Born: William III, king
of England, 1650, Hague; James Montgomery, poet, 1771,
Irvine, Ayrshire.
Died: John Benbow,
British admiral, 1702, Jamaica; Charles Churchill,
satirical poet, 1765, Boulogne-sur-Mer; Josiah Tucker,
D.D, dean of Gloucester, political economist, 1799;
Paul Delaroche, celebrated painter, 1856, Paris.
Feast Day: Saints
Vitalis and Agricola, martyrs, about 304. St.
Joannicius, abbot, 845. St. Clarus, martyr, 894. St.
Brinstan, bishop of Winchester, 934. St. Emeric,
Hungarian prince, 11th century. St. Charles Borromeo,
cardinal, archbishop of Milan, and confessor, 1584.
ST.
EMERIC
On this day was honoured St.
Emeric, the pious son of the pious St. Stephen, king
of Hungary in the eleventh century. Emeric was a very
promising man, both as a prince and an apostle of
Christianity; and he might have attained greater
eminence if he had not been carried off by death in
the lifetime of his father. As it is, this somewhat
obscure Hungarian saint has been a person of some
consequence in the world, for from his name has come
that of one of the great divisions of the earth.
Through his celebrity, his name became a popular one:
it was conferred, in the fifteenth century, in the
Italian form of Amerigo, upon an Italian surnamed
Vespucci. Vespucci did the world some service in
extending the knowledge of the continent which
Columbus had discovered; and by a strange current of
circumstances, this continent came to be recognised by
the name America, in honour of Signor Vespucci. When
St. Stephen was choosing a name for his first-born
son, how little could he have imagined that the one he
chose was to be the parent of the noted word America!
In an article on surnames
derived from. Christian names, which appeared in the
Gentleman's Magazine for July 1772, Amory and Emery
are set down as derived from Emeric.
'OLD
BENBOW'
Benbow occupies a place in the
naval literature of England which is likely to be
permanent. Not because he was a better admiral than
many who have lived in later days, but because he had
much of that personal daring which is so dear to
popular notions. A coarse rough man he was, anything
but a gentleman in external demeanour; and, as we
shall see, this roughness had something to do with the
disaster which cost him his life. Sea story-tellers
and sea song-writers, however, are never frightened by
such characteristics. Benbow's last fight figures in
the Deeds of Naval Daring. Dibdin, in his song of
Jervis for Ever, begins
'You've heard, I s'pose, the
people talk
Of Benbow and Boscawen,
Of Anson, Pococke, Vernon, Hawke,
And many more then
going.'
The immediate object of the
song is to praise Jervis, whose great victory in
Dibdin's day earned for him the earldom of St.
Vincent; but the name of Benbow occurs in this and
many other sea-songs as that of an unquestioned hero
of old times. Born in 1650, he entered the naval
service so early that almost his whole life was spent
on ship-board; and he was known generally as a rough
and ready officer to whom nothing came amiss. On one
occasion, when a naval service of some peril was
suggested for an aristocratic officer, whose friends
expressed apprehension of the result, the king
(William III) laughingly replied: 'Send for honest Benbow.' The enterprise
which is
especially associated with Benbow's name was the
following.
During the war with France in 1702, Admiral Ducasse, with a
French squadron of five large ships,
threatened one of our West India Islands. Benbow
sailed after him with seven ships, and overtook him on
the 19th of August. On giving the signal for his ships
to engage, there was soon evidence that something was
wrong; the ships held back, and Benbow was unable to
commence his fight with the enemy. It afterwards
appeared that Benbow's offensive manners had led to a
rupture between him and most of his captains; and that
those officers took the indefensible course of shewing
their hostility just when the honour of the country
demanded their prompt obedience to orders. Next
morning the admiral again put forth the signal to
advance; but five out of the seven ships were three or
four miles astern of him, as if the captains had
agreed that they could not assist him. Vexed and
irritated, but undaunted as usual, Benbow went into
action, two ships against five, and maintained the
contest during the whole day. His one coadjutor, the
Ruby, becoming disabled, he sent that ship to Jamaica
to refit.
Again he signalled to the five
captains, and received some equivocal excuse that the
enemy were too strong, and that he had better not
attack them. Left still more to his own resources, he
renewed the fight on the 21st with one ship, the Breda,
against five. Three different times did Benbow in
person board the French admiral's ship, and three
times was he driven back. He received a severe wound
in the face, another in the arm, and his right leg was
shattered by a chain-shot. Still the heroic man would
not give in. He caused his cot to be brought up upon
deck; and there he lay, giving orders while his
shattered limbs were bleeding. When one of his
lieutenants expressed regret at the leg being broken,
Benbow replied:
'I am sorry for it too; but I had
rather have lost them both than have seen the dishonour brought upon the
English nation. But�do you
hear?�if another shot should take me off, behave like
brave men, and fight it out.'
At this time, all the other
English ships being inactive and at a distance, most
of the French ships concentrated their fire on the
Breda; and Benbow was only just able to extricate her,
and sail to Jamaica. Admiral Ducasse knew very well
that his squadron had been saved through the
disgraceful conduct of Benbow's captains, and he was
too true a sailor to regard it in any but the proper
light. He sent the following letter to Benbow:
Sir - I had little hope on
Monday last but to have supped in your cabin; but
it pleased God to order it otherwise, and I am
thankful for it. As for those cowardly captains who
deserted you, hang them up; for, by God, they
deserve it! Yours, &c.,
DUCASSE.'
'When Benbow reached Jamaica,
he ordered the captains into arrest, and caused a
court-martial to be held on them, under the presidency
of Rear-Admiral Whetstone. Captain Hudson, of the
Pendennis, died before the trial; Captains Kirby and
Wade were convicted and shot; Captain Constable was
cashiered and imprisoned. Two others had signed a
paper engaging not to fight under the admiral; but
there were extenuating circumstances which led to
their acquittal. One of these two was Captain Walton
of the Ruby; he had signed the paper when drunk (naval
captains were often drunk in those days); but he
repented when sober, and rendered good service to the
admiral. He was the officer who, sixteen years
afterwards, wrote a despatch that is regarded as the
shortest and most fitting in which a naval victory was
ever announced:
'CANTERBURY, OFF SYRACUSM,
16th August 1718.
SIR�We have taken and
destroyed all the Spanish ships and vessels that
were upon the coast; the number as per margin.
Yours, &c.,
G. WALTON.
To Sir George Byng,
Commander-in-chief.'
Poor Benbow sank under his
mortification. The evidence elicited at the
court-martial was sufficient to shew that he was not
to blame for the escape of the French squadron; but
the rough sailor could not bear it; the disgrace to
the nation fretted him, and increased the malignancy
of his wounds; he dragged on a few weeks, and died on
November 4. No monument, we believe, records the, fame
of 'Old Benbow;' his deeds are left to the writers of
naval song and story.
CHURCHILL
A short life, a busy, and a
notorious, was Churchill's. In a day he found himself
famous; for less than four years, from 1761 to 1764,
he was one of the most prominent figures in London,
and then he died.
The son of a clergyman, he was
born in Westminster in 1731, and was destined by his
father for his own profession. Educated at Westminster
school, he had for companions
Warren Hastings; two
poets, William Cowper and Robert Lloyd; and two
dramatists, George Colman and Richard Cumberland. Ere
Churchill was out of his boyhood he marred his life:
at the age of seventeen, he married a girl within the
rules of the Fleet. For the church he had no
inclination, but in addition to pleasing his father,
it was now necessary for him to earn a living for
himself and family. As soon, therefore, as he was of
canonical age, he was ordained and entered on a
country curacy; and, as he says, 'prayed and starved
on forty pounds a year.'
In 1758, his father died, and
out of respect for his memory, his parishioners
elected his son to succeed him. At the age of
twenty-seven, Churchill returned to London, and was
installed as curate and lecturer of St. John the
Evangelist, Westminster. There he had a better income,
but in his duties he had no joy or even satisfaction.
He wrote, and wrote truly:
I kept those sheep,
Which, for my curse, I was ordain'd to keep,
Ordaiu'd, alas! to keep through need, not choice...
.
Whilst sacred dulness ever in my view,
Sleep at my bidding crept from pew to pew.'
In London, Churchill met his
school-fellow Robert Lloyd, who was serving as usher
in Westminster school. Lloyd was a wild fellow, and
was as sick of the drudgery of his calling as was
Churchill of his. To literary tastes, they both united
a passion for conviviality, and together committed
many excesses. Mrs. Churchill, it is said, was as
imprudent as her husband. Their free style of life
soon involved them in pecuniary difficulties, and
Churchill had to settle with his creditors for 5.s. in
the pound. About the same time, Lloyd threw up his
situation as usher, and resolved to seek his living in
authorship, and Churchill determined to follow his
example.
He first tried his fortune
with two poems, with which no bookseller would have
anything to do, but he was not to be beaten. For two
months he closely attended the theatres, and made the
leading actors the theme of a critical and satirical
poem, entitled The Rosciad. No bookseller would buy
it, even for five guineas; but not to be baffled this
time, Churchill printed it at his own expense. In
March 1761, the Rosciad appeared anonymously as a
shilling pamphlet, and a few days sufficed to prove
that ' a hit' had been made. Who was the author,
became the problem of the town. The poor players ran
about like so many stricken deer. The reviewers were
busy with guesses as to the authorship, and, in self-defence,
Colman disowned it, and Lloyd disowned it.
Churchill soon put an end to
the mystery. In an advertisement, he announced himself
as the satirist, and promised a second poem, An
Apology Addressed to the Critical Reviewers. The
Apology struck as great terror among the authors as
the Rosciad among the actors. On every side he was
assailed in Churchilliads, Anti-Rosciads, and such
like. In a few months, it is asserted, he cleared a
thousand pounds. The money he used well. To his wife,
from whom he was now separated, he made a handsome
allowance; every man from whom he had borrowed money
he repaid with interest; and his creditors, to their
glad surprise, received the remaining fifteen
shillings in the pound.
His habits now became openly
licentious. He doffed the clerical costume, and walked
abroad in a blue coat with metal buttons, a gold-laced
waistcoat, a gold-laced hat and ruffles. He seduced a
young woman, and lived with her as his wife. His
parishioners remonstrated, and he resigned his curacy.
He published Night, a poem, as an apology for his
nocturnal orgies, maintaining, as if any excuse could
be entertained for his own misdemeanours, that open
licentiousness was better than hypocrisy. Night was
followed by The Ghost, a satire on the Cock-Lane
spirit-rappings, in which Dr. Johnson, who had called
Churchill a shallow fellow, was ridiculed as Pomposo.
Satire is a dangerous
business. Little Pope had a tall Irishman to attend
him when he published the Dunciad, but Churchill was
well able to take care of himself. Of himself he
wrote:
'Broad were his shoulders,
Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong, His
face was short, but broader than 'twas long ... .
His arms were two twin oaks, his legs so stout, That
they might bear a mansion-house about, Nor were
they, look but at his body there, Design'd by fate a
much less weight to bear.'
He stalked about the streets
with a bludgeon, and parties who had met to devise
retaliation, and who were observed talking loud
against the ' atirical Parson' in the Bedford
Coffee-house, quietly dispersed when a brawny figure
appeared, and Churchill, drawing off his gloves with a
particularly slow composure, called for a dish of
coffee and the Rosciad.
John Wilkes was in those days
at the outset of his career, when it was hard to tell
whether he was a patriot or a knave. He sought
Churchill's acquaintance, and they became fast
friends. Lord Bute was ruler of England under the
young king, George III, and a popular cry arose that
the revenue had become the prey of Scotchmen. Under
the inspiration of Wilkes, Churchill commenced a
satire on Scotland, and as he advanced with the work,
Wilkes praised it exultingly. 'It is personal, it is
poetical, it is political,' cried the delighted
demagogue. 'It must succeed!'
In January 1763, the
Prophecy of Famine appeared. It conveyed a thoroughly
Cockney idea of Scotland, but in spite, or perhaps
because, of its extravagance, it was intensely
popular, and spread dismay among the ranks of Scottish
place-hunters. It was a new seal of Churchill's power,
and his exuberant delight took an odd form. 'I
remember well,' says Dr. Kippis, 'that Churchill
dressed his younger son in a Scottish plaid, like a
little Highlander, and carried him everywhere in that
garb. The boy being asked by a gentleman with whom I
was in company, why he was clothed in such a manner?
answered with great vivacity: "Sir, my father hates
the Scotch, and does it to plague them!"'
Churchill was associated with
Wilkes in the publication of the North Briton, and
when, in consequence of No. 45 charging the king with
falsehood, a general warrant was issued for the
apprehension of its authors, printers, and publishers,
Churchill was included. He chanced to call on Wilkes
whilst he was debating with the officers who had come
to arrest him. With much presence of mind, Wilkes
addressed him as Mr. Thomson, saying:
'Good-morrow,
Mr. Thomson. How does Mrs. Thomson do today? Does she
dine in the country?"
Churchill was sharp enough to
take the hint. He thanked Wilkes, said Mrs. Thomson
then waited for him, that he had only come to ask how
Mr. Wilkes was, and took his leave. He hurried home,
secured his papers, and retired to the country,
whither no attempt was made to follow him.
To Hogarth's pencil,
Churchill
owes somewhat of his fame.
Hogarth had published a
caricature of Wilkes with his squint, by which the
demagogue is better known to posterity than by all the
busts and pictures by which his admirers sought to
glorify his name. Churchill thereon addressed An
Epistle to William Hogarth,
which appeared in July 1763, and which
Garrick
described as 'the most bloody performance of my time.'
Ere the month was out, Hogarth took his revenge in a
shilling print, entitled 'The Bruiser, C. Churchill
(once the Rev.), in the character of a Russian
Hercules, regaling himself after having killed the
monster Caricatura, that so sorely galled his virtuous
friend, the heaven-born Wilkes.'
All who have turned over
Hogarth, will remember the bear in torn clerical
bands, and with paws in ruffles, holding a pot of
porter and a knotted club with Eyes and North triton
graven over it, and a pub dog treating his poems with
gross indignity.
Whatever Churchill wrote,
sold, and sold for good prices, and he kept publishing
pamphlet after pamphlet as occasion moved him. He
wrote hastily, and not a little of his work was
common-place and mean, but ever and anon occurred a
line or a passage of extraordinary vigour and
felicity; and for these he will probably be read as
long as English literature endures.
A sudden desire to see Wilkes
induced Churchill to set off for Boulogne in October
1764. On the 29th of that month he was seized there
with fever. Feeling the hand of death was on him, he
sat up in bed and dictated a brief will, leaving to
his wife an annuity of �60, and another of �50 to the
girl he had seduced, and providing for his two boys.
On the 4th of November he died. His body was brought
over to Dover, where in the Church of St. Martin it
lies buried. The news of his death reached Robert
Lloyd as he was sitting down to dinner. He sickened,
and thrust away his plate untouched. ' I shall follow
poor Charles,' was all he said, as he went to the bed
from which he never rose again. Churchill's favourite
sister, Patty, to whom Lloyd was betrothed, sank next
under the double blow, and in a few weeks joined her
brother and lover. Thus tragically ended Churchill's
brief and boisterous career.
MARRIAGE OF
WILLIAM AND MARY
Not the least important of the
collateral causes, which led to the downfall of the
Stuart dynasty in these kingdoms, was the marriage of
William Prince of Orange to his fair cousin, the
Princess Mary of York, on the 4th of November 1677.
William arrived in England on the 19th of October
previous, to seek the hand of the princess, and
conclude a treaty with England, by which the war
between France and Holland could be terminated, and
peace restored to Europe. Charles II was in favour of
the marriage; his brother James, the bride's father,
was not: both, however, were equally anxious to commit
the prince to a treaty before the nuptials were
solemnised. But the wise hero of Nassau would not
speak of politics till he saw the princess, nor enter
into any engagement until the marriage was finally
settled.
Such being his determination,
little time was wasted in diplomacy. Whatever dark
forebodings the Duke of York might have entertained,
were overruled by the king; and the royal pair were
married in St. James's Palace, then the residence of
the duke, at nine o'clock on a quiet Sunday evening; a
passage leading from the bedroom of the princess being
fitted up as a temporary chapel for the occasion. The
royal etiquette of the day permitted few spectators;
those present were the king and queen, the Duke of
York and his young wife Mary of Modena, with their
pages and personal attendants.
Compton, bishop of London,
performed the ceremony, the king giving away the
bride. On the question being asked, 'Who giveth this
woman?' Charles exclaimed, 'I do;' a reply not to be
found in the matrimonial service of the church. At the
words, 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,'
William, in accordance with the Dutch custom, placed a
handful of gold coin on the prayer-book, at which the
king cried out to the bride: 'Pick it up�pick it up!
it is all clear gain!'
Immediately after the
ceremony, the royal party received the congratulations
of the chief officers of state and foreign
ambassadors; and at eleven o'clock the bride and
bridegroom retired to rest. All the absurd and
indelicate wedding-customs of the olden time were
observed on this occasion: the cake was eaten, the
bride-posset drunk, the stocking thrown, and the
curtain drawn, the last by the king himself, who, as
he did it, shouted, 'St George for England!' Indeed,
the marriage of the Third George with Queen Charlotte,
was the first royal wedding in this country at which
those customs, 'more honoured in the breach than in
the observance,' were finally dispensed with.
This 'Protestant Alliance,' as
it was termed, diffusing a general satisfaction over
the land, was celebrated with great rejoicing. At
Edinburgh, the Duke of Lauderdale announced the
welcome intelligence from the Cross, which was hung
with tapestry, and decorated with arbours formed of
many hundreds of oranges. Then the duke, several of
the nobility, the lord provost and civic magistrates,
drank the healths of the royal family; the conduits
ran with wine, and sweetmeats were thrown among the
crowd; while the guns of the castle thundered in
unison with the huzzas of the populace.
William was anxious to return
to Holland immediately after his marriage, the more so
because small-pox had broken out in St. James's
Palace, and his wife's beloved sister, the Princess
Anne, was lying dangerously ill of it. But the queen's
birth-day falling on the 15th of November, he was
induced to wait for the festivities of that occasion,
intended to be celebrated with extra pomp on account
of the wedding. On the evening of that day, the
following Epithalamium, composed by Waller, was sung
by the royal musicians before the assembled company at
Whitehall.
'As once the lion honey
gave,
Out of the strong such sweetness came
A royal hero, no less brave,
Produced this sweet, this lovely dame.
To her, the prince that did
oppose
Such mighty armies in the field,
And Holland from prevailing foes
Could so well free himself, does yield.
Not Belgia's fleet (his high
command),
Which triumphs where the sun does rise;
Not all the force he leads by land,
Could guard him from her conqu'ring eyes.
Orange with youth experience
has;
In action young, in council old:
Orange is what Augustus was
Brave, wary, provident, and bold.
On that fair tree, which
bears his name,
Blossoms and fruit at once are found;
In him we all admire the same,
His flowery youth with wisdom crowned.'
An easterly wind, much against
his inclination, detained William in London four days
longer. On the morning of the 19th November, the wind
veering to the westward, immediate advantage was taken
of the change. At the last moment, previous to her
departure, the Princess of Orange took leave of Queen
Catherine. Seeing her niece in tears, the queen, by
way of consolation, said: 'When I came hither from
Portugal, I had not even seen King Charles.' To which
the princess replied: 'Remember, however, you came to
England, but I am going out of it.'
The king, Duke of York, and a
large party, taking boats at Whitehall, accompanied
the newly-married couple to Erith, where they all
dined; then travelling by land to Gravesend, the
prince and princess went on board the yacht provided
to convey them to Holland. Nat Lee, the more than
half-crazy dramatist, saw the embarkation, which he
thus describes:
'I saw them launch; the
prince the princess bore, While the sad court stood
crowding on the shore. The prince still bowing on
the deck did stand, And held his weeping consort by
the hand, Which waving oft, she bade them all
farewell, And wept, as if she would the briny ocean
swell.'
The wind again becoming
unfavourable, William landed at Sheerness, and,
accompanied by his bride and four attendants, made an
excursion to Canterbury. Here he put up at an inn, and
his cash falling short, he despatched his favourite
Bentinck to the mayor and corporation, requesting a
supply of money. The municipal authorities were taken
by surprise. Strongly suspecting that the self-styled
royal party were impostors, some of the council
advised their immediate arrest and committal to
prison; others, with more prudence, recommended less
stringent measures; but all agreed not to part with
one farthing of money; and so the evasive reply was
given to Bentinck, that the corporation had no funds
at disposal. In the meantime,
Dean Tillotson of the Cathedral, the sharp-witted
son of a shrewd Yorkshire clothier, heard of the
strange affair, and making his way to the inn, saw and
recognized the princess. Rushing back to the deanery,
he collected all his ready money and plate, and
returning to the inn, presented it to the prince.
Twelve years afterwards, when William and Mary were
king and queen of England, this service of the
far-seeing dean was not forgotten. He was made Clerk
of the Closet to their majesties, and soon after
consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury.
The dean's interposition made
a magical change in the state of affairs. The
suspicious landlord, who had been inconveniently
pressing his foreign guests for the amount of his
bill, became in a moment the most obsequious of
mortals. The gentlemen of Kent, now knowing who it was
they had among them, crowded with their
congratulations, and more substantial presents, to the
prince and princess. William remained at the inn four
days longer, and then left for Margate, where he
embarked on the 28th of November; and after a short
but stormy passage, the only lady on board unaffected
by sea-sickness being the princess, he arrived safely
in Holland.
