of insanity, it does not appear from his conversations while in prison, and during the period of his execution, that such was the fact. Guy Patin says, in Letter 122, that Ravillac had a brother who died in Holland; and from a declaration made upon his death-bed it appeared, that in case Francis Ravillac had not succeeded, he would have undertaken to perpetrate the deed. Of the seven individuals who were unfortunately in the carriage with the monarch, the firm attachment of six could not be suspected, as the only person present who had not uniformly been upon good terms with Henry was the Duke d'Epernon. They were, no doubt, all occupied in observing the embarrassment of the different vehicles that obstructed the progress of his majesty; in addition to which, the blows were struck with the greatest rapidity. Mathieu states, "that during the morning Ravillac had continued a great length of time at the Louvre, seated upon the steps of the portal, where the valets were waiting the arrival of the king. He had intended to strike the blow between the two doors, but he found the Duke d'Epernon on the spot where he had predetermined to attack the monarch." This execrable villain afterwards acknowledged that he had followed Henry in the morning to the church of the Feuillans, in order to commit the murder; but that the Duke of Vendome, who arrived, forced him to keep at a distance. Not one of the inmates of the carriage saw the king struck; and, if the sanguinary villain had thrown away the knife, it would not have been known who had committed the infernal deed. All the personages in the vehicle immediately got out to prevent the people, who flocked from all quarters, from tearing the assassin to pieces: three of the noblemen stood at the carriage door to succour their master; and one, perceiving the blood gush from his mouth, and that he was speechless, cried out "The king is dead!" This terrible exclamation created the most dreadful tumult: the people who were in the streets rushed into the shops and houses, apprehensive of becoming the prey of some unknown enemies, and that the city was taken by assault. Every one confusedly thought that he was deprived of his only safeguard, defender, and father; it appeared as if every thing was gone in losing him; nothing was felt but dread, and the most invincible terror. The Duke d'Epernon immediately cried aloud, that the king was only wounded; and, to persuade the populace that such was the truth, he demanded a goblet of wine: every one at the instant rushed from the houses, and the most affecting exclamations of joy resounded in all directions, while tears flowed in abundance from the anxious bystanders. The Duke d'Epernon continued crying incessantly that the king was only hurt : upon which the people expressed a desire to see their monarch; and for this purpose flocked round the vehicle, but were kept at a distance on being told it was necessary his majesty should be forthwith conveyed to the Louvre, for the purpose of having his wound examined. Saint Michel, one of the king's gentlemen in ordinary, had followed the prince, but was not near the carriage at the time of the assassination. He came up on hearing the noise, drew his sword, snatched the bloody knife from the hand of the regicide, whom he was on the point of killing, had not the Duke d'Epernon interposed The villain was to prevent the act. then confided to proper hands, and led away. During the whole scene every thing continued perfectly quiet at the arsenal! "Two circumstances were particularly remarked," says Mezerai," from which the reader may draw what inference he pleases. The one was, that, immediately after the seizure of Ravillac, seven or eight men arrived with swords in hand, saying it was requisite the assassin should be killed; but they instantaneously concealed themselves among the crowd. The other fact was, the murderer's not being immediately conveyed to prison, but placed in the hands of Montigny : that he was kept for two days in the hotel de Rais, with so little care, that all ranks of people were permitted to communicate with him; and among others, an ecclesiastic greatly indebt ed to the king, who, having addressed and styled Ravillac my friend, cautioned the prisoner to beware and not implicate the innocent.” The confusion and piercing screams which at intervals resounded in the breeze, at length gained the ears of the queen. Her majesty inquired the reason; when, observing nothing but sad countenances, and many bathed in tears, she immediately conceived the full extent of the loss sustained. The princess in consequence rushed from her study, and meeting the chancellor, exclaimed, "Alas! sir, the king is dead!"-upon which that grave personage, without testifying the least emotion, replied: "Your majesty must excuse me-kings never die in France." Having then requested her to re-enter the apartment, Villeroy immediately followed, exclaiming: "Madam, we must reserve our tears for another occasion, lest in shedding them at the present moment we render our affairs desperate: it is your majesty who must now toil for us; we stand in need of remedies, and not tears." He then represented that time was precious, and that advantage ought to be taken of the absence of the two princes of the blood, and the weakness of the third, to declare herself regent during the minority of the king her son. On the same day, being the 14th of May, the queen was declared regent during the minority of her son, and vested with all the requisite powers and authority. The body being embalmed, and placed in a leaden coffin, says Perefixe, was then deposited in a wooden bier covered with cloth of gold, under a canopy in the royal apartment. After eighteen days it was conducted to St. Denis, and buried with the accustomed ceremonies. Henry the Great perished at the age of fifty-seven years and five months, having reigned twenty-one years; of which period the five first were spent in fighting for the conquest of his kingdom, while subsequently he had to maintain the war against Spain; so that Providence only accorded him twelve years to repair the countless evils which forty years of civil warfare, revolts, and those convulsions brought on by anarchy and disorders of every description, had occasioned. Notwithstanding this, at the period of his decease, all the debts of the state were liquidated, the people eased of the burthensome taxations which had completely overpowered them, and agriculture had regained its most flourishing condition. We have before adverted to the efforts made by Henry in support of the liberal sciences, letters, and the arts: on ascending the throne the state was indebted in no less a sum than three hundred and thirty million; and as money was then valued at twenty-two livres the mark, the sum was equivalent to upwards of eight hundred and ten millions of the actual currency; yet every farthing was liquidated; in addition to which he left twenty-four millions in his treasury, the fruits of a wise economy, that never proved detrimental to princely munificence, which was carried to the highest pitch under the auspices of this magnanimous king. The result of a careful examination of the interrogatories of Ravillac tends to prove that he was a man of heated imagination, who, conceiving, according to his statement, that Henry had resolved on declaring war against the pope, and did not take efficient measures to convert the Huguenots, adopted the resolution of assassinating him, whom he regarded as a tyrant that ought to be destroyed; in which ideas he had been strengthened by the sermons of the infamous preachers of the League, who uniformly justified the act of James Clement. Ravillac, when subjected to torture, uniformly maintained that no Frenchman or stranger had been instrumental in urging him to commit the deed; that the prince had never injured him; and that, if his death had remained unpunished, it would have been productive of no benefit to himself. Immediately prior to the dissolution of Ravillac, he most ardently craved absolution of De Fillesac and Gamache, two able doctors of the Sorbonne, who attended; when he was told that it could not be granted unless he divulged the names of his accomplices. "I have none," said Ravillac; "but give me a conditional absolution: condemn my soul to Hell flames if I have accomplices; and grant me absolution under the proviso that I have uttered the truth." This was complied with, and the wretch was absolved accordingly. At four o'clock on the evening of the unfortunate day that terminated the earthly career of this great prince, the inhabitants of Paris, who still continued in suspense respecting his death, were thrown into a general state of ferment. It was observed that all those who issued from their dwellings wandered through the streets and public places, having no other object in view but to ascertain for a certainty the state of the king. One only idea occupied every mind; the ordinary routine of business, and private engagements, were wholly forgotten; or, to speak more properly, being occupied in thinking of the author of all public felicity, each conceived that he was dwelling upon his individual interest. Every one approached his neighbour to make the same inquiries; strangers interrogated one another as a matter of course, while each countenance bore the stamp of the deep affliction that reigned within. During the whole of this momentous period, the inhabitants of the city conducted themselves as brothers; the same sentiment predominated over all hearts; the citizens became as one family united by similar troubles and corresponding emotions. At length, however, it was announced that the king was no more! This dreadful confirmation of the greatest of misfortunes paralyzed with horror the whole population of that vast city. Men fell speechless in the streets; and many instances are upon record of individuals who suddenly expired on this mournful occasion. Among others was a most wealthy and respectable citizen named Marchant, who had at his own expense erected the bridge of the Change: this worthy citizen expired from excess of grief on learning the death of Henry the Fourth. The brave and virtuous De Vic, some time after chancing to pass through the street Ferronnerie, where the fatal deed had been perpetrated, was seized with such horror at the recollection, that he was conducted home to his hotel and died the following day; and Perefixe states, that many females refused to take sustenance, and became the victims of their rooted grief. No sooner was the monarch's death made public than the citizens paraded through Paris, pressing one another by the hands, and exclaiming, What will become of us? Others shut themselves up in their dwellings to weep in privacy for the dreadful calamity sustained. Young people were prohibited from indulging in their accustomed sports; and the aged addressed them in the following terms: "Children, we have lost our common father! he was preparing for you days of felicity; and, now, who will watch over you?" Nothing was looked for in future but storms and disquietude; Henry had borne with him to the tomb the felicity and heartfelt security of the whole French nation; for the same regrets and melancholy presages were reiterated throughout the whole realm. The af fliction of the Parisians, however, very speedily assumed an alarming aspect : this general consternation was succeeded by the fury of despair; women with dishevelled locks rushed through the streets uttering the most frantic exclamations; while the men, bewildered from the effects of poignant anguish, talked of exemplary vengeance, named imaginary accomplices, and swore to sacrifice them to their vengeance. The tumult in consequence became so terrifying, that the queen was compelled to issue orders for its suppression; she directed the duke d'Epernon to proceed on horseback, accompanied by all the noblemen of the court who could be assembled; and in this manner the cavalcade proceeded through the capital, the duke constantly haranguing the assembled crowds, whom he with infinite difficulty succeeded in bringing to reason. IMITATIONS OF COCKNEY WRITERS. (Extracted from Blackwood's Magazine.) HUNT AND HAZLITT. WE, Leigh the First, Autocrat of all the Cockneys, command our trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor, William Hazlitt, Gentleinan of the Press, &c. &c &c., to furnish forthwith, in virtue of his allegiance, an article for Blackwood's Magazine-in which there shall be nothing taken out of the Edinburgh Review or any other Periodicals for which the said William Hazlitt scribbleth, and in which there shall be as little as may be possible to the Gentleman of the Press aforesaid, about "candied coats of the auricula,"_" a fine paste of poetic diction encrusting" something or another-" clear waters, dews, moonlit bowers, Sally L-," &c. &c. As witness our hand. F. LIUNTO, Imperatore e Re di Cocagna. TABLE-TALK. A NEW SERIES. No. I. On Nursery Rhymes in general. SWEET are the dreams of child hood, but sweeter the strains that delight its early ears! We would give anything to recall those pleasant times, when we thought Jack Horner finer than anything in Shakspeare. And sometimes we think so still! What a poet was he who composed all these sweet nursery verses-the violet bed not sweeter! Yet he died "without a name!" How unintelligible they are, and yet how easily understood! They are like Wordsworth! (but oh, how unlike !) and we admire them for the same reason that we do him. How many young lips have breathed out these "snatches of old songs," making the breeze about them "discourse most eloquent music!" Wherever these rhymes "do love to haunt, the air is delicate." Let us try to make them "as palpable to the feeling" of others, as they are to our own. We once said in Constable's Magazine, that "to be an Edinburgh reviewer, was the highest distinction in literary society;" because, about that time, we began to write in the Edinburgh Review. We were proud of it then, and we are so yet!-But it is a *In the original MS. wartue. finer thing now. One could not then be radical, if one would. Now it is tout au contraire-Whigs and Radicals have met together-Jeffrey and Hunt have embraced each other. And it is right they should. Jeffrey is the "Prince of Critics and King of Men;" just as Leigh Hunt is King of Cockaigne, by divine right. They are your only true legitimates. They are like the two kings of Brentford! There they sit upon their thrones-the Examiner and the Edinburgh Reviewsedet, eternumque sedebit—" both warbling of one note, both in one key." Each doth bestride his little world like a Colossus"-(little, but oh! how great!) There they are teres et rotundus; while Universal Suffrage, like "Universal Pan, knit with the graces" of Whiggism, leads on the eternal dance! We have said in The London, that "to assume a certain signature, and write essays and criticisms in THE LONDON MAGAZINE, was a consummation of felicity hardly to be believed." But what is writing in the Edinburgh Review, or the New Monthly, or the London, compared to writing in Blackwood's Magazine? That, after all, is your only true passport to + Quære, years.-Printer's devil. Mr. Hazlitt here omits the name of another sovereign, of whom he thus speaketh in the Edinburgh Review-" The Scotsman is an excellent paper, with but one subject— Political Economy-but the Editor may be said to be King of it!" But perhaps he bethought him afterwards, that to be "King of one subject," was no very brilliant sovereignty. Fame. We thought otherwise once -but we were wrong!-Well, better late than never. But we must get to our subject. What admirable pictures of duty (finer than Mr Wordsworth's Ode to Duty) are now and then presented to us in these rhymes!-what powerful exhortations to morality (stronger and briefer than Hannah More's) do we find in them! What can be more strenuous, in its way, than the detestation of slovenliness inspired by the following example? The rhyme itself seems to have caught the trick" of carelessness, and to wanton in the inspiration of the subject! See saw, Margery Daw, sold her bed, and lay in the straw; Look at the paternal affection (regardless of danger) so beautifully exemplified in this sweet lullaby : Bye, baby bunting! papa's gone a hunting, To catch a little rabbit-skin, to wrap the baby bunting in. There is a beautiful spirit of humanity and a delicate gallantry in this one. The long sweep of the verse reminds one of the ladies' trains in Watteau's pic tares: One a penny, two a penny, hot cross-buns, If your daughters do not like them, give them to your sons; But if you should have none of these pretty little elves, You cannot do better than to eat them yourselves. Economy is the moral of the next. It is worth all the Tracts of the Cheap Repository! When I was a little boy, I lived by myself, And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon the shelf. What can be more exquisite than the way in which the most abstruse sciences are conveyed to the infant understanding? Here is an illustration of the law of gravitation, which all Sir Richard Phillips's writings against Newton will never overthrow !— Rock a bye, baby, on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock : If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, Then down tumbles baby and cradle and all. The theories of the Political Economists are also finely explained in this verse, which very properly begins with an address to J. B. Say, who has said the same thing in prose : See, Say, a penny a-day, Tommy must have a new master Why must he have but a penny a-day? Because he can work no faster. This is better than the Templar's Dialogues on the Political Economy in The London, and plainer and shorter than the Scotsman. It is as good as the Ricardo Lecture. Mr. M'Culloch could not have said anything more profound! There is often a fine kind of pictured poetry about them. In this verse, for instance, you seem to hear the merry merry ring of the bells, and you see the tall white steed go glancing by : Ride a cock-horse to Bamborough Cross, To see a fair lady sit on a white horse! With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes, That she may have music wherever she goes. There is also a rich imagination about the "four-and-twenty black-birds, baked in a pye;" it is quite oriental, and carries you back to the Crusades. But, upon the whole, we prefer this lay, with its fearful and tragic close :→→→ Bye, baby bumpkin, where's Tony Lumpkin? My lady's on her death-bed, with eating half a pumpkin, |