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at every turn, he reached London on April 15th, 1811, and had the satisfaction, on the same day, of consigning his precious charge to the hands of the widowed Duchess Augusta of Brunswick.

From The Athenærm. THE PETRARCHIAN COMMEMORATION. Avignon, July 21.

I OUGHT to date this letter, perhaps, Like many other fugitives of note, the from Vaucluse, because it was there that Mantuan onyx remained in London till the picture was most effectively, if not 1814, when it returned to Brunswick with most fervidly, coloured, and that the story the long exiled princes of the duchy. of the poet's life and passion told itself For a time it seemed as if nothing more most eloquently. The only obstacle to a could now threaten the peaceful rest of really poetical sympathy with the occasion the wanderer; but in 1830, when the was the inordinate crush of visitors from reigning Duke Charles heard his people every district of the South, all pretending clamouring for his downfall, and saw his to an interest in Petrarch's reputation, palace in flames, he bethought him of his yet generally absorbed in picnicking beMantuan treasure before he sought safety neath the shadow of those trees which in flight, and having sent a confidential they affect to fancy hallowed. Ten thoufriend to remove it from the ducal mu- sand was the least estimate formed of the seum, he carried it away with him. number of persons who arrived by the Thenceforth nothing was known of it. trains on Monday alone. But, before No one ever saw it during the lifetime of noticing the special Vauclusian celebrathe eccentric Diamond Duke; and when tion, I may as well remark, in brief, upon the city of Geneva, in conformity with his the commemoration at Avignon itself. testamentary wishes, claimed as his uni- This must have been programmed-if versal residuary legatee all his works of such an Americanism be permissibleart, a fruitless search was made for the by some persons who scarcely knew long vanished onyx vase. At length, after whether the lover of Laura was an aërooft-repeated examination of the ducal naut, a gladiator, a soldier, or an actor; treasures, it was noticed that a shred of for nothing could be more incongruous flannel protruded from the base of a me- than the arrangements, including, as they tallic vase which appeared to be of very did, a bull-fight, a boat-race, an illuminalittle value. On a closer inspection this tion, and a military procession by torchvase was found to be split lengthways, light. Nevertheless, both Avignon and and to be excessively heavy when com- Vaucluse put on an appearance for the pared with another vase of identical form ceremony such as, I imagine, they never and external appearance with which it put on before-brilliant with colour by seemed to form a pair. On separating day, ablaze with Chinese lanterns by the split surfaces the onyx came to view night; and, at both seasons, resonant perfectly intact and uninjured, and thus with martial music. It is a grand city the mystery of its supposed disappearance this, of mingled sarcerdotal and knightly was at once explained. architecture: its old walls still frowning; lovers were overjoyed at the discovery, its round towers still stately; its gates but their hopes of calling the peerless looking as if no enemy could expect to pass beauty their own were shattered by the unless after an armed defiance from the claim set up by the reigning Duke of turrets; half-decayed palaces; churches Brunswick for the Mantuan onyx as an in which the tombs and tablets bear indeinalienable heirloom of his family; and cipherable inscriptions; and streets of a now, after a second separation of thirty- most medieval appearance. In one refour years, the gem is restored to the spect, however, a majority of the pilgrims ducal museum of Brunswick. Since its were disappointed. Tradition had taught unexpected resuscitation, various draw-them to believe that the tomb of Laura, ings and photographs have appeared of it in Germany, and among these the best is a water-colour sketch by Professor A Gnauth, which gives a very correct representation of the figures with which it is

decorated.

Genevan art

identified in 1533, when Francis the First visited Avignon, and became poetical upon the subject, remained, an extant relic of the Petrarchian period, a centre of interest in the church of St. Clare. No such thing. Both the church and the grave have vanished. Therefore, a doubt arises why the fifth centenary of Petrarch's death should have been commemorated here. He was not born here, but in Arezzo, in Tuscany; he did not die

here, but at Arqua, among the Enganean it was so historically mediæval, so perhills; nor did he generally live here. fectly studied, so true to truth, if I may Nevertheless, Avignon claims him as its thus express myself. The trumpeters, own while conceding to Vaucluse a large the archers, the heralds, might have been proportion of the honour. It is at Vau-approved by Sir Walter Scott himself. cluse that the column in honour of his The chariots, of course, were fanciful, as memory was erected just seventy-four were the effigies of Don Quixote and his years ago, on the anniversary of his birth. Squire; but the reproduction, from auThis monument is precisely equal in thorities, of the pomp that accompanied height to the famous cascade, situated the crowning of Petrarch at Rome was a where the most tender of the sonnets are wonderful reflection from descriptions believed to have been composed; con- five centuries old. This, of course, was fronted by a prodigious rock, round, pol- the most fascinating of the demonstraished, and white; and around it cluster tions, although a little bizarre to modern the true memories of Petrarch. But eyes. First rode the halberdiers, in threatAvignon will not have it so, and insisted ening panoply; then succeeded "the upon a magnificent ceremony in its own chariot of war," resplendent in blood-colname. So distinguished a celebration our and gold; after this, in a strange conhas certainly not been held within the trast, the innocent fishermen, net-makers, present, and probably not during the past, gondoliers, and harvest-men, with whom century. Peculiarly foreign in its fea- were goldsmiths, tailors, merchants, painttures, it nevertheless possessed a charac-ers, and money-changers. Industry and ter and an interest essentially its own. Commerce succeeded, in a sort of golden The gathering of the Provençal min-state, but they attracted comparatively strels, to meet the French and Italian little attention, for the ancient genius of poets at the railway station on Saturday France was coming into sight, whiteevening, was, for example, a unique spec- plumed and steel-helmeted, mounted tacle; while the wonderful apparition of trumpeters, mounted musketeers again, mounted heralds all over the town, look-mounted lansquenets, mounted Knights ing as though they had just started from of Malta, and challengers of all descripout the pages of Froissart, confused your tions. In the next place, a train of ideas of time. Then came the Roman ghosts, in their manner as they lived, effect of the poet's bust, laurelled and superbly horsed and mounted borne on high, and saluted by indescriba- Correggio, Lord of Parma; Malavacina, able possibly, inexplicable — acclama- Lord of Messina; the Counts Annibaldi, tions; and such a march took place as Savelli, Montenera, and Cafarelli, whose must have warmed, unless, indeed, it em- figures are so familiar in Italian history; bittered, the heart of living literature. the Colonna, the Carrara, and Jourdain Around this marble head, and around the des Ursins, as the French programme statue of Crillon at the same time, burst calls him, the terrible Governor of Rome. forth a variegated radiance exceedingly | They made up a cavalcade of unrivalled beautiful, amid the thousand reflections picturesqueness, at the very strangeness of which arose a loud song in the poet's and even grotesqueness of which nobody honour written in Provençal. The pupils seemed inclined to so much as smile. It of the Avignonese Conservatoire sang it was all in honour of Petrarch, and Peremarkably well, and merited the applause trarch here is the presiding spirit of the they obtained. Then torches flamed, and day. Nothing could be more evident everybody was escorted home, with im- than when his particular chariot, on partial respect, in their lurid light. Sun-gilded wheels, and drawn by eight milkday opened with an open-air mass in the white palfreys, came along, himself ensquare over which the antique palace of throned, and around him standing Bocthe Popes still casts its irregular shadow, caccio, Pietro Alighieri, Jacopo Dandolo, partly as a monastery, partly as a bar- Ugolino da Rosci, Cancelleri, and the rack; and at this ceremony it appeared painter Memmi. The Southern enthuas if everything and everybody, including siasm at this moment took fire, and every the prizes won and the heretics present, one went into ecstacies, as though Franwere ostentatiously blessed, besides be- cesco Petrarca, dead precisely five huning overpowered by military music. Next dred years ago, had been his intimate came the grand event of the celebration personal friend. No doubt a great deal -the "Grande Cavalcade de Charité," of excitement was due to the effectivein two pageants. It was really worth this ness of the pageant itself. Every detail, thousand miles' journey to witness; for it was obvious, had been carefully and

Azzo da

even learnedly studied; down to the col-
our, cut, variety of armour and arms
worn; so that we had, so far as was pos-
sible, a faithful reproduction of a scene
in Petrarch's time. It mattered little
that, at Vaucluse, instead of being wholly
sentimental, we lunched with the learned
societies beneath the shade of trees de-
clared to have been consecrated by the
poet; that we marched, on our return,
along the newly-named Petrarch Street,
to the sound of various melodies; or that
we afterwards supped, without stint or
melancholy, at the Hôtel de Ville, with
cordial speeches from ihe Mayor, and M.
Mezieres, of the French Academy; or
that we witnessed with pleasure the
bright red and golden illumination which
made the half-dilapidated Papal palatial
ruins vivid in the evening. The spirit of
Petrarch self-evolved or communicated,
was, notwithstanding, for a few hours, at
any rate, supreme, and gave dignity and
a poetry to the city of Avignon, which
none present could fail to appreciate.
My next will be an exclusively Vauclu-
sian letter.
H. J.

From The Athenæum.

THE HEARNE LETTERS.*

this volume of the year in which Hearne proved his Jacobitism and his distaste for Hanover and the Whigs. His Jacobitism was of a rough and often vulgar sort; but he seems to have corresponded with men who were adversaries, at least in politics. Their letters, too often prosy, contain, as we have said, traits of life and manners worth noting. In 1706, Elias Smith writes to him, "Tom Tuddal, Organist of S. John's, talking in company abt ye Burghess of Hartford presenting his adress & being refus'd by ye Q., 'Ay,' sd he, 'if Dr. Burgess had presented ye Q. would have receivd it.' Ye Chancellor D. Somerset heard of it, & has wrott a pressing letter to have him expell'd. This you may tell abt to bid them have a care of punning in Oxford." A letter from John Hudson leads us to folk-lore. He writes from Theddlethorpe, and, alluding to the Drumming Well, says, "I was told by my obliging Landlord, who was ye best & most knowing man in ye town, yt he heard it beat on ye very day we had ye great overthrow in Spain." All the town said the same, and Hudson had no doubt on the matter. Hudson's letters are by far the raciest in this collection. He rides to York, like Turpin, but not at such a brisk rate, and his notes by the way are amusing. At Peterborough, he says, "As I went into the Ch. just as ye Evening Prayers wr ended, I mett ye Bishop, & beg'd his blessing; I told him yt I was a Traveller yt came from Oxon, & yt my name was - He reply'd a very good name, & so went his way." Subsequently, the prelate encountering Hudson in the Cathedral, showed him over it. "He then," says Hudson, "invited me to drink a glass of wine or ale wth him in his House.

...

THE letters contained in this volume (printed uniformly with the small quartos of the Camden Series) come from the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library. There are fifty-five of them, and, speaking generally, they are of little interest. Nevertheless, he who reads them honestly through, will find here and there curious illustrations of life and manners, which will repay perusal. The dates extend Wn I went in he offerr'd me my from 1705 to 1730. At the earlier date choice of Wine or Ale; I told him wch Hearne was twenty-seven years of age. his Lordship pleas'd; & then there came He went to Oxford in 1696, after, it is a tankard of excellt drink such as Hedsaid, having been in some sort a pupil of dington cannot afford." Hudson, howpious Henry Dodwell. He began by col-ever, was disgusted that the Bishop did lecting Biblical MSS. for Mill and Grabe, not invite him (a stranger) to dinner. "I and, having taken his degree of M. A., he fancy," he maliciously adds, “ye reason was successively assistant and second was, yt all his daughters wr dispos'd of." librarian in the Bodleian; and, in 1715, John Hudson loved good liquor. Bound architypographer and esquire bedel of the for Cambridge, the heat caused him to civil law. He gave up all, sturdy as he put up "in ye edge of yt County," where, was, rather than take the oaths of alle- he says, "I mett wth such incomparable giance to George the First; but he con- liquor, as would have stop't you from tinued to work as a scholar in the Uni-reaching the University that night." versity, where he died in 1735. When he arrived there at last, Dr. BentIt is curious that there are no letters in ley received him "wth a sort of haughty civility, such as it seems is natural to him." After which, Hudson rode northward, but did not reach Lynn as early as

Letters Addressed to Thomas Hearne, M.A., of Edmund Hall. Edited by Frederick Ouvry. (Privately printed.)

could not have imagined if I had not actually "heard it my self, that so much Heat, Passion, Violence, & scurrilous Language, to say no worse of it, could have come from a Protestant

he expected, "ye Norfolcians giveing a larger measure to yr miles yn to yr cloth.' But Hudson entered York at last, and "Florence," he says, "is ye liquor we remember or friends in ; & good Port wine & water passes for or small beer." Hudson lived cheaply enough during his ride. He notices having got at Cambridge "excellt wine at 20d. a bottle." Those good old times!

The most important letter in the series is one from Dr. Evans, in which there is an account of Sacheverell and his famous sermon, preached at St. Paul's. Hearne would have differed from the writer, but he must have been amused by this description of the preacher :

If I

I'm sure

Pulpit, much less from one that pretends to be
had heard it in a Popish Chappel, or a Con-
a member of the Church of England.
venticle, I should not have wonder'd: but in a
Cathedral, it greatly surprized me.
such Discourses will never convert any one,
but I'm afray'd will rather give the Enemies
of our Church great advantage over her;
since the best that her true sons can say of it,
is that the man is mad: and indeed most
People here think him so.

66

poore men yt carried him by turns, & had 5s. a piece for it; ye coffin cover'd wth a few yards of black cloth, instead of a Pall, & yt given to ye minister of ye Parish for a gown."

In June, 1711, Hilkiah Bedford sends Hearne an account of the illness and burial of Bishop Ken, at Longleat. The Bp. Ken Last Saturday being ye vth of Novemb D: account of the burial is new: Sacheverel your mighty Boanerges thunderd was bury'd before 6 in ye morning by his most furiously at Paul's against ye phanaticks own apptmt, for ye more privacy: atfor condemning ye King of high treason against tended to the grave only by my Ld his supream subjects, as he express'd it. He Weymouth]'s Steward (I think) & 12 spoke very freely of ye toleration Act, & charged ye Mayors and Magistrates with want of zeal for ye Church, & play'd particularly & ex pressly upon ye B. of Sarum; whom he hoped was no great friend to popery he said, but by his exposition on the Articles on wd think he was halfe channelled over. We were about 30 Clergymen in ye Quire, & among ye rest ye minister of Battersea who is lately come over to our Church, Sacheverel having heard of his Conversion, levelled his arguments and anathemas most virulently against him, and ye whole tribe of 'em: in so much yt all ye Congregation were shaken agen at the terrours of his inveterate expressions. The whigs says he are Conformists in faction halfe Conformists in practise, & non Conformists in

Judgment, formerly they labour'd to bring ye Church into ye Conventicle, but now they bring ye Conventicle into ye Church, which will prove its Inevitable ruine. His text was this word: In perils among false brethren, & his sermon upon 't was so violent that I think my Ld Mayor & Court of Aldermen will hardly desire him to print it: but if it be printed, I 'le endeavr to get it you, provided I happen to be then in town.

Mary Barnes, writing of the death of her husband, the Greek scholar, affords an example of how words change in signification in course of time. Hearne had been kind to Joshua Barnes, and the widow tells him, "I shall hereafter endeavour to shew how much I resent good Mr. Hearne's continued civilities." Good Mr. Hearne had to be more than civil in various quarters, and particularly to his father and his household. The old parish clerk and schoolmaster must have been deep in the vale of years in 1716. was proud of his son as the editor of Livy and other books, at which he was "ravisht with joy," and only wished he had more Latin to understand them. Thus writes the father in 1716: –

He

The weather proving so bad I know not whether I may se your face againe, for I expect The sermon, which, denouncing insur- to be laid quite up this winter if I live so long rections against the sovereign, con- for the pain will kill me if I can goe about, demned the revolution which placed good son if you have any spare cast Linnen as William and Mary on the throne, and shirts bands or handkerchiefs or a pair of old consequently insinuated that Anne had stockings which will go into a small bundle no right to occupy it, was printed. Ben-send it by the carrier as soon as you can. I nett thus speaks of the manner and the

man:

shall be very thankfull and accept them be they ne're so mean for at present 'tis hard with me being to pay my Rent that I cannot buy I don't question but that you have seen Dr. any thing of apparel & I cannot work. Ned Sacheverel's bold discourse at St. Paul's on ye is Gardener at Coll. Sawyers William & he 5th November. I had the Curiosity to hear gives their loves to you & Wm thanks you for it, & so can assure you 'tis verbatim as 'twas sending him the Guinea to help his charge he preach't. It lasted a full hour & a half, & was has only his cloths which were but mean deliverd with all the Assurance & Confidence neither for all his charge he was not married that violent Preacher is so remarkal le for. I' but was sure to one som time and she married

another which was the cause of his being unsettled in minde ever since.

Again, in 1717, George Hearne sends up a cry to Oxford: "If you have any old worsted stockings of a sad collour put up a paire and remember to lend me some diverting book... some diverting History which shall certainly be returned wth hearty thanks." Old George endured life painfully. Dr. Morris, of Wells, was determined to go out of it tunefully. This physician ordered in his will, says John Tottenham, "yt three Sonatas should be play'd over his Corps just before it was carry'd from ye House to ye church. And ye Ceremony was yesterday per form'd." What a subject for a picture! There was a serious gratefulness in the playing of those sonatas; and indeed the times were serious. In other words, there was not that general indifference in religious matters as some persons have stated. Cuthbert Constable, a Roman Catholic, writes to Hearne in 1730 as follows (the "worthy person "alluded to was Dr. Howarden, but he went by the name of Harrison, being a Catholic, but also " a potent enimy to the bad Doctrine of the Jesuits"): –

I think it will not be amiss to acquaint you with some of the good qualities of that worthy person who had a publick dispute with Dr. Clark at his own house where there were more Ladys of Quality than Scholars which was the greater pitty; however the Gentleman I speak better in the dispute and Dr. Clark was so of was generaly thought to have had much the fair an enimy as to acknowledge and confess his great learning and abilities and one of the greatest persons of quality amongst the Ladies and who was so great an admirer of Dr. Clark that she ust commonly for her tost to chouse Dr. Clark Mistress which she was accustomed to say was truth so blinded she was by this smouth Dr. This Lady I say as great an admirer as she was of Clark yet sent the next made him very handsome compliments. day after the dispute to his adversary and

The above are fresh sketches of a bygone period, and they are as pleasant to read as to think over. The collection contains no other examples of the life of the eighteenth century of special interest; but there are many references to books which will attract the lovers of such references. The volume would have been much improved by explanatory notes, and also by such an Index as generally accompanies the volumes issued by the Camden Society.

MR. LOISEAU of Philadelphia has invented a machine which, with the help of two men, will produce one hundred and fifty tons of artificial fuel in a day. The materials are ninety-five per cent. of coal-dust with five per cent. of clay, sprinkled during the mixing with milk of lime. The pasty raass is then moulded into egg-shaped lumps; these are dried on belts of wire-gauze, are dipped into a solution of resin and benzine, to render them dampproof, and are ready for the market. In this way, it is hoped a means of utilizing the prodigious heaps of coal-dust at the Pennsylvania mines has been discovered.

ON the 15th May was sold, in Paris, by auction, the first part of the curious library of

the late M. Lucien de Rosney, father of the eminent Japanese scholar. It was rich in fine and, above all, eccentric bindings, such as in skins of cat, garnet coloured and buff, crocodile, mole, seal, fur of the Canadian black wolf, royal tiger, otter, white bear, sole, and rattle-snake. The legendary human skin binding is alone wanting in the list. The latter reminds the writer of a visit he paid some thirty years ago to the Imperial library of the Hradschin in Prag, when he was shown an excessively rare MS., written on a small sheet of parchment by the celebrated John Zizka. A commercial traveller, who was present, remembering that the great Hussite leader desired that after his death his skin should be used for a drum, to frighten the enemies of his cause, asked if Zizka really wrote on his own skin. Athenæum.

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