Born: Octavius Caesar
Augustus, first Roman emperor, 63
B.C., Aricia; Dr.
Jeremy Collier, celebrated author of A View of the
Stage, &c., 1650, Stow Qui, Cambridge-shire; Karl
Theodor K�rner, German poet, 1791, Dresden.
Died: Bishop Jewel,
eminent prelate,1571; Herman Boerhaave, distinguished
physician, 1738, Leyden; Dr. Matthew Baillie, eminent
physician, 1823; William Upcott, collector of
historical manuscripts, 1845, London; Edward Wedlake
Brayley, topographical and antiquarian writer, 1854.
Feast Day: St. Linus,
pope and martyr, 1
st
century. St. Thecla, virgin and
martyr, 1
st
century. St. Adamnan, abbot, 705.
KARL THEODOR K�RNER
The life-blood of Germany was
never roused nor quickened with greater impetus, than
when the old fatherland sprung to arms to assert its
rights against the tyrannical sway of France, towards
the close of the first Napoleon's career. For years
she had groaned under the sway; but repeated defeats
had taught her to succumb to the oppression which it
seemed impossible to resist. Hope at last gleamed upon
her from the lights of burning Moscow, and in 1813 she
rose, determined to throw off the yoke. In thus
vindicating her outraged rights, she was nobly
supported by the intellect and genius, as well as
military prowess of her sons. The stirring lectures of
Fichte, and the martial lyrics of K�rner, were no less
effective towards the liberation of their country than
the valour and strategical skill of L�tzow and
Blucher.
The father of Karl Theodor
K�rner held a distinguished position as member of the
privy-council of Saxony, and numbered Goethe and
Schiller among his personal friends.
In his infantine
days, Karl was a sickly delicate child, but as he
advanced in years, he rapidly outgrew all these signs
of weakness, and by the time he approached manhood,
was noted for his adroitness in all manly exercises,
more especially horsemanship and fencing, besides
being renowned for his musical skill, and grace and.
agility as a dancer. To crown all these, nature had
bestowed on him a fine military figure and handsome
countenance, with large, full, and expressive eyes.
The law was the profession to which his father's
wishes would have destined him; but young K�ner's
tastes inclining more to natural science and
engineering, he was sent, when a stripling, to
Freiberg, to study mining in the school there presided
over by the celebrated geologist, Werner. He pursued
his studies in this place in theoretical and practical
mining with much enthusiasm, but quitted it in 1810,
to attend the university of Leipsic, from which, after
remaining for a short time, he proceeded to that of
Berlin. In the same year, he made his first appearance
before the public, by the issue of a small volume of
poems, entitled Die Knospen, or 'The Buds.' From
Berlin he was sent by his father to Vienna, where he
seems to have turned his attention chiefly to dramatic
composition, and produced several pieces, one of
which, more especially, a tragedy on the subject of Zriny, the Hungarian hero,
was per-formed with immense
success. Among his friends in Vienna were included
Wilhelm von Humboldt, then ambassador from the
Prussian court, and Frederick Schlegel, the celebrated
historical commentator and poet. During his stay in
Vienna, also, he formed an ardent attachment to a
young lady, which met the entire approbation of his
family, and arrangements were entered into for their
speedy union.
But another bride now claimed
the attentions of K�rner. The cry to arms which in the
spring of 1813 echoed from one end of Germany to the
other, found an enthusiastic response in his bosom,
and he felt himself impelled to take his place
forth-with in the ranks of those patriots who were
striving for the liberation of their country in
Prussia and the northern states of the confederation.
Writing to his father, he says: 'Germany is roused;
the Prussian eagle flaps its wings and awakes in all
true hearts the great hope of German freedom. My
genius sighs for its fatherland; let me be its worthy
son. Now that I know what happiness may be realised in
this life, and when all the stars of my destiny look
down on me with such genial rays, now does a righteous
inspiration tell me that no sacrifice can be too great
for that highest of all human blessings, the
vindication of a nation's freedom.'
In pursuance of this resolve,
K�rner, in the month of March, quitted Vienna, and
proceeded to Breslau, where he joined L�tzow's
celebrated company of volunteers, or the Black
Huntsmen, as they were termed. A few days after his
joining the corps, it was solemnly dedicated to the
service of its country in the church of Rochau, the
services concluding with Luther's noble hymn, Bin
fester Burg ist unser Gott. The powers of physical
endurance which K�rner had acquired in the course of
his mining studies at Freiberg, proved of eminent
service to him in the fatigues of a military life. His
enthusiasm and aptitude for his new duties soon
procured his elevation to the post of lieutenant,
whilst the geniality and kindliness of his nature made
him the idol of his comrades. Here, too, his martial
muse was fairly called into action, and some of the
noblest of those lyrics which have rendered him the
Tyrtaeus and Pindar of Germany, were composed beside
the bivouac and watch-fires during the intervals of
military duty.
In the battle of Gorde, near the Elbe,
where the French received a signal check, and in the
subsequent victorious march of L�tzow's volunteers by
Halberstadt and Eisleben to Plauen, K�rner took a
prominent part, acting in the latter movement as
adjutant to the commander. Whilst lying at Plauen, an
intimation was treacherously conveyed to L�tzow of an
armistice having been concluded, and he accordingly
proceeded to Kitzen, a village in the neighbourhood of
Leipsic. Here he found himself surrounded and
threatened by a large body of French, and K�rner was
despatched to demand an explanation from the officer
in command, who, instead of replying, cut him down
with his sword, and a general engagement ensued. The
Black Huntsmen were forced to save themselves by
flight; and K�rner, who had only escaped death by his
horse swerving aside, took shelter in a neighbouring
wood, where he was nearly being discovered by a
detachment of French, but contrived to scare them away
by shouting in as stentorian tones as he could utter:
' The fourth squadron will advance!'
Faint with the loss of blood,
and the stunning effects of a severe wound in the
head, he at length fell in with some of his old
comrades, who procured him surgical assistance, and he
managed afterwards to get himself smuggled into
Leipsic, then under the rigorous military rule of the
French. From this he escaped to Karlsbad, and at last,
after visiting various places, reached Berlin, where
he succeeded in completely re-establishing his health.
Anxious to join again his companions in arms, he now
hurried back to the banks of the Elbe, where Marshal
Davoust, with a strong reinforcement of Danish troops
from Hamburg, was threatening Northern Germany.
On
17th August, hostilities were renewed, and L�tzow's
troops, who guarded the outposts, were brought almost
daily into contact with the enemy. On the 25th, the
commander resolved to make an attack with a detachment
of his cavalry on the rear of the French, but in the
meantime received intelligence of an approaching
convoy of provisions and military stores escorted by
two companies of infantry. This transport had to pass
a wood at a little distance from Rosenberg, and here
L�tzow posted his men, disposing them in two
divisions, one of which, with himself at their head,
should attack the enemy on the flank, whilst the other
remained closed up to cover the rear. During their
halt in the thicket, K�rner, who acted as L�tzow's
adjutant, employed the interval of leisure in
composing his celebrated Sword-Song, which was found
in his pocket-book after his death, and has not
inaptly been likened to the lay of the dying swan. On
the enemy's detachment coming up, it proved stronger
than had been anticipated, but it nevertheless broke
and fled before the Prussian cavalry, who pursued them
across the plain to a thicket of underwood. Here a
number of their sharp-shooters ensconced themselves,
and for a time galled L�tzow's troops by a shower of
bullets. One of these passed through the neck of
K�rner's horse, and afterwards the abdomen and
backbone of his rider, who fell mortally wounded. He
was conveyed at once by his comrades to a quiet spot
in the wood, and assistance was procured, but the
never regained consciousness after receiving the
wound, and in a few minutes expired. He had met the
death which of all others he had vaunted in his lyrics
as the most to be desired�that of a soldier in the
arms of victory, and in defence of the liberties of
his country. This event took place in the gray dawn of
an autumn morning, on the 26th August 1813. His body
was interred, with all the honours of war, beneath an
oak on the roadside near the village of Wobbelin. The
tomb has since been surrounded by a wall and a
monument erected to his memory, the Duke of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin making a present of the ground to
K�rner's family. Here, a few years later, were
deposited the remains of Theodor's beloved sister,
Emma, and, at a subsequent period, those of his
father.
Thus prematurely terminated,
at the age of twenty-two, the career of this young
hero whose patriotic lyrics, like those of Moritz
Arndt, seem to have entwined themselves round the very
heart-strings of the German people. Though somewhat
inferior in sonorous majesty to Thomas Campbell's
warlike odes, they possess a superiority over them in
point of the earnestness with which every lineof the
German poet is animated. Young, brave, and generous,
his effusions are literally the out-breathings of an
unselfish and gallant spirit, which disregards every
danger, and counts all other considerations as dross
in the attainment of some grand and noble end. A
collection of his martial poems, under the title of
Leyer und Schwerdt (Lyre and Sword), was published at
Berlin the year following his death. Many of these,
including 'My Father-land," The Song of the Black
Huntsmen," Lutzow's Wild Chase,' `The Battle-prayer,'
and `The Sword Song' are well known to the English
public through translations.
One of K�rner's most popular
songs, is ' The Song of the Sword,' which he wrote
only two hours before the engagement in which he was
shot. He compares his sword to a bride, and represents
it as pleading with him to consummate the wedding.
This explains the allusion in the following poem by
Mrs. Hemans, which we quote as a graceful tribute from
one of ourselves to the memory of a noble stranger.
FOR THE DEATH-DAY OF
THEODOR K�RNER.
A song for the death-day
of the brave,
A song of pride!
The youth went down to a hero's grave,
With the sword, his bride!
He went with his noble
heart unworn,
And pure, and high;
An eagle stooping from clouds of morn,
Only to die.
He went with the lyre,
whose lofty tone,
Beneath his hand,
Had thrill'd to the name of his God alone,
And his fatherland.
And with all his glorious
feelings yet
In their day-spring's glow,
Like a southern stream that no frost bath met
To chain its flow!
A song for the death-day
of the brave,
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero's grave
With the sword, his bride!
He has left a voice in his
trumpet lays
To turn the fight;
And a spirit to shine through the after-days
As a watch-fire's light;
And a grief in his
father's soul to rest
' Midst all high thought;
And a memory unto his mother's breast
With healing fraught.
And a name and fame above
the blight
Of earthly breath;
Beautiful�beautiful and bright
In life and death!
A song for the death-day
of the brave,
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero's grave
With the sword, his bride!
UPCOTT, THE
MANUSCRIPT-COLLECTOR
In a work of this nature, it
would be improper to omit reference to one so devoted
to the collection and preservation of English
historical curiosities as William Upcott, sometimes
styled the King of Autograph-collectors. Ostensibly,
he pursued a modest career in life, as
under-librarian of the London Institution: the life
below the surface exhibited him as acting under the
influence of a singular instinct for the acquisition
of documents connected with English history�one of
those aids to literature whose names are generally
seen only in foot-notes or in sentences of prefaces,
while the truth is that, but for them, the efforts and
the powers of the most accomplished historians would
be vain.
Upcott was born in Oxfordshire in 1779, and
was set up originally as a collector by his
god-father, Ozias Humphrey, the eminent
portrait-painter, who left him his correspondence.
With this as a nucleus, he went on collecting for a
long series of years, till, in 1836, his collection
consisted of thirty-two thousand letters illustrated
by three thousand portraits, the value of the whole
being estimated by himself at �10,000. That this was
not an extravagant appraisement may now be averred,
when we know that, after large portions of the
collection had been disposed of; a mere remnant, sold
by auction after the collector's death, brought �412,
17s. 6d. It was to Upcott that the public was indebted
for the preservation of the manuscript of the Diary of
John Evelyn, a valuable store of matter regarding
English familiar life in the seventeenth century. The
Correspondence of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, and that
of Ralph Thoresby, were also published from the
originals in Mr. Upcott's collection.
This singular enthusiast spent
the last years of his useful and unpretending life in
an old mansion in the Upper Street at Islington, which
he quaintly denominated Autograph Cottage.
NAVAL ENGAGEMENT OFF FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, SEPTEMBER 23,
1779
On 23
rd
September 1779, a
serious naval engagement took place on the coast of
Yorkshire, H.M.S. Serapis and Countess of Scarborough
being the ships on the one side, and a squadron under
the command of the celebrated adventurer Paul Jones on
the other. It was a time of embarrassment in England.
Unexpected difficulties and disasters had been
experienced in the attempt to enforce the loyalty of
the American colonies.
Several of England's
continental neighbours were about to take advantage of
her weakness to declare against her. In that crisis it
was that Jones came and insulted the coasts of
Britain. Driven out of the Firth of Forth by a strong
westerly wind, he came south-wards till he reached the
neighbourhood of Flamborough Head, where he resolved
to await the Baltic and merchant fleet, expected
shortly to arrive there on its homeward voyage under
the convoy of the two men-of-war above mentioned.
About two o'clock in the afternoon of the 23
rd
September, Jones, on board of his vessel the Bon Homme
Richard (so called after his friend
Benjamin
Franklin), descried the fleet in question, with its
escort, advancing north-north-east, and numbering
forty-one sail. He at once hoisted the signal for a
general chase, on perceiving which the two frigates
bore out from the land in battle-array, whilst the
merchant vessels crowded all sail towards shore, and
succeeded in gaining shelter beneath the guns of
Scarborough Castle. There was little wind, and,
according to Jones's own account, it was nightfall
before the Bon Honnne Richard could come up with the
Serapis, when an engagement within pistol-shot
commenced, and continued at that distance for nearly
an hour, the advantage both in point of manageableness
and number of guns being on the side of the British
ship; whilst the remaining vessels of Jones's
squadron, from some inexplicable cause, kept at a
distance, and he was obliged for a long time to
maintain single-handed a contest with the two English
frigates.
The harvest-moon, in the meantime, rose calm
and beautiful, casting its silver light over the
waters of the German Ocean, the surface of which,
smooth as a mirror, bore the squadrons engaged in
deadly conflict. Suddenly, some old eighteen-pounders
on board the Bon Homme Richard exploded at their first
discharge, killing and wounding many of Jones's
sailors; and as he had now only two pieces of cannon
on the quarter-deck remaining unsilenced, and his
vessel had been struck by several shots below the
water-level, his position was becoming very critical.
Just then, while he ran great danger of going to the
bottom, the bowsprit of the Serapis came athwart the
poop of the Bon Homme Richard, and Jones, with his own
hands, made the two vessels fast in that position.
A
dreadful scene at close-quarters then ensued, in which
Captain Pearson, the British commander, inflicted
signal damage by his artillery on the under part of
his opponent's vessel, whilst his own decks were
rendered almost untenable by the hand-grenades and
volleys of musketry which, on their cannon becoming
unserviceable, the combatants on board the Bon Homme
Richard discharged with murderous effect.
For a long
time the latter seemed decidedly to have the worst of
the contest, and on one occasion the master-gunner,
believing that Jones and the lieutenant were killed,
and himself left as the officer in command, rushed up
to the poop to haul down the colours in the
hopelessness of maintaining any longer the conflict.
But the flagstaff had been shot away at the
commencement of the engagement, and he could only make
his intentions known by calling out over the ship's
side for quarter.
Captain Pearson then hailed to know
if the Bon Homme Richard surrendered, an interrogation
which Jones immediately answered in the negative, and
the fight continued to rage. Meantime the Countess of
Scarborough had been engaged by the Pallas, a vessel
belonging to Jones's squadron, and after a short
conflict had surrendered. The Bon Homme Richard-was
thus freed from the attacks of a double foe, but was
at the same time nearly brought to destruction by the
Alliance, one of its companion-vessels, which, after
keeping for a long time at a distance, advanced to the
scene of action, and poured in several broadsides,
most of which took effect on her own ally instead of
the British frigate.
At last the galling fire from the
shrouds of Jones's ship told markedly in the thinning
of the crew of the Serapis, and silencing her fire:
and a terrible explosion on board of her, occasioned
by a young sailor, a Scotchman, it is alleged, who,
taking his stand upon the extreme end of the yard of
the Bon Homme Richard, dropped a grenade on a row of
cartridges on the main-deck of the Serapis, spread
such disaster and confusion that Captain Pearson
shortly afterwards struck his colours and surrendered.
This was at eleven o'clock at night, after the
engagement had lasted for upwards of four hours.
The
accounts of the losses on both sides are very
contradictory, but seem to have been nearly equal, and
may be estimated in all at about three hundred killed
and wounded. The morning following the battle was
extremely foggy, and on examining the Bon Homme
Richard, she was found to have sustained such damage
that it was impossible she could keep longer afloat.
With all expedition her crew abandoned her, and went
on board the Serapis, of which Paul Jones took the
command. The Bon Homme Richard sank almost
immediately, with a large sum of money belonging to
Jones, and many valuable papers.
The prize-ships were
now conveyed by him to the Texel, a proceeding which
led to a demand being made by the English ambassador
at the Hague for the delivery of the captured
vessels, and the surrender of Jones himself as a
pirate. This application to the Dutch authorities was
ineffectual, but it served as one of the predisposing
causes of the war which not long afterwards ensued
with England After remaining for a while at the Texel,
the Serapis was taken to the port of L'Orient, in
France, where she appears subsequently to have been
disarmed. and broken up, whilst the Countess of
Scarborough was conveyed to Dunkirk.
Meantime, Jones
proceeded to France, with the view of arranging as to
his future movements; but before quitting Texel, he
returned to Captain Pearson his sword, in recognition,
as he says, of the bravery which he had displayed on
board the Serapis.
Pearson's countrymen seem to have
entertained the same estimate of his merits, as, on
his subsequent return to England, he was received with
great distinction, was knighted by George III, and
presented with a service of plate and the freedom of
their corporations, by those boroughs on the east
coast which lay near the scene of the naval
engagement.
In France, honours no less flattering were
bestowed on Paul Jones. At the opera and all public
places, he received enthusiastic ovations, and Louis
XVI presented him with a gold-hilted sword, on which
was engraved, 'Vindicati maris Ludovicus XVI.
remunerator strenuo vindici' (From Louis XVI., in
recognition of the services of the brave maintainer of
the privileges of the sea).
It may be noted that the true
name of Paul Jones was John Paul, and that he made
the change probably at the time when he entered the
American service. His career was altogether a most
singular one, presenting phases to the full asromantic
as any of those undergone by a hero of fiction. The
son of a small farmer near Dumfries, we find him
manifesting from his boyhood a strong predilection for
the sea, and at the age of twelve commencing life as a
cabin-boy, on board the Friendship of Whitehaven,
trading to Virginia.
After completing his
apprenticeship, he made several voyages in connection
with the slave-trade to the West Indies, and rose to
the position of master. He speedily, however, it is
said, conceived a disgust to the traffic, and
abandoned it. We find him, about 1775, accepting a
commission in the American navy, then newly formed in
opposition to that of Britain. What inspired. Paul
with such feelings of rancour against his native
country, cannot now be ascertained; but to the end of
his life he seemed to retain undiminished the most
implacable resentment towards the British nation. The
cause of the colonies against the mother-country, now
generally admitted to have been a just one, was
adopted by him with the utmost enthusiasm, and
certainly he contrived to inflict a considerable
amount of damage on British shipping in the course of
his cruises.
To the British nation, and to
Scotchmen more especially, the name of Paul Jones has
heretofore only been suggestive of a daring pirate or
lawless adventurer. He appears, in reality, to have
been a sincere and enthusiastic partisan of the cause
of the colonists, many of whom were as much natives of
Britain as himself, and yet have never been specially
blamed for their partisanship. In personal respects,
he was a gallant and resolute man, of romantically
chivalrous feelings, and superior to everything like a
mean or shabby action. It is particularly pleasant to
remark his disinterestedness in restoring, in
after-years, to the Countess of Selkirk, the
family-plate which the necessity of satisfying his men
had compelled him to deprive her of; on the occasion
of his descent on the Scottish coast, and for which he
paid them the value out of his own resources. The
letters addressed by him on this subject to the
countess and her husband, do great credit both to his
generosity and abilities in point of literary
composition. By the Americans, Admiral Paul Jones is
regarded as one of their most distinguished naval
celebrities.
MONEY THAT CAME
IN THE DARK
The following simply-told
narrative, though not so very wonderful as to shock
our credulity, contains a pleasing spice of mystery,
from its want of a direct explanation. It was found,
under the date of September 23, 1673, in an old
memorandum-book; that had belonged to a certain Paul
Bowes, Esq., of the Middle Temple. A little more than
a hundred years later, in 1783, the book, and one of
the mysteriously-found pieces of money, was in the
possession of an Essex gentleman, a lineal descendant
of the fortunate Mr. Bowes.
'About the year 1658, after I
had been some years settled in the Middle Temple, in a
chamber in Elm Court, up three pair of stairs, one
night as I came into the chamber, in the dark, I went
into my study, in the dark, to lay down my gloves,
upon the table in my study, for I then, being my own
man, placed my things in their certain places, that I
could go to them in the dark; and as I laid my gloves
down, I felt under my hand a piece of money, which I
then supposed, by feeling, to be a shilling; but when
I had light, I found it a twenty-shilling piece of
gold. I did a little reflect how it might come there,
yet could not satisfy my own thoughts, for I had no
client then, it being several years before I was
called to the bar, and I had few visitors that could
drop it there, and no friends in town that might
designedly lay it there as a bait, to encourage me at
my studies; and although I was the master of some
gold, yet I had so few pieces, I well knew it was none
of my number; but, however, this being the first time
I found gold, I supposed it left there by some means I
could not guess at. About three weeks after, coming
again into my chamber in the dark, and laying down my
gloves at the same place in my study, I felt under my
hand a piece of money, which also proved a
twenty-shilling piece of gold; this moved me to
further consideration; but, after all my
thoughtfulness, I could not imagine any probable way
how the gold could come there, but I do not remember
that I ever found any, when I went with those
expectations and desires. About a month after the
second time, coming into my chamber, in the dark, and
laying down my gloves upon the same place, on the
table in my study, I found two pieces of money under
my hand, which, after I had lighted my candle, I found
to be two twenty-shilling pieces; and, about the
distance of six weeks after, in the same place, and in
the dark, I found another piece of gold, and this
about the distance of a month, or five or six weeks. I
several times after, at the same place, and always in
the dark, found twenty-shilling pieces of gold; at
length, being with my cousin Langton, grandmother to
my cousin Susan Skipwith, lately married to Sir John
Williams, I told her this story, and I do not remember
that I ever found any gold there after, although I
kept that chamber above two years longer, before I
sold it to Mr. Anthony Weldon, who now hath it (this
being 23
rd
September 1673). Thus I have, to the best of
my remembrance, truly stated this fact, but could
never know, or have any probable conjecture, how that
gold was laid there.'
The relationship that existed
between cousin Langton and cousin Skipwith does not
seem very clear, according to our modern method of
reckoning kindred; but it must be recollected that, in
former times, the title of cousin was given to any
collateral relative more remote than a brother or
sister. Probably, cousin Langton was Mr. Bowes's
grandmother as well as Miss Skipwith's, and, if she
liked, could have solved the mystery. For the writer
has known more than one instance of benevolent old
ladies making presents of money to young relatives, in
a similarly stealthy and eccentric manner.
