Born: Angelo Poliziano,
poet and classic commentator, 1454, Montepulciano,
Tuscany; Samuel Rogers, poet (Pleasures of Memory),
1763, Stoke Newington, London.
Died: Pope Benedict I,
577; Ladislaus I, king of Hungary, 1095; James, Earl
of Douglas, killed at Otter-bourne, 1388; Robert, Earl
of Kingston, 1643; Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV,
1683; William Penn, coloniser of Pennsylvania, 1718,
Ruscombe, Berkshire; John Sebastian Bach, eminent
composer, 1750, Leipsic; Thomas Gray, poet, 1771;
Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, naturalist, 1857,
Paris.
Feast Day: Saints Abdon
and Sennen, martyrs, 250. St. Julitta, martyr, about
303.
THE GOOD EARL OF
KINGSTON
Robert Pierrepoint, Earl of
Kingston, surnamed the Good, being not less celebrated
for his great wealth than the benevolent use he made
of it, was killed on the 30th of July 1643, under
circumstances which either confirmed a rash
asseveration, or gave rise to a curious story. As the
wealth, abilities, influence, and popular reputation
of the earl would render him a most powerful and
valuable auxiliary, to whichever party he might join
at the breaking out of the great civil war, each side
was equally anxious to secure his adherence. He
remained neutral so long that it was considered his
mind was undecided as to which cause he would
eventually support. At last, seeing that war was
inevitable, he joined the king, bringing with him the
valuable aid of 2000 men, and �24,000 in money.
Vigorously opposing the Parliamentarians in the field,
he was surprised and taken prisoner by Lord Willoughby
of Parham, at Gainsborough. A prize of so great value
was not to be lightly guarded, at such an uncertain
time. To make him perfectly secure, Willoughby placed
the earl in a pinnace, to be conveyed to the
stronghold of Hull.
On the vessel's passage
thither, the royalist Sir Charles Cavendish
ordered it
to be fired upon by a cannon, and the unlucky ball
killed the Earl of Kingston and his servant. The
vessel being brought-to, and Cavendish learning that
his rash procedure had destroyed his friend and the
most valuable man of his party, he, in a paroxysm of
rage and blind revenge, ordered all the crew of the pinnace to be put to death.
Such is the account of
this untoward affair given in history; but Mrs.
Lucy
Hutchinson, in her memoir of her husband, gives us the
popular account, perfectly in keeping with the beliefs
and opinions of the period. It would from this appear
that the last parliamentary agent sent to the Earl of
Kingston, to induce him to join their party, was a
Captain Lomax, to whom the earl expressed his solemn
determination not to join either side. And to quote
the words of Mrs. Hutchinson: 'he made a serious
imprecation on himself: "When," said he, "I take arms
with the king against the parliament, or with the
parliament against the king, let a cannon bullet
divide me between them;" which God was pleased to
bring to pass a few months after; for he going into
Gainsborough, and there taking up arms for the king,
was surprised by my Lord Willoughby, and, after a
handsome defence of himself, yielded, and was put
prisoner into a pinnace, and sent down the river to
Hull, when my Lord Newcastle's army, marching along
the shore, shot at the pinnace, and, being in danger,
the Earl of Kingston went up upon the deck to shew
himself, and to prevail of them to forbare shooting;
but as soon as he appeared, a cannon bullet flew from
the king's army, and divided him in the middle, being
then in the parliament's pinnace, who thus perished
according to his own unhappy imprecation.'
WILLIAM PENN
William Penn was born on Tower
Hill, London, 14th October 1644. His father was Sir
William Penn, an admiral who had fought with
distinction the fleets of Holland and Spain. His
mother was a Dutchwoman, the daughter of a rich
Rotterdam merchant. Penn received an excellent
education, and whilst at Oxford he was tempted to go
and hear one Thomas Loe, a Quaker, preach. Quakerism,
in our time the meekest of faiths, was in those days
regarded by churchmen and dissenters alike, as an
active spirit of evil deserving no mercy or
forbearance: there was contamination and disgrace in
everything connected with it. Loe's ministry so
affected Penn, that he began to think of becoming a
Quaker himself. His father heard of the impending
metamorphosis with horror, and sent him off to France,
to avert the change. The policy was successful. Penn
soon forgot the Quaker in the gaiety of Paris, and
returned, to his father's delight, a fine gentleman,
with all the airs and accomplishments of a courtier.
The terrors of the plague of
London in 1665, however, revived the youth's pious
tendencies, and again his father tried change of
scene, and sent him to Ireland. There he distinguished
himself in subduing an insurrection; and it is a
curious fact, that the only authentic portrait of the
great apostle of peace existing, represents him at
this period a young man armed and accoutred as a
soldier. It so happened, that the Quakers were growing
numerous in the larger Irish cities, and one day Penn
strolled into their meeting in Cork. To his surprise,
Thomas Loe, from Oxford, arose and spoke from the
text, 'There is a faith that overcomes the world, and
there is a faith that is overcome by the world.' From
that meeting is dated Penn's thorough conversion to
Quakerism. His father heard of his relapse with
dismay, and ordered him back to London. They had a
long and painful discussion, but the young man was
immovable; neither the hope of honour nor the prospect
of degradation had any effect on his resolution; and
the admiral, after exhausting his whole armory of
persuasion, ended by turning his son out of doors.
This conduct threw Penn
completely over to the Quakers. He began to preach at
their meetings, to write numerous pamphlets in defence
of their doctrines, to hold public debates with their
adversaries, and to make propagandist tours over
England and the continent, sometimes alone, and
sometimes in company with George Fox,
Robert Barclay,
and others. Of persecution and imprisonment he had his
share. A tract, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which
he set forth Unitarian opinions, so excited the bishop
of London, that he had him committed to the Tower,
where he lay for nearly nine months. King Charles sent
Stillingfleet to talk him out of his errors; but,
said Penn, 'The Tower is to me the worst argument in
the world.' During this confinement he wrote, No
Cross, no Crown, the most popular of his works. 'Tell
my father, who I know will ask thee,' said he one day
to his servant, 'that my prison shall be my grave
before I will budge a jot: for I owe my conscience to
no mortal man. Actuated by a spirit as patient as it
was resolute, Penn and his brethren fairly wore out
the malice of their persecutors, so that in sheer
despair intolerance abandoned Quakerism to its own
devices.
Happily, the admiral had the
good sense to reconcile himself to his son. It is said
that, in spite of his irritation, he came to admire
the steady front William shewed to an adverse and
mocking world. The admiral's disappointment was indeed
severe. He stood high in favour with Charles II and
the Duke of York, and had his son co-operated with
him, there was no telling what eminence they might not
have attained. 'Son William,' said the veteran, only a
day or two before his death, 'I am weary of the world:
I would not live my days over again, if I could
command them with a wish; for the snares of life are
greater than the fears of death.' Almost the last
words he uttered were, 'Son William, if you and your
friends keep to your plain way of preaching, and also
keep to your plain way of living, you will make an end
of priests to the end of the world.'
Penn, by his learning and
logic, did more than any man, excepting Barclay,
author of the Apology, to shape Quaker sentiment into
formal theology; but the service by which the world
will remember him, was his settlement of Pennsylvania.
His father had bequeathed him a claim on the
government of �16,000 for arrears of pay and cash
advanced to the navy. Penn very well knew that such a
sum was irrecoverable from Charles II; he had long
dreamed of founding a colony where peace and
righteousness might dwell together; and he decided to
compound his debt for a tract of country in North
America. The block of land he selected lay to the
north of the Catholic province of Maryland, owned by
Lord Baltimore; its length was nearly 300 miles, its
width about 160, and its area little less than the
whole of England. Objections were raised; but Charles
was only too glad to get rid of a debt on such easy
terms. At the council, where the charter was granted,
Penn stood in the royal presence, it is said, with his
hat on. The king thereupon took off his; at which Penn
observed, 'Friend Charles, why dost thou not keep on
thy hat?' to which his majesty replied, laughing: 'It
is the custom of this place for only one person to
remain covered at a time.' The name which Penn had
fixed on for his province was New Wales; but Secretary Blathwayte, a Welshman,
objected to have the
Quaker-country called after his land. He then proposed
Sylvania, and to this the king added Penn, in honour
of the admiral.
The fine country thus secured
became the resort of large numbers of Quakers, who, to
their desire for the free profession of their faith,
united a spirit of enterprise; and very quickly
Pennsylvania rose to high importance among the
American plantations. Its political constitution was
drawn up by Penn, aided by Algernon Sidney, on extreme
democratic principles. Perfect toleration to all sects
was accorded. 'Whoever is right,' Penn used to say,
'the persecutor must be wrong.' The world thought him
a visionary; but his resolution to treat the Indians
as friends, and not as vermin to be extirpated, seemed
that of a madman. So far as he could prevent, no
instrument of war was allowed to appear in
Pennsylvania. He met the Indians, spoke kindly to
them, promised to pay a fair price for whatever land
he and his friends might occupy, and assured them of
his good-will. If offences should unhappily arise, a
jury of six Indians and six Englishmen should decide
upon them.
The Indians met Penn in his
own spirit. No oaths, no seals, no official mummeries
were used; the treaty was ratified on both sides with
a yea, yea�the only one, says Voltaire, that the world
has known, never sworn to, and never broken.' A strong
evidence of Penn's sagacity is the fact, that not one
drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian; and
forty years elapsed from the date of the treaty, ere a
red man was slain by a white in Pennsylvania. The
murder was an atrocious one, but the Indians
themselves prayed that the murderer's life might be
spared. It was spared; but he died in a very short
time, and they then said, the Great Spirit had avenged
their brother.
It will be thought that Penn
made a capital bargain, in the purchase of
Pennsylvania for �16,000; but in his lifetime, he drew
little but trouble from his investment. The settlers
withheld his dues, disobeyed his orders, and invaded
his rights; and he was kept in constant disquiet by
intrigues for the nullification of his charter.
Distracted by these cares, he left his English
property to the care of a steward, who plundered him
mercilessly; and his later years were saddened with
severe pecuniary distress. He was twice married, and
in both cases to admirable women. His eldest son, a
promising youth, he lost just as he verged on manhood;
and a second son, by riotous living, brought himself
to an early grave, trying Penn's fatherly heart with
many sorrows. Multiplied afflictions did not, however,
sour his noble nature, nor weaken his settled faith in
truth and goodness.
Penn's intimacy with James II
exposed him, in his own day, to much suspicion, which
yet survives. It ought to be remembered, that Admiral
Penn and James were friends; that the admiral, at
death, consigned his son William to his guardianship;
and that between James and his ward there sprung up
feelings apparently amounting to affection. While
James was king, Penn sometimes visited him daily, and
persuaded him to acts of clemency, otherwise
unattainable. Penn scorned as a Quaker, James hated as
a Catholic, could sympathise as brothers in adversity.
Penn, by nature, was kindly, and abounding in that
charity which thinketh no evil; and taking the worst
view of James's character, it is in nowise surprising
that Penn should have been the victim of his
duplicity. It is well known that rogues could do
little mischief, if it were not so easy to make good
men their tools.
There was very little of that
asceticism about Penn which is thought to belong to�at
least early �Quakerism. The furniture of his houses
was equal in ornament and comfort to that of any
gentleman of his time. His table abounded in every
real luxury. He was fond of fine horses, and had a
passion for boating. The ladies of his household
dressed like gentlewomen�wore caps and buckles, silk
gowns and golden ornaments. Penn had no less than four
wigs in America, all purchased the same year, at a
cost of nearly �20. To innocent dances and country
fairs he not only made no objection, but patronised
them with his own and his family's presence.
William Penn, after a
lingering illness of three or four years, in which his
mind suffered, but not painfully, died at Ruscombe on
the 30th July 1718, and was buried at the secluded
village of Jordans, in Buckinghamshire. No stone marks
the spot, although many a pilgrim visits the grave.
GRAY AND HIS ELEGY
Sprung of a harsh and
unamiable father, but favoured with a mother of
opposite character�rising from a youth spent in
comparatively humble circumstances�Thomas Gray became,
in his mature years, a devoted college-student, a
poet, a man of refined taste, and an exemplifier of
all the virtues. There is not a more irreproachable
character in English literature. The portraits of the
bard give us the idea of a very good-looking man. He
was unfitted, however, for success in society, by an
insuperable taciturnity. The only reproach ever
intimated against him by his college-associates, was
that of fastidiousness. We may fairly suspect the
truth on this point to be, that he shrunk from the
coarse and boisterous enjoyments in which the greater
number of them indulged.
He had a weakness, in the form
of a nervous dread of fire. His chamber in St. Peter's
College, Cambridge, being in a second-floor, he
thought it very likely that, in case of a
conflagration, his exit by the stairs might be cut
off. He therefore caused an iron bar to be fixed by
arms projecting from the outside of his window,
designing by a rope tied thereto to descend to the
ground, in the event of a fire occurring. This
excessive caution, as it appeared to his brother-collegiates,
raised a spirit of practical joking in them; and one
evening, not long after the fire-escape had been fixed
up, a party of them came from a merry-making, and
thundered at the door of Gray, with loud cries of
'Fire! fire! fire!' The nervous poet started from bed,
flew to his window, and descended by his rope into the
vacant ground below, where of course he was saluted
with bursts of laughter by his friends. Gray's
delicate nature was so much shocked by this rough
affair, that he deserted Peter's College, and took up
his residence in Pembroke. The window with the iron
apparatus is still shewn, and is faithfully
represented on the preceding page.
Among popular English poems,
there is none more deservedly distinguished than
Gray's Elegy. It appeals to a feeling which is all but
universal�a tendency to moralise when alone in a
churchyard; and thus it is enabled to take hold of the
most common-place minds.
There are several curious
circumstances connected with its publication worth
recording. For some time after it was written, Gray
shewed it round among his friends, but said nothing
about publishing it. After a time, he became bolder,
and even allowed copies of it to circulate in
manuscript, until, at last, through the carelessness
of Horace Walpole�or it may
have been from a friendly
wish of his to see it universally admired, as he felt
it would be�a copy fell into the hands of the editor
of The Magazine of Magazines, who immediately sent the
poet word that he meant to print it. Gray had now no
alternative but to print it himself; and accordingly
wrote at once to Horace Walpole, with special
directions to that end. 'I have but one bad way left,'
he writes, 'to escape the honour they would inflict
upon me: and therefore am obliged to desire you would
make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done
in less than a week's time) from your copy, but
without my name.' It seems, he would have us think it
a great infliction to be admired by the public.
However, Walpole did as he was
bid, and had it printed in all haste; adding an
advertisement, at Gray's request, in which he informs
the reader that the publication is entirely due to an
unavoidable accident. But Dodsley, after all, was too
late. It first saw the light in The Magazine of
Magazines, February 1751. Some imaginary literary wag
is made to rise in a convivial assembly, and thus
announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe my
own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner,
with a full copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr.
Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are stanzas
written in a country churchyard.' Then follow the
verses. A few days afterwards, Dodsley's edition
appeared, in quarto, anonymously, price sixpence, with
An Elegy wrote in a Country Churchyard for its title,
and the title-page duly adorned with cross-bones,
skulls, and hour-glasses.
The original manuscript of the
Elegy is still in existence. It is written on four
sides of a doubled half sheet of yellow foolscap, in a
neat legible hand, with a crow-quill. Gray bequeathed
it, among other papers, to Mr. Mason, who wrote his
life; Mr. Mason left it, with the rest of the
manuscripts, to his curate, Mr. Bright; and Mr.
Bright's son sold the lot in 1845, when the Elegy fell
to Mr. Penn, of Manor House, Stoke Pogeis, for �100.
In 1854, it was again in the market, and was purchased
for �131 by Mr. Robert Charles Wrightson.
A photographed Facsimile of
the Original Auto-graph Manuscript of Gray's Elegy,
was published in 1862, by Messrs Sampson Low and Son.
Curious and interesting differences exist between the
first draft and the printed copy: numerous alterations
were afterwards made, and as many as six verses, which
appear in the manuscript, were omitted.
Perhaps the most interesting
of all the emendations was that made in verse 15 of
the printed poem; in which Hampden, Milton, and
Cromwell were severally substituted for Cato, Tully,
and Caesar: it is said that this judicious change was
suggested by Mason.
Verse 19, as the poem now
stands, is:
'Far from the madding
crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.'
Verse 24 is:
'For thee, who, mindful of
th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate.'
Verse 24 originally stood
thus:
' If chance, that e'er some
pensive spirit more,
By sympathetic musings here delay'd,
With vain, tho' kind inquiry shall explore
Thy once-loved haunt, this long deserted shade.'
And before verse 19 came these
four verses:
'The thoughtless World to
majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolise success;
But more to Innocence their safety owe
Than Power and Genius e'er conspired to bless.
And thou who, mindful of the
unhonoured Dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,
By night and lonely contemplation led
To linger in the lonely walks of Fate,
Hark how the sacred calm
that reigns around
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whisp'ring from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.
No more with Reason and
thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool, sequester'd vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.'
The change which Gray made is
tolerably clear. The four verses were struck out and
replaced by verse 19, and the second of the four
substituted for the old 24th, with some necessary
changes.
After verse 25 followed,
originally:
'Him have we seen the
greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labours done,
Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.'
And after verse 29, now the
last, once followed:
'There scatter'd oft the
earliest of ye year,
By hands unseen are frequent vi'lets found;
The robin loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'
In the summer of 1759, Gray
lodged at Mr. Jauncey's, in Southampton Row,
Bloomsbury, to be near the British Museum, of which he
was a diligent explorer. He told his friend Mason that
in this 'peaceful settlement' he had an uninterrupted
view of Hampstead, Highgate, and the Bedford Gardens!
a space now covered with miles of uninterrupted brick
and mortar. The contrast which the Reading Room, with
its hundreds of constant readers, now presents with
the corresponding establishment in Gray's time, is not
less remarkable.
The company that then
assembled to study and pursue research, was composed
of 'a man that writes for Lord Royston, a man that
writes for Dr. Burton of York, a third that writes for
the emperor of Germany or Dr. Pocock; Dr. Stukely, who
writes for himself, the very worst person he could
write for; and I, who only read to know if there is
anything worth writing.' Gray further mentions a
comfortable fact. 'The keepers have broken off all
intercourse with one another, and only lower a silent
defiance as they pass by.'
The admirable mother of
Gray�who had set up a millinery shop to support her
children, when deserted by her unworthy husband�was
buried in the churchyard of Stoke Pogeis, near Eton,
with an epitaph by the poet containing this most
touching passage: ' The careful tender mother of many
children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to
survive her.' It seems to be generally concluded that
he conceived himself as musing in this burialground
when he composed the Elegy. He himself was interred
there beside the worshipped grave of his mother.
In one of the final verses of
the Elegy there is a clause not unworthy of comment,
as a historical expression of the intellectual
condition of the English peasantry in the eighteenth
century. ' Approach and read for thou canst read,'
says the hoary-headed swain to the stranger. It is
here assumed that, as a rule, an English peasant was
unable to read. A Scottish poet would not have had
occasion to make the same assumption regarding his
humble countrymen�thanks to the Scottish parish
schools, instituted at the Revolution.
SALE OF THE
OLD GATES OF LONDON
A sale of three of the City
gates, on the 30th of July 1760, marked, in a singular
way, a dividing point between the old and the modern
history of London. The English metropolis, like most
large and important cities in the middle ages, was
bounded by a wall and a ditch; and in this wall were
openings or gates for the passage of foot and vehicle
traffic. Beginning from the east, this fortified
boundary commenced with the famous Tower of London,
itself a vast assemblage of gates and fortified posts.
Advancing thence nearly northward, the wall extended
to �ld-gate or Aldgate, which defended the approach by
the great highway from Essex. This was probably the
oldest of all the City gates. In 1215, during the
civil war between King John and the barons, the
citizens aided the latter in entering London by
Aldgate; and soon afterwards, the gate, being very
ruinous and dilapidated, was replaced by one strongly
built of stone. This new one (a double gate with
portcullis) remained till the time of Queen Elizabeth,
when it was replaced by another more ornamental than
warlike.
This was one of the three
gates finally removed in 1760. The wall extended
nearly north-west from Aldgate to Bishops-gate, which
guarded the great road from Cambridge. This gate was
not among the oldest of the series, but is supposed to
have been built about the reign of Henry II. At first
there were no means of exit from the City between
Aldgate and Aldersgate; and this extra gate was opened
rather to furnish additional accommodation, than for
any defensive purpose. The gate was in a ruinous state
from the time of Edward VI to that of James I, when
it was replaced by a new one; and this latter was
finally removed early in the last century.
The wall stretched westward
from Bishopsgate to Moorgate; of which Stow says: 'I
find that Thomas Falconer, mayor about the year
1415,
the third of Henry V, caused the wall of the city to
be broken near unto Coleman Street, and there builded
a postern, now called Moorgate, upon the moorside,
where was never gate before. This gate he made for
ease of the citizens that way to pass upon causeys
[causeways] into the fields for their recreation; for
the same field was at that time a marsh.' Indeed, all
the country immediately outside the city, from Bishopsgate to Aldersgate, was
very fenny and marshy,
giving rise to the names Moorfields and Finsbury (Fensbury).
Moorgate was rebuilt in 1472, and pulled down about
the middle of the last century, the stones being used
to repair the piers of London Bridge.
The next gate was Cripplegate,
a postern or minor gate like Moorgate, but much more
ancient; it was many times rebuilt, and was, like the
other gates, used as a prison. The name, Stow says,
'so called of cripples begging there.' This was one of
the three gates finally pulled down in 1760. The City
wall extended thence to �lders-gate or Aldersgate, one
of the oldest of the series, and also one of the
largest. The ancient structure, crumbling with age,
was replaced by a new and very ornamental one in the
time of James I; and this latter gave way to the
street improvers early in the last century.
The next gate was Newgate. In
the Anglo-Norman times, there were only three City
gates�Aldgate, Aldersgate, and Ludgate; and no person
could leave the city westward at any point between the
two last-named gates. To remedy this inconvenience,
Newgate was built about the time of Henry I, the
designation 'new' being, of course, only comparative.
After being rebuilt and repaired several times,
Newgate and its prison were burned down by Lord George
Gordon's mob in 1780; the prison was replaced by a
much larger and stronger one, but the gate was not
rebuilt. The City wall extended from Newgate to
Ludgate, which was the oldest of the series except
Aldgate and Aldersgate, and the one with which the
greatest number of historical events was connected.
After many rebuildings and repairing, Ludgate was one
of the three which were pulled down in 1760.
It must not be supposed that
Dowgate, Billingsgate, and St. John's Gate were
necessarily City gates; the first and second were
landing-places on the river-side, the third was the
gate belonging to the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem. As to the Bars �such as Temple Bar, Holborn
Bar, and Smithfield Bar�they were subsidiary or
exterior barriers, bearing some such relation to 'the
City without the walls,' as the gates bore to 'the
City within the walls,' but smaller, and of inferior
strength.
The announcement in the public
journals, concerning the destruction of three of the
gates on the 30th of July 1760, was simply to the
effect that Mr. Blagden, a carpenter of Coleman
Street, gave �91 for the old materials of Cripplegate,
�148 for Ludgate, and �177, 10s. for Aldgate;
undertaking to have all the rubbish removed by the end
of September. Thus ended our old City gates, except
Newgate, which the rioters put an end to twenty years
later.
