TER STORT OF MAJOR ANDRE. THE BOOK OF DAYS. WATCHING AND LIGEING OLD LONDON. as the same person in the two capacities. So well dd D/Eon succeed, that presents and rewards followed-rich gifts from the Empress Elizbeth; and a pension, together with a lieutenancy of dragons, from Lonia D'Eon served in the cam paigns of the Seven Years' War; and then occurred the events in England between 1761 and 1777, already noticed. The end of D'Eon's life was as strange as the beginning. In woman's dress, D'Een was in France for a time in 1779, but he resided mostly in England It was supposed by many that he was largely interested in beta, amounting in various quarters to the enormous sum of £700000, depending on the question of sex; but a positive denial was given to this insinuation. At length, in 1810, the Dewspapers announced that the celebrated Chevalier d'Eon' died, on the 22d of May, in Millman Street, Foundling Hospital; and then, and not until then, was it decisively known that he was really and properly Chevalier d'Eon, who had so often, and for reasons so little to be comprehended, passed himself off as a woman. THE STORY OF MAJOR ANDRE There are few monuments in Westminster Abbey which have attracted more attention than that which commemorates the sad fate of Major André. Perhaps no event of the American revolution made more aching hearts on both sides of the Atlantic. Great Britain lost two armies, and thousands of her brave soldiers were slain upon the field of battle, but it may be doubted if so many tears were shed for them all, as for this young soldier, who died upon the gallows. John André was born in London, the son of a Genevese merchant, in 1751. He was sent to Geneva to be educated, but returned to London at the age of eighteen, and, his talents having introduced him to a literary coterie, he became enamoured of Miss Honora Sneyd, a young lady of singular beauty and accomplishments. As both were very young, the marriage was postponed, and André was induced to engage in trade; but he was ambitious, and, at the age of twenty, entered the army. At the outbreak of the American war he was sent to Canada, and taken prisoner at St John's; but being exchanged, he became the favourite of that gay and gallant officer, General Sir Henry Clinton, who appointed him his aid-de-camp, and soon after adjutant-general. Young, handsome, clever, full of taste and gaiety, an artist and a poet, he was the life of the army, and the little vice-regal court that was assembled around its chief. The British occupied the American cities, and while the troops of Washington were naked and starving at Valley Forge, Sir Henry was holding a series of magnificent revels in Philadelphia, which were planned and presided over by the gallant Major André. Philadelphia was evacuated; Sir Henry returned to New York; and Major André, who had known the wife of the American general, Arnold, in Philadelphia, entered into a correspondence with him, and was the agent through whom the British general bargained, under promise of a large reward, for the surrender of Westpoint, the key of the highlands of the river Hudson. André visited Arnold within the American lines, to carry out this treachery; he was captured on his return by three American farmers, whic refused his bribes; the papers proclaiming Amold's treason were found upon him and, by his own frank confession, he was convicted as a spy, and sentenced to be Langed Arnold. by the binder of an American officer, || got warning, and escaped on board the Fulture. Sir Henry Clinton by the most urgent representations to General Washington, med to save his favourite adjunt, tes in vain. There was but Che way the surrender of Arcid, to meet the face decreed to Andre. That was impossible; and the young adjutant, then in his twenty-ninth year, after a vain appeal to Washington, that he might die a soldier's death, was hanged on the west bank of the Hudson, almost in sight of the city held by the British army, October 2, 1780. If his life had been undistinguished, he died with heroic firmness The whole British army went into mourning, and, after the close of the war, his body was deposited near his monument in Westminster Abbey. Even in America, where the name of Arnold is a synonym of treason, the sad fate of Major André excited, and still excites, universal commiseration. OCTOBER 3. St Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens, martyr, 1st century. The Two Ewalds, martyrs, about 695. St Gerard, abbot, 959. Born-Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork, 1566, Canterbury; Giovanni Baptista Beccaria, natural philosopher, 1716, Mondori Died. Robert Barclay, celebrated Scottish Quaker, author of the Apology for Quaker tenets, 1690, Try, Kincardineshire; Victor, French dramatic writer, 1846; A. E. Chalon, artist, 1860, London. WATCHING AND LIGHTING OLD LONDON. Civilisation, in its slowest progress, may be well illustrated by a glance at the past modes of guarding and lighting the tortuous and dangerous streets of old cities. From the year 1253, when Henry III. established night-watchmen, until 1830, when Sir Robert Peel's police act established a new kind of guardian, the watchman was little better than a person who 'Disturbed your rest to tell you what's o'clock.' He had been gradually getting less useful from the days of Elizabeth; thus Dogberry and his troop were unmistakable pictures of the tribe, as much relished for the satirical truth of their delineation in the reign of Anne, as in that of her virgin predecessor. Little improvement took place until the Westminster act was passed in 1762, a measure forced on the attention of the legislature by the impunity with which robbery and murder were committed after dark. Before that year, a few wretched oil lamps only served to make darkness visible in the streets, and confuse the wayfarer by partial glimmerings across his ill-paved path. Before the great civil wars, the streets may be said to have been only lighted by chance; by the lights from windows, from lanterns grudgingly hung out THE CRESSET-BEARER. The appearance of this functionary in the sixteenth century will be best understood from the engraving here copied from one in Sharp's curious dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries. A similar cresset is still preserved in the armoury of the Tower of London. It is an open-barred pot, hanging by swivels fastened to the forked staff; in the centre of the pot is a spike, around which was coiled a rope soaked in pitch and rosin, which sputtered and burned with a lurid light, and stinking smoke, as the watchman went his rounds. The watch was established as a stern necessity; and that necessity had become stern, indeed, before his advent. Roger Hoveden has left a vivid picture of London at night in the year 1175, when it was a common practice for gangs of a hundred or more in a company' to besiege wealthy houses for plunder, and unscrupulously murder any one who happened to come in Their vocation' was so flourishing, their way. that when one of their number was convicted, he had the surpassing assurance to offer the king five hundred pounds of silver for his life. The gallows, however, claimed its due, and made short work with the fraternity; who continued, however, to be troublesome from time to time until Henry III., as already stated, established regular watchmen in WATCHMAN-TEMP. JAMES I. his predecessors in that of Elizabeth. He carried a halbert and a horn-lantern, was well secured in a frieze gabardine, leathern-girdled; and wore a serviceable hat, like a pent-house, to guard against weather. The worthy here depicted has a most venerable face and beard, shewing how ancient was the habit for parish officers to select the poor and feeble for the office of watchman, in order to keep them out of the poorhouse. Such 'ancient and most quiet watchmen' would naturally prefer being out of harm's way, and warn thieves to depart in peace by ringing the bell, that the wether of their flock carried; then presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave,' as honest Dogberry advises. Above the head of the man, in the original engraving from which our cut is copied, is inscribed the cry he uttered as he walked the round of his parish. It is this: Lanthorne and a whole candell light, hange out your lights heare!' This was in accordance with the old local rule of London, as established by the mayor in 1416, that all householders of the better class, rated above a low rate in the books of their respective parishes, should hang a lantern, lighted with a fresh and whole candle, nightly outside their houses for the accommodation of footpassengers, from Allhallows evening to Candlemas day. There is another picture of a Jacobean bellman in the collection of prints in the British Museum, giving a more poetic form to the cry. It runs thus: 'A light here, maids, hang out your light, May see to pass safe without wrong.' The honest men had, however, need to be abed betimes, for total darkness fell early on the streets when the rush-candle burned in its socket; and 496, age, vi a jam. viii vil give a diewer and wo man lain from al pas feren v By a BD, or via e mer be confunding toiluesume the sign that any other lamps ant te beer 1 use' Cue was an Irist 2 and is lamp seems to havE WHE Savow; it Bowly, but sirdy, came into generat tise, at de stew in our Figure B. It was customary, in the Hogarthian era, and d the those of the last century, to bestow much out on the fros-work abom aristocratic houses. The laparous at the doors were often of highlyeuriched denga in wrought metal; many cid and curious specimens still remain in the older streets quares at the west-end of our metropolis. Fiz C depicts one of these in Manchester Square, and the reader will observe the trumpet-shaped implement D attached midway. This is an extinguisher, and its use was to put out the flambeau carried lighted by the footman at the back of the carriage, during a night-progress in the streets. Johnson notices the cowardly bullies of London, who "Their prudent insults to the poor confine; Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach, WATET ship And him ker and son The aversion Sciety of Friends d Puritan, by The imprisonment have been owing Archbishop Sharp c, however, of long uterposition of the Palatine, and cousin Relay was not only libe bat seems afterwards to huself in the favour of he obtained a royal charter Ury into a free barony, with jurisdiction and otherwise an investiture. The remainder peat in furthering the diffusion of caveling up and down the country in Ceren of its tenets, and employing his he state authorities in shielding his hou persecution. He enjoyed, like Penn, endship of James II., and had frequent grow with him during his visits to London, 4 being in 1688, a short time previous to 25 Revolution. Barclay's own career came to a emnation not long afterwards, and he expired preuraturely at Ury, after a short illness, on 3d kibor 1090, at the age of forty-one. He left, however, a family of seven children, all of whom word living fifty years after his death. One of thom, My David Barclay, who became an eminent mercer in Cheapside, is said, as lord mayor, to have entertained three successive English monarchs George L, 11, and III. The celebrated pedestrian and athlete, Captain Barclay, was a descendant at the great Quaker-champion and the last of cho namo who possessed the estate of Ury. The old mansion-house having passed, in 1854, into the hands of strangers, was pulled down, and with it the Apologist's Study,' which had remained nearly in the same condition as when Had by Barclay, and had formed for generations a favourite object of pilgrimage to the Society of Friends. Harclay's great work, An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and practised by the People called, in scorn, Quakers, was fest published in Latin and afterwards translated By the author into English. It comprises an Aposition and defence of fifteen religious propositions maintained by the Quakers, and forms the ablest and most scholarly defence of their Mnciples that has ever been written. The leading doctrine pervading the book is that of the internal light revealing to man divine truth, which it is Sntended cannot be attained by any logical process investigation or reasoning. Among other works the great Quaker were: A Catechism and of Faith, and A Treatise on Universal Love, the latter being a remonstrance on the criminality of war, and published whilst its author was enduring with his father imprisonment at Aberdeen for conscience' sake. Though so far led away by enthusiasm, on one occasion, as to walk through the streets of Aberdeen, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, as a call on the inhabitants to repentance, Barclay was far from displaying in his ordinary deportment any of that rigour or sourness by which members of his sect have been often supposed to be characterised. He was exemplary in all the relations of life, and was no less distinguished by the gentleness and amiability of his character, than by range and vigour of intellect. TREATY OF LIMERICK. On 3d October 1691, was signed the famous treaty of Limerick, by which the resistance of the Irish to the government of William III. was terminated, and the latter established as undisputed sovereign of the three kingdoms. On the part of the besieged the defence had been conducted by General Sarsfield, one of the bravest and ablest of King James's commanders, who had conducted thither the remains of the army which had continued undispersed after the disastrous engagement of Aghrim, in the preceding month of July. Within the walls of Limerick were contained the whole strength and hope of the Jacobite cause. On the 26th of August, the town was invested by William's Dutch commander, Ginckel, but the garrison made a brave resistance, and it was not till after some terrible encounters that the attacking force was enabled to open its trenches on both sides of the Shannon. On this advantage being gained, Sarsfield, despairing of successfully holding the place, proposed a surrender upon conditions, an offer which was favourably entertained, and by the treaty signed two days subsequently, the war in Ireland was concluded, and tranquillity restored to the country, after a long series of devastating hostilities. creditable both to the wisdom and moderation of The articles of the treaty of Limerick were highly King William, and also to the valour of the Irish garrison, who had succeeded in obtaining such favourable terms. The troops were allowed to march out of the town with all the honours of for France, or enter the service of the English king. war, and had permission, at their option, to embark The majority, numbering about 10,000, preferred the former alternative, and passing over to the continent, enrolled themselves under the standard of Louis XIV., and became that renowned corps so celebrated in the French service, as 'The Irish Brigade.' The most important stipulation of the treaty, however, in a national point of view, was the clause by which the Roman Catholics were stipulation was shamefully violated afterwards by secured in the free exercise of their religion. This the superimposition of oppressive penal laws, by which was fostered a spirit of hatred and hostility sought to conciliate the inhabitants, and the evil to the English government, who ought rather to have results of whose policy towards Ireland, throughout the eighteenth century, are observable even to the present day. |