professionally a lady of rank who was born eight years before the death of the Merry Monarch. This was the Countess of Loudon, widow of the third Earl. She was born in 1677 and died in 1777, having attained the venerable age of a hundred.

Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Hardwicke, who died May 26, 1858, was daughter of a person who had been a naval officer of Queen Anne and a rebel at the battle of Sheriffmuir, namely, James, fifth Earl of Balcarres. This venerable lady could have said that at her grandfather's first marriage King Charles gave away the bride; an event which took place nearly a hundred and ninety years before her own death.

This marriage, by the way, was a remarkable one. The young Colin Earl of Balcarres was obtaining for his bride, a young Dutch lady, Mauritia de Nassau, daughter of a natural son of Maurice Prince of Orange. The Prince of Orange, afterwards William III., presented his fair kinswoman on this joyful occasion with a pair of magnificent emerald ear-rings, as his wedding-gift. The day arrived, the noble party were assembled in the church, and the bride was at the altar; but, to the dismay of the company, no bridegroom appeared! The volatile Colin had forgotten the day of his marriage, and was discovered in his night-gown and slippers, quietly eating his breakfast! Thus far the tale is told with a smile on the lip, but many a tear was shed at the conclusion. Colin hurried to the church, but in his haste left the ring in his writing-case; a friend in the company gave him one, the ceremony went on, and, without looking at it, he placed it on the finger of his fair young bride-it was a mourning ring, with the mort-head and cross-bones. On perceiving it at the close of the ceremony, she fainted away, and the evil omen had made such an impression on her mind, that, on recovering, she declared she should die within the year, and her presentiment was too truly fulfilled.'*

When Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall in 1840 made a tour in Ireland, in order to prepare the beautiful book regarding that country which they afterwards published, they were startled one day by finding themselves in the company of a gentleman of the county of Antrim,† who could tell them that his father had been at the battle of the Boyne, fought exactly a hundred and fifty years before. The latter was fifteen at the time of the battle. He lived a bachelor life till, on approaching old age, he overheard one day some young collateral relations talking rather too freely of what they would do with his property after his death; whereupon, in disgust, he took an early opportunity of marrying, and became the father of the gentleman in question. It is even more

* Lives of the Lindsays, ii. 120. Rings bearing a death's head were in great favour in the grim religious times then not long past. In a will dated 1648, occurs this clause

:

Also I do will and appoint ten rings of gold to be made of the value of twenty shillings a-piece sterling, with a death's head upon some of them.'-Halliwell's Shakspeare,

v. 318.

+ Sir Edmund Macnaghten, of Bush Mills; he was father of Sir William Macnaghten, political agent at Caubul, and who fell in the massacre at that place.

CONNECTION OF DISTANT AGES.

remarkable that Maurice O'Connell of Derrynane, who died in 1825 at the age of 99, knew Daniel M'Carthy, who had been at the battle of Aughrim (July 12, 1691), who was indeed the first man to run away from it, but who, being 108 at his death in 1740, might have equally well remembered Cromwell's massacre at Drogheda in 1649. The gentleman who relates this fact in the Notes and Queries,* says: 'I remember being told in the county of Clare, about 1828, of an individual then lately deceased, who remembered the siege of Limerick by General Ginkle, and the news of the celebrated Treaty of Limerick (October 3, 1691).'

As

If we go back to any former period of British history, we shall find precisely similar linkings of remote ages by the lives of individuals. Lettice Countess of Leicester, who died in 1634, was born about 1539; consequently might have remembered Henry VIII., whose queen, Anne Boleyn, was her great aunt. To pursue the remarks of a contemporary writer,† during the reign of Edward VI., the young Lettice was still a girl; but Sir Francis Knollys, her father, was about the court, and Lettice no doubt saw and was acquainted with the youthful sovereign. The succession of Mary threw the family of Lettice into the shade. a relative of the Boleyns, and the child of a Puritan, she could expect no favour from the daughter of Catherine of Arragon; but Mary and Philip were doubtless personally known to her. At Elizabeth's succession, Lettice was in her eighteenth year, and in all the beauty of opening womanhood. About 1566, at the age of twentysix, she was married to the young Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford, created Earl of Essex in 1572. He died in 1576, and in 1578 his beautiful Countess was secretly married to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The great favourite died in 1588, and within the year of her weeds Lettice was again married to an unthrifty knight of doubtful character, Sir Christopher Blount. In 1601, Lettice became a widow for the third time: her husband was a party to the treasonable madness of her son, and both suffered on the scaffold. Such accumulated troubles would have sufficed to kill an ordinary woman; but Lettice retired to Drayton Bassett, and lived on in spite of her sorrows. In James's time her connections were in favour. She came up to London to share the smiles of the new dynasty, and to contest for her position as Countess of Leicester against the base-born son of her predecessor in the Earl's affections. At James's death she had attained the age of eighty-five, with faculties unimpaired. We may imagine that she was introduced to the new sovereign. The grandmother of the Earls of Holland and Warwick, and the relation of half the court, would naturally attract the attention and share the courtesies of the lively Henrietta and the grave, stately, formal Charles. He was the sixth English sovereign (or the seventh if Philip be counted) whom she had seen. The last few years of her life were passed at Drayton :

* April 12, 1851.

John Bruce, Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 13.

CONNECTION OF DISTANT AGES.

"Where she spent her days so well,

That to her the better sort

Came as to an holy court,
And the poor that lived near
Dearth nor famine could not fear
Whilst she lived."

'Until a year or two of her death, we are told that she "could yet walk a mile of a morning." She died on Christmas Day in 1634, at the age of ninety-four.

Lettice was one of a long-lived race. Her father lived till 1596, and one of her brothers attained the age of eighty-six, and another that of ninety-nine.

'There is nothing incredible, nor even very extraordinary, in the age attained by the Countess Lettice; but even her years will produce curious results if applied to the subject of possible transmission of knowledge through few links. I will give one example: Dr Johnson, who was born in 1709, might have known a person who had seen the Countess Lettice. If there are not now, there were, amongst us, within the last three or four years, persons who knew Dr Johnson. There might therefore be only two links between ourselves and the Countess Lettice who saw Henry VIII.'

Even these cases, remarkable as they are when viewed by themselves, sink into comparative unimportance before some others now to be adverted to.

The first gives us a connection between the time of Cromwell and that of Queen Victoria by only two lives. William Horrocks, born in 1657, one year before the death of the Protector, was married at the usual time of life, and had a family. His wife was employed as a nurse in the family of the Chethams at Castleton Hall, near Rochdale. In 1741, when eighty-four years of age, he married for a second wife a woman of twenty-six, who, as his housekeeper, had treated him with a remarkable degree of kindness. The circumstance attracted some share of public attention, and the Chetham family got portraits of the pair painted, to be retained in their mansion as a curiosity; which portraits were not long ago, and probably still are, in existence. To William Horrocks in 1744 there was born a son, named James, who lived down to the year 1844, on a small farm at Harwood, about three miles from Bolton. This remarkable centenarian, who could say that he had a brother born in the reign of Charles II., and that his father first drew breath as a citizen of the Commonwealth, is described as having been wonderfully wellpreserved down almost to the last. At ninety, he had one day walked twenty-one miles, return ing from Newton, where he had been recording his vote at an election.*

The second case we have in store for the reader is a French one, and quite as remarkable as the preceding. It may first be stated in this form: a lady, who might be described as a niece of Mary Queen of Scots, died so lately as 1713. She was the widow of the Duc d'Angoulême, a natural son of Charles IX., king of France, who

* See a full account of Horrocks, quoted from the Manchester Guardian, in Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 475.

STE GUDULA.

died in 1574, so that she survived her father-inlaw a hundred and thirty-nine years. * At the time when she left the world, a sixth generation of the posterity of Mary (Prince Frederick, father of George III.) was a boy of five years.

A third case may be thus stated: A man residing in Aberdeenshire, within the recollection of people still living there, not only had witnessed some of the transactions of the Civil War, but he had seen a man who was connected with the battle of Flodden, fought in September 1513. The person in question was Peter Garden, who died at Auchterless in 1775, aged 131. When a youth, he had accompanied his master to London, and there saw Henry Jenkins, who died in 1670, at the extraordinary age of 169. Jenkins, as a boy, had carried a horse-load of arrows to Northallerton, to be employed by the English army in resisting the invasion of James IV. of Scotland, and which were in reality soon

after used at the battle of Flodden. Here two lives embraced events extending over two hundred and sixty-two years!

JANUARY 8.

St Appolinaris, the apologist, bishop, 175; St Lucian, of Beauvais, martyr, 290; St Nathalan, bishop, confessor, 452; St Severinus, abbot, 482; St Gudula, virgin, 712; St Pega, virgin, about 719; St Vulsin, bishop, confessor, 973.

STE GUDULA

is regarded with veneration by Roman Catholics as the patroness-saint of the city of Brussels. She was of noble birth, her mother having been niece to the eldest of the Pepins, who was Maire of the Palace to Dagobert I. Her father was Count Witger. She was educated at Nivelle, under the care of her cousin Ste Gertrude, after whose death in 664, she returned to her father's castle, and dedicated her life to the service of religion. She spent her future years in prayer and abstinence. Her revenues were expended on the poor. It is related of her, that going early one morning to the church of St Morgelle, two miles from her father's mansion, with a female servant bearing a lantern, the wax taper having been accidentally extinguished, she lighted it again by the efficacy of her prayers. Hence she is usually represented in pictures with a lantern. She died January 8th, 712, and was buried at Ham, near Villevord. Her relics were transferred to Brussels in 978, and deposited in the church of St Gery, but in 1047 were removed to the collegiate church of Michael, since named after her the cathedral of Ste Gudula. ancient Gothic structure, commenced in 1010, still continues to be one of the architectural ornaments of the city of Brussels. Her Life was written by Hubert of Brabant not long after the removal of her relics to the church of St Michael.

This

*Francis II., the elder brother of Charles IX., was first husband of Mary of Scotland; consequently this unfortunate princess was by marriage aunt of the Duchess d'Angoulême.

Died.-Galileo Galilei, 1642; John Earl of Stair, 1707; Sir Thomas Burnet, 1753; John Baskerville, printer, 1775; Sir William Draper, 1787; Lieutenant Thomas Waghorn, 1850.

GALILEO GALILEI.

Such (though little known) was the real full name of the famous Italian professor, who first framed and used a telescope for the observation of the heavenly bodies, and who may be said to have first given stability and force to the theory which places the sun in the centre of the planetary system. In April or May 1609, Galileo heard at Venice of a little tubular instrument lately made by one Hans Lippershey of Middleburg, which made distant objects appear nearer, and he immediately applied himself to experimenting on the means by which such an instrument could be produced. Procuring a couple of spectacle glasses, each plain on one side, but one convex and the second concave on the other side, he put these at the different ends of a tube, and applying his eye to the concave glass, found that objects were magnified three times, and brought apparently nearer. Soon afterwards, having made one which could magnify thirty times, Galileo commenced observations on the surface of the moon, which he discovered to be irregular, like that of the earth, and on Jupiter, which, in January 1610, he ascertained to be attended by four stars, as he called them, which after. wards proved to be its satellites. To us, who calmly live in the knowledge of so much that the telescope has given us, it is inconceivable with what wonder and excitement the first discoveries of the rude tube of Galileo were received. The first effects to himself were such as left him nothing to desire; for, by the liberality of his patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he was endowed with a high salary, independent of all his former professional duties.

The world has been made well aware of the opposition which Galileo experienced from the ecclesiastical authorities of his age; but it is remarkable that the first resistance he met with came from men who were philosophers like himself. As he went on with his brilliant discoveries-the crescent form of Venus, the spots on the sun, the peculiar form of Saturn-he was met with a storm of angry opposition from the adherents of the old Aristotelian views; one of whom, Martin Horky, said he would never grant that Italian his new stars, though he should die for it.' The objections made by these persons were clearly and triumphantly refuted by Galileo: he appealed to their own senses for a sufficient refutation of their arguments. It was all in vain. The fact is equally certain and important that, while he gained the admiration of many men of high rank, he was an object of hostility to a vast number of his own order.

It was not, after all, by anything like a general movement of the Church authorities that Galileo was brought to trouble for his doctrines. The Church had overlooked the innovations of Copernicus: many of its dignitaries were among the friends of Galileo. Perhaps, by a little discreet management, he might have escaped censure. He was, however, of an ardent disposition; and

74

JOHN, FIRST EARL OF STAIR.

being assailed by a preacher in the pulpit, he was tempted to bring out a pamphlet defending his views, and in reality adding to the offence he had already given. He was consequently brought before the Inquisition at Rome, February 1615, and obliged to disavow all his doctrines, and solemnly engage never again to teach them.

From this time, Galileo became manifestly less active in research, as if the humiliation had withered his faculties. Many years after, recovering some degree of confidence, he ventured to publish an account of his System of the World, under the form of a dialogue, in which it was simply discussed by three persons in conversation. He had thought thus to escape active opposition; but he was mistaken. He had again to appear before the Inquisition, April 1633, to answer for the offence of publishing what all educated men now know to be true; and a condemnation of course followed. Clothed in sackcloth, the venerable sage fell upon his knees before the assembled cardinals, and, with his hands on the Bible, abjured the heresies he had taught regarding the earth's motion, and promised to repeat the seven penitential psalms weekly for the rest of his life. He was then conveyed to the prisons of the Inquisition, but not to be detained. The Church was satisfied with having brought the philosopher to a condemnation of his own opinions, and allowed him his liberty after only four days. The remaining years of the great astronomer were spent in comparative peace and obscurity.

That the discoverer of truths so certain and so important should have been forced to abjure them to save his life, has ever since been a theme of lamentation for the friends of truth. It is held as a blot on the Romish Church that she persecuted the starry Galileo.' But the great difficulty as to all new and startling doctrines is to say whether they are entitled to respect. It certainly was not wonderful that the cardinals did not at once recognise the truth contained in the heliocentric theory, when so many so-called philosophers failed to recognise it. And it may be asked if, to this day, the promulgator of any new and startling doctrine is well treated, so long as it remains unsanctioned by general approbation, more especially if it appears in any degree or manner inconsistent with some point of religious doctrine. It is strongly to be suspected that many a man has spoken and written feelingly of the persecutors of Galileo, who daily acts in the same spirit towards other reformers of opinions, with perhaps less previous inquiry to justify him in what he is doing.

JOHN, FIRST EARL OF STAIR.

The Earl of Stair above cited was eldest son of James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair, the President of the Court of Session in Scotland, and the greatest lawyer whom that country has produced. This first earl, as Sir John Dalrymple, was one of three persons of importance chosen to offer the crown of Scotland to William and Mary at the Revolution. As Secretary of State for Scotland, he was the prime instrument in causing the Massacre of Glencoe, which covered his name with infamy, and did not leave that of his royal master untarnished. He was greatly