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GENERAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, ETC.

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who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diffused over the whole extent of their empire. The most northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric. Homer, as well as Virgil, were transcribed and studied on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of physic and astronomy were cultivated with some degree of reputation; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, an age of indolence passed away without producing a single writer of genius who deserved the attention of posterity. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to correct the errors or enlarge the bounds of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations; or if any ventured to deviate from hose models, they deviated, at the same time, from good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigour of the imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honour. The name of poet was almost forgotten; that of orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.

The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in he court of a Syrian queen,' preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed their talents. "In the same manner," says he, 66 as some children

lways remain pigmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely confined,—thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients, who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted." This diminutive stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pigmies, when the fierce giants of the north broke in and mended the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy parent of taste and science.

1 Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra.

XVIII. HORACE WALPOLE.

HORACE WALPOLE was born in 1718. He was the youngest son of the famous Sir Robert Walpole who governed the country during the greater part of the reigns of the first two Georges; and after being educated at Eton and Cambridge, and making the usual Continental tour, which he did in company with Gray the poet, he was introduced, through his father's influence, into Parliament. Here he did not much distinguish himself, not, however, from lack of ability, as was shown by his admirable speech in defence of his father's administration, at the memorable era of that statesman's fall. Sir Robert was suspected of not entertaining much affection for his youngest son; he, however, provided for him by bestowing on him some sinecure offices, which afforded him an income sufficiently large for all his wants. Walpole spent the greater part of his life at a villa near Twickenham, called Strawberry Hill, which he adorned externally in a fanciful Gothic style, and internally with books, pictures, medals, and other curiosities, in which a literary and antiquarian taste rejoices. Having outlived all the older branches of his family, he, in 1791, succeeded to the title of Earl of Orford, very much, it is said, to his own disgust, and died at an advanced age in 1797. His works are numerous, and all are interesting, though, except his "Historic Doubts of the Life and Reign of Richard III.," they cannot lay claim to much learning or ability. His Castle of Otranto" is a wellknown romance; his "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," and "Anecdotes of Painting in England," are useful and amusing compilations. But his fame rests on his Letters," which have been often reprinted, and which, from their light and graceful style, their pleasant admixture of gossip, news, scandal, and literary, antiquarian, and æsthetic chit-chat, and the curious information to which his own rank and family connections, and his father's position, gave him access, abundantly establish his claim to the rank of the "Prince of Letter-writers."

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1. EXECUTION OF LORDS BALMERINO AND KILMARNOCK.-("LETTER TO SIR HORACE MANN.")

Just before Kilmarnock and Balmerino came out of the Tower, Lord Balmerino drank a bumper to King James's health. As the clock struck ten, they came forth on foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpowdered in a bag, supported by Forster,1 the great Presbyterian, and by Mr Home, a young clergyman, his friend. Lord Balmerino followed, alone, in a blue coat turned up with red, his rebellious regimentals, a flannel waistcoat, and his

1 Minister of a chapel in the Barbican, in London; he was highly popular, and has been praised by Pope (out of spite, as Johnson says) in his satires in the following lines:"Let modest Forster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well."

"Why did Pope say this?" asked Beauclerck of Johnson. "Sir," replied Johnson, "he hoped it would vex somebody." 2 The author of "Douglas."

EXECUTION OF LORDS BALMERINO AND KILMARNOCK.

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shroud beneath; their hearses following. They were conducted to a house near the scaffold; the room forwards had benches for spectators; in the second Lord Kilmarnock was put, and in the third backwards Lord Balmerino; all three chambers hung with black. Here they parted! Balmerino embraced the other, and said, " My lord, I wish I could suffer for both!" He had scarce left him, before he desired again to see him, and then asked him, "My Lord Kilmarnock, do you know anything of the resolution taken in our army, the day before the battle of Culloden, to put the English prisoners to death?" He replied, "My lord, I was not present; but since I came hither, I have had all the reason in the world to believe that there was such order taken; and I hear the Duke has the pocket-book with the order." Balmerino answered, "It was a lie raised to excuse their barbarity to us." Take notice, that the Duke's charging this on Lord Kilmarnock (certainly on misinformation) decided this unhappy man's fate! The most now pretended is, that it would have come to Lord Kilmarnock's turn to have given the word for the slaughter, as lieutenant-general, with the patent for which he was immediately drawn into the rebellion, after having been staggered by his wife, her mother, his own poverty, and the defeat of Cope.

He remained an hour and a half in the house, and shed tears. At last he came to the scaffold, certainly much terrified, but with a resolution that prevented his behaving in the least meanly or unlike a gentleman. He took no notice of the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be lifted up from the rails, that the mob might see the spectacle. He stood and prayed sometime with Forster, who wept over him, exhorted and encouraged him. He delivered a long speech to the sheriff, and with a noble manliness stuck to the recantation he had made at his trial; declaring he wished that all who embarked in the same cause might meet the same fate. He then took off his bag, coat, and waistcoat with great composure, and after some trouble put on a napkin cap, and then several times tried the block; the executioner, who was in white with a white apron, out of tenderness concealing the axe behind himself. At last the Earl knelt down, with a visible unwillingness to depart, and after five minutes dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his head was cut off at once, only hanging by a bit of skin, and was received in a scarlet cloth by four of the undertaker's men kneeling, who wrapped it up and put it into the coffin with the body; orders having been given not to expose the head, as used to be the custom.

The scaffold was immediately new-strewed with sawdust, the block new-covered, the executioner new-dressed, and a new axe brought. Then came old Balmerino treading with the air of a general. As soon as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription on his coffin, as he did again afterwards; he then surveyed the spectators, who were in amazing numbers, even upon masts of ships in the river; and pulling out his spectacles, read a treasonable speech, which he delivered to the sheriff, and said, the young Pre

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tender was so sweet a prince, that flesh and blood could not resist following him; and lying down to try the block, he said, “If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down here in the same cause." He said, if he had not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down Williamson, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill-usage of him. He took the axe and felt it, and asked the headsman how many blows he had given Lord Kilmarnock, and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen, who attended him, coming up, he said, "No, gentlemen, I believe you have already done me all the service you can." Then he went to the corner of the scaffold, and called very loud for the warder, to give him his perriwig, which he took off, and put on a night-cap of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and lay down; but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign, by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly took away all sensation. He was not a quarter of an hour on the scaffold; Lord Kilmarnock above half a one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepidity of a hero, but with the insensibility of one too. As he walked from his prison to execution, seeing every window and top of house filled with spectators, he cried out, "Look, look, how they are all piled up like rotten oranges !"

2. THE EARTHQUAKE IN LONDON IN 1750.-(PARTS OF TWO LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN.)

"Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent,

That they have lost their name."

DRYDEN'S "All for Love."

My text is not literally true; but as far as earthquakes go towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure we are overstocked. We have had a second much more violent than the first; and you must not be surprised if by next post you hear of a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last (exactly a month from the first shock), the earth had a shivering fit between one and two, but so slight that if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again, on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head. I thought somebody was getting from under my bed; but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses. In an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up, and found people running into the streets; but saw no mischief done. There has been some: two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them. The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we

THE EARTHQUAKE IN LONDON IN 1750.

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shall certainly have more. Several people are going out of town; for it has nowhere reached above ten miles from London. They say they are not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, 66 one can't help going into the country." The only visible effect it has had was on the ridotto,' at which, being the following night, there were but four hundred people. A parson, who came into White's 2 the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said, "I protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against judgment!"

I told you the women talked of going out of town: several families are literally gone, and many more going to-day and to-morrow; for what adds to the absurdity, is, that the second shock having happened exactly a month after the former, it prevails that there will be a third on Thursday next, another month, which is to swallow up London. I am almost ready to burn my letter, now I have begun it, lest you should think I am laughing at you; but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told me last night that he should put off the last ridotto, which was to be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would come to it. I have advised several who are going to keep their next earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so periodic. Dick Leveson and Mr Rigby, who had supped and stayed late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, "past four o'clock and a dreadful earthquake." The frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days seven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is a good advertisement which I cut out of the papers to-day :

"On Monday next will be published (price 6d.), a true and exact list of all the nobility and gentry who have left, or shall leave, this place through fear of another earthquake."

Several women have made earthquake gowns; that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all to-night. These are of the more courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on purpose; she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back, I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish.

1 A fashionable amusement.

2 A famous coffee-house.

3 Walpole probably remembered one of the last papers in the "Tatler," in which Addison tells of an impudent mountebank who, after an earthquake, went through the country selling pills, which, as he told the country people, "was very good against an earthquake." "Tatler," No. 240.

4 This part of the letter was written on the day when the third earthquake was expected to happen.

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