EDMUND BURKE.

EDMUND BURKE,

ELD in the Roman Catholic Church as the festival of Circumcisio Domini; observed as a feast in the Church of England on the same account. In the Roman Church, the following saints are honoured on this day: St Fulgentius, bishop and confessor; St Odilo or Olou, sixth abbot of Cluni; St Almachus, martyr; St Eugendus, abbot; St Faine or Fanchea, virgin, of Ireland; St Mochua or Moncain, alias Claunus, abbot in Ireland; and St Mochua, alias Cronan, of Balla, abbot in Ireland.

Born.-Soame Jenyns, 1704, London; Baron Franz Von Trenck, 1710; Edmund Burke, 1730, Dublin; G. A. Bürger, 1748, Walmerswemde; Miss Maria Edgeworth, 1767; Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, 1779; Francis Earl of Ellesmere, 1800.

Died.-Louis XII. of France, 1515; W. Wycherley, 1716; C. A. Helvetius, 1772, Paris; Silvio Pellico, 1854; John Britton, antiquary and topographer, 1857.

EDMUND BURKE.

In the oratorical era of the House of Commons -the eighteenth century-who greater in that arena than Edmund Burke? A wonderful basis of knowledge was crowned in his case by the play of the most brilliant imagination. It is an example of 'inconsistency in expectations,' to look for life-long solidity of opinion in such a man. His early friend, Single-speech Hamilton, hit off his character as a politician in a single sentence: 'Whatever opinion Burke, from any motive, supports, so ductile is his imagination, that he soon conceives it to be right." Goldsmith's epitaph upon him, in the Haunch of Venison, is not less true:

| Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his
To persuade Tommy Townsend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of
dining;

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit;
For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient,
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.'

Turning away from the inconstancy of Mr Burke as a politician, let us contemplate him as a private friend in a day's journey, as delineated by Mr Hardy in his Memoirs of Lord Charlemont.

One of the most satisfactory days, perhaps, that I ever passed in my life was going with him, tête-à-tête, from London to Beaconsfield. He stopped at Uxbridge whilst the horses were feeding, and happening to meet some gentlemen, of I know not what militia, who appeared to be perfect strangers to him, he entered into discourse with them at the gateway of the inn. His conversation at that moment completely exemplified what Johnson said of him: "That you could not meet Burke for half an hour under a shed, without saying he was an extraordinary man." He was on that day altogether uncommonly instructive and agreeable. Every object of the slightest notoriety, as we passed along, whether of natural or local history, furnished him with abundant materials for conversation. The house at Uxbridge, where the Treaty was held during Charles the First's time; the beautiful and undulating grounds of Bulstrode, formerly the residence

EARL OF ELLESMERE.

See there! see there! What yonder swings
And creaks 'mid whistling rain?"
"Gibbet and steel, the accursed wheel;
A murderer in his chain.

Hollo! thou felon, follow here:

To bridal-bed we ride;

And thou shalt prance a fetter dance
Before me and my bride."

And hurry! hurry! clash, clash, clash!
The wasted form descends;

And fleet as wind through hazel-bush

The wild career attends.

Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.

How fled what moonshine faintly shewed!
How fled what darkness hid!

How fled the earth beneath their feet,
The heaven above their head!

"Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear,
And well the dead can ride;
Does faithful Helen fear for them?"
"O leave in peace the dead!"
"Barb! barb! methinks I hear the cock,
The sand will soon be run:
Barb! barb! I smell the morning air;
The race is well-nigh done."
Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.

"Hurrah! hurrah! well ride the dead;
The bride, the bride is come:
And soon we reach the bridal-bed,
For, Helen, here's my home.""

In his latter days, as a professor in the university of Gottingen, Bürger was inefficient, yet still much respected as the writer of the immortal Lenore. When Tieck became acquainted with him, he had been lately separated from his third wife. He was lean, pale, shrunken-misery was written in his features. His voice had lost its force; he could only make himself intelligible with difficulty; and yet he was obliged to speak. Now and then he would ride out, and there was something spectral about the pale man as he trotted through the streets of Göttingen on his lean white horse. One was reminded of the Ride of Death, which he had so forcibly described. Sometimes a ray of sunshine would fall on his gloomy soul, when any one succeeded in drawing him against his will into his old circle of good friends, whom he now anxiously avoided-shunning, indeed, all intercourse with mankind.

In unconstrained moments, Bürger could appear unconstrained, sympathetic, and even cheerful. He had something amiable and child-like in his nature.'-KÖPKE's Reminiscences of Ludwig Tieck,

1856.

FRANCIS, EARL OF ELLESMERE.

There is something in Johnson's remark, that personal merits in a man of high rank deserve to be handsomely acknowledged.' Sure of homage on account of birth and means, it must be unusually good impulses which lead him to study, to useful arts, or to administrative

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.

business. The second son of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, destined to an immense collateral inheritance, the Earl of Ellesmere devoted himself to elegant literature-in which his own efforts were far above mediocrity-to the patronage of the ennobling arts, and to disinterested duty in the public service. The benevolence of his nature led him in early life, as a member of the House of Commons, to lean to a liberal class of measures which were then little patronised, but the benefits of which were afterwards realised. At a time, moreover, when few were thinking much of the tastes and gratifications of the great body of the people, Lord Ellesmere prepared a splendid picture gallery which he made easily accessible to the public. This amiable nobleman died on the 18th February 1857.

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.

While a literary man has his natural life, like other men, his fame has another and distinct life, which grows to maturity, flourishes a greater or less space of time, decays, and comes to an end, or in rare cases perseveres in a sort of immortality. Wycherley is one of the larger class of poets whose fame-life may be said to have died. First, his poems dropped out of notice; finally, his plays. Yet his name has still a place in literary biography, if only for one or two anecdotes which it includes, and for his having as a veteran patronised the youthful Pope.

One of Wycherley's most successful plays was entitled The Plain Dealer; and thereby hangs one of the anecdotes: Wycherley went down to Tunbridge, to take either the benefit of the waters or the diversions of the place; when walking one day upon the Wells Walk, with his friend Mr Fairbeard of Gray's Inn, just as he came up to the bookseller's, the Countess of Drogheda, a young widow, rich and beautiful, came to the bookseller and inquired for The Plain Dealer.

66

Madam," says Mr Fairbeard, “since you are for the Plain Dealer, there he is for you," pushing Mr Wycherley towards her.

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Yes," says Mr Wycherley, "this lady can bear plain dealing, for she appears to be so accomplished, that what would be a compliment to others, when said to her would be plain dealing.".

No, truly, sir," said the lady, "I am not without my faults more than the rest of my sex : and yet, notwithstanding all my faults, I love plain dealing, and never am more fond of it than when it tells me of a fault."

"Then, madam," says Mr Fairbeard, "you and the Plain Dealer seem designed by heaven for each other."

In short, Mr Wycherley accompanied her on her walks, waited upon her home, visited her daily at her lodgings whilst she stayed at Tunlodgings in Hatton Garden, where in a little time bridge, and after she went to London, at her he obtained her consent to marry her.'* The story unfortunately does not end so Cibber's Lives of the Poets, 5 vols. 1753; vol. iii. p. 252.

pleasantly. The lady proved unreasonably jealous, and led her husband a rather sad life. After her death, her bequest to him was disputed at law, and, drowned in debt, he was immured in a jail for seven years !-such frightful penalties being then exigible by creditors.

LOUIS XII. OF FRANCE.

He was one of the few sovereigns of France who were entirely estimable. He was sober, sweet-natured, modest, laborious, loved know. ledge, was filled with sentiments of honour, religion, and benevolence. He strove by economy to keep down the amount of the public burdens, and when his frugal habits were ridiculed in the theatre, he said laughingly that he would rather have the people to be amused by his stinginess than groan under his prodigality. He held as a principle that the justice of a prince obliged him to owe nothing, rather than his greatness to give much. It was rare indeed to find such correct ideas regarding the use and value of money in those days.

The first wife of Louis XII. being dead, he married, at fifty-three, a second and youthful spouse, the Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII., and did not outlive the event three months. His widow returned to her own country, and married her first lover, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

CORONATION OF CHARLES II. AT SCONE, 1651.

On the 1st of January 1651, the son of Charles I. was crowned as Charles II. by the Scots at Scone, the southern part of the country being occupied at the time by Cromwell with a hostile army. The extreme measure of cutting off the late king and extinguishing the monarchy was generally disapproved of in Scotland; but in taking up the young king, the Scots were chiefly animated by a desire of preserving and advancing their favourite Presbyterian church arrangements, according to the spirit of the famous Solemn League and Covenant. Charles, who was then only twenty, being anxious to get a footing in his father's lost dominions, consented, much against his will, to accept this Covenant, which inferred an active persecution of both popery and prelacy; and the Scots accordingly received him amongst them, fought a battle for him against Cromwell at Dunbar, and now crowned him. A sermon was preached on the occasion by Mr Robert Douglas, who had the reputation (but upon no just grounds) of being a descendant of Mary queen of Scots. The crown was put upon the young king's head by the Marquis of Argyle, whom ten years after he sent to the scaffold for compliances with Cromwell. The defeat of the Scots and their young king at Worcester on the 3d September of this year put an end to Charles's adventure, and he with difficulty escaped out of the country. How he subsequently treated the Covenant and its adherents need not here be particularised.

MARCH OF GENERAL MONK FROM COLDSTREAM. On the 1st of January 1660, General Monk commenced that march from Scotland to London which was so instrumental in effecting the Restor

DISCOVERY OF THE PLANETOIDS.

ation. He started with his little army of six or seven thousand men from the town of Coldstream, in Berwickshire-a name which has been commemorated in the title of a regiment which he is believed to have embodied at the place, or soon after. Monk had spent about three weeks at Coldstream, which was a favourable spot for his purpose, as the Tweed was there fordable; but he seems to have found it a dismal place to quar ter in. On his first arrival, he could get no provisions for his own dinner, and was obliged to content himself with a quid of tobacco. His chaplains, less easily satisfied, roamed about till they obtained a meal at the house of the Earl of Hume near by.-Monk, a Historical Study, by M. Guizot, translated by J. Stuart Wortley, 1838.

UNION OF IRELAND WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 1801.

On the 1st of January 1801-the initial day of the nineteenth century-Ireland passed into an incorporating union with Great Britain, and the three kingdoms were thenceforth styled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The expression, 'initial day of the nineteenth century,' requires something to be said in its defence, for many persons regard the year 1800 as the beginning of the present century. The year 1801 is, in reality, entitled to this honour, because then only had the previous century been completed. To make this plain, let the reader reflect that it required the year 100 to complete the century, and so on through all that followed. To first century, the year 200 to complete the second say, then, that the year 1800 was the first of a fact. new century, is to be led by sound, instead of

DISCOVERY OF THE PLANETOIDS.

astronomer, M. Piazzi, discovered a new planet, On the 1st of January 1801, the Sicilian of a goddess formerly in much esteem in Sicily. to which he gave the name of Ceres, in honour It was the first discovered of a number of such bodies of small size, which occupy the place due of Mars and Jupiter. At present (1861), the to one such body of large size, between the orbits number is over seventy.

'It was noted that between the orbits of Mercury and Venus there is an interval of thirty-one the Earth, twenty-seven millions; and between millions of miles; between those of Venus and those of the Earth and Mars, fifty millions; but between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter there intervenes the tremendous gap of three hundred and forty-nine millions of miles, to the apparent interruption of the general order, which, howwide interval, and some other considerations, ever, is again resumed beyond Jupiter.' This having raised the suspicion of an unknown planet between Mars and Jupiter, a combination of twenty-four practical observers was formed to search for the missing link. On New-Year's Piazzi, one of their number [at Palermo], made Day 1801, ere they had well got into harness, an observation on a small star in Taurus, which he took for one of Mayer's. On the 2d of January, he found that the supposed star had retro