. The names of this flower of chivalry have been faithfully registered, and they were such as instantly to throw a spark into the heart of every lover of arms! The world of fashion, that is, the chivalric world, were set in motion. Four bodies of assailants soon collected, each consisting of ten combatants. The herald of Orleans having examined the arms of these gentlemen, and satisfied himself of their ancient lineage, and their military renown, admitted their claims to the proffered honour. Sandricourt now saw with rapture, the numerous shields of the assailants placed on the sides of his portals and corresponding with those of the challengers which hung above them. Ancient lords were elected judges of the feats of the knights, accompanied by the ladies, for whose honour only the combatants declared they engaged. The herald of Orleans tells the history in no very intelligible verse; but the burden of his stanza is still Du pas d'armes du chasteau Sandricourt. He sings, or says, 'Oncques, depuis le temps du roi Artus, Du pas des armes du chasteau Sandricourt.' Doubtless, there, many a Roland met with his Oliver, and could not pass the barriers. Cased as they were in steel, de pied en cap, we presume that they could not materially injure themselves; yet, when on foot, the ancient judges discovered such symptoms of peril, that on the following day they advised our knights to satisfy themselves by fighting on horseback. Against this prudential counsel for some time they protested, as an inferior sort of glory. However, on the next day, the horse combat was appointed in the carrefour, by the pine-tree. On the following day they tried their lances in the meadow of the thorn; but, though on horseback, the judges deemed their attacks were so fierce, that this assault was likewise not without peril; for some horses were killed, and some knights were thrown, and lay bruised by their own mail; but the barbed horses, wearing only des champfriens, headpieces magnificently caparisoned, found no protection in their ornaments. The last days were passed in combats of two to two, or in a single encounter, a-foot, in the foret devoyable. These jousts passed without any accident, and the prizes were awarded in a manner equally gratifying to the claimants. The last day of the festival was concluded with a most sumptuous banquet. Two noble knights had undertaken the humble office of maitres d'hotel; and while the knights were parading in the foret devoyable, seeking adventures, a hundred servants were seen at all points, carrying white and red hypocras, and juleps, and sirop de violars, sweetmeats, and other spiceries, to comfort these wanderers, who on returning to the chasteau, found a grand and plenteous banquet. The tables were crowded in the court-apartment, where some held one hundred and twelve gentlemen, not including the dames and the damoi selles. In the halls, and outside of the chasteau, were other tables. At that festival more than two thousand persons were magnificently entertained free of every expense; ther attendants, their armourers, their plumassiers, and others, were also present. La Dame de Sandricourt, fut moult aise d'avoir donné dans son chasteau si belle, si magnifique, et gorgiasse fete.' Historians are apt to describe their personages as they appear, not as they are: if the lady of the Sieur Sandricourt really was *moult aise during these gorgeous days, one cannot but sympathize with the lady, when her loyal knight and spouse confessed to her, after the departure of the mob of two thousand visiters, neighbours, soldiers, and courtiers, the knights challengers, and the knights assailants, and the fine scenes at the pine-tree; the barrier in the meadow of the thorn; and the horse-combat at the carrefour; and the jousts in the foret devoyable; the carousals m the castlehalls; the jolity of the banquet-tables, the morescoes danced till they were reminded How the waning might grew old-in a word, when the costly dream had vanished,-that he was a ruined man forever, by immortalizing his name in one grand chivalric festival! The Steur de Sandricourt, like a great torch, had consumed bamself in his own brightness; and the very land on which the famous Pas de Sandricourt was held-had passed away with it! Thus one man sinks generations by that wastefulness, which a political economist would assure us was committing no injury to society-The moral evil goes for nothing in financial statements! Similar instances of ruinous luxury we may find in the prodigal costhness of dress through the reign of Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First. Not only in their massy grandeur they outweighed us, but the accumulation and variety of their wardrobe displayed such a gaiety of fancy in their colours and their ornaments, that the drawing-room in those days must have blazed at their presence, and changed colour as the crowd moved. But if we may trust to royal proclamations, the ruin was general among some classes. Elizabeth issued more than one proclama tion against the excess of apparel! and among other evils which the government imagined this passion for dress occasioned, it notices the wasting and undoing of a great number of young gentlemen, otherwise serviceable; and that others, seeking by show of appare! to be esteemed as gentlemen, and allured by the vain show of these things, not only consume their goods and lands, but also run into such debts and shifts, as they cannot live out of danger of laws, without attempting of unlawful acts.' The queen bids her own household to look unto it for good example to the realm; and all noblemen, archbishops and bishops, all mayors, justices of peace, &c, should see them executed in their private households.' The greatest difficulty which occurred to regulate the wear of apparel was ascer taining the incomes of persons, or, m the words of the proclamation, finding that it is very hard for any man's state of living and value to be truly understood by other persons." They were to be regulated, as they appear sessed in the subsidy books.' But if persons chose to be more magnificent in their dress, they were allowed to justify their means in that case, if allowed, her majesty would not be the loser; for they were to be rated in the subsidy books according to such values as they themselves offered as a qualification for the splendour of their dress! In my researches among manuscript letters of the times, I have had frequent occasion to discover bow persons of considerable rank appear to have carried their acres on their backs, and with their ruinous and fantastical luxuries sadly pinched their hospitality. It was this which so frequently cast them into the nets of the guld-smiths,' and other trading usurers. At the coronation of James the First, I find a simple knight whose cloak cost him five hundred pounds; but this was not uncommon. At the marriage of Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First, 'Lady Wotton had a gown of which the embroidery cost fifty pounds a yard. The Lady Arabella made four gowns, one of which cost 1500. The Lord Montacute (Montague) bestowed 1500 in apparel for his two daughters. One lady, under the rank of baronness, was furnished with jewels exceeding one bundred thousand pounds; and the Lady Arabella goes beyond her,' says the letterswetter. All this extreme cost and riches makes us all poor, as he imagined! I have been amused in observing grave writers of state-despatches jocular on any mischance or mortification to which persons are liable, whose happiness entirely depends on their dress. Sir Dudley Cane |