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DROSSIAN A.

NUMBER XLII.

ANECDOTES of ILLUSTRIOUS and EXTRAORDINARY PERSONS,

PERHAPS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

A THING OF SHREDS AND PATCHES!

[Continued from Page 120.]

KING WILLIAM THE THIrd.

SOME letters of this illuftrious Prince were found a few years ago at Kenfington Palace, in a clofet that had been boarded up. It appears by them, that his excellent Queen had been with child, or at least had, perhaps, thought herself fo. In one of his letters to the Queen, during his abfence in Ireland, he forbids her to pardon any perfon that fhall be properly found guilty of houfebreaking; in fo heinous a light did this fenfible Prince hold that crime, which is committed in the fecret hour of the night, to the dread and terror of mankind.-King William broke his collarbone upon one of the hunters that belonged to Sir John Fenwick, who was, extrajudicially perhaps, attainted of High Treafon in his reign. A good Tory wrote fome Latin lines upon the occafion, which began thus :

Illuftris Sonipes certè digniffime cœlo, Cui Leo, cui Taurus, cui dabat Urfa locum.

Thy place in Heaven, illuftrious Courfer, fharc,

Nor dread the radiance of the fhaggy

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HAMLET.

The Eaft end is bad, both on the infide

and outfide. Sir Chriftopher had, indeed, intended a Baldaquino, or Canopy, for the Altar, like that of St. Peter's at Rome. Some impediments were thrown in the way of it. He was no lefs impeded in the construction of the Dome, the piers of which he was not permitted to make of folid ftone, as he intended; but he was obliged to fill them up with rubble; hence one of the piers is fettled. The Dome is, however, a mafter-piece of construction, and does honour to his fkill as a Geometrical Archite&t. Decoration was by no means Sir Chriftopher's forte. His ornaments are ugly and ill-judged. In the gardens of the Architect of that national ornament Somerlet-houfe, near Hounslow, there is a Temple dedicated to the celebrated Architects by this excellent difciple of their's. His own buft is placed in a corner, with this infcription :

Non ita certan:li cupidus, quam propter

amorem

Vos imitari aveo.

An original buft of Sir Chriftopher Wren was lately prefented to him, to occupy a place in the Temple, with this infcription:

Archite&to bujus Sæculi Principi, Architecti prioris Sæculi Principis Ima ginem, (ut Par eft) D. D.

W. S. 1792.

The celebrated infcription upon Sir Christopher," Circumfpice,' Circumfpice," should be placed upon the pavement under the Done, and not in the vault under the church, where no one goes to look at it. Sir Christopher, as if conscious that one day or other the good taste and good fenfe of his countrymen would render his wonderful fabric the British Temple of Fame for the illuftrious dead, has left niches and spaces in the infide of the church for flatues and monuments.

This depofit of the gratitude of a country to thefe who have deferved well of it, begins very properly with the monuments of Mr. Howard, Dr. Johnfon, and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

CHARLES THE FIRST. Many refemblances occur in feveral of the circumstances attending the execution of this Prince, and that of the late unfortunate and excellent Louis XVI. For the honour, however, of England, British ferocity ftopped infinitely fhort of Gallic crucity. The following extract is made from a very curious little book, called "England's Shame, or the Unmasking of a Politic Atheift; being a full and faithful Relation of the Life and Death of that Grand Impoftor Hugh Peters. By William Young, M. D. London, 1663, 12mo. Dedicated to Her Moft Excellent Majefty Henrietta Maria, the Mother Queen of England, Scotland, France,

and Ireland."

"The foldiers were fecretly admonished by letters from Hugh Peters to exercile the admired patience of King Charles, by upbraiding him to his face; and fo it was; for having gotten.him on board their bout to tranfport him to Westminster Hall, they would not afford him a cuthion to fit upon, nay, fcarcely the company of his fpaniel, but fcoffed at him moft vilely; as if to blafpheme the King were not to blafpheme God, who had established him to be his Vicegerent, our fupreme Moderator, and a faithful Culos Duorum Tabularum Legum, Keeper of both Ta

bles of the Law.

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"The King being fafely arrived at Whitehall (that they might the cafier reach the rown), they do with pious pretences. feconded with fears of declining, hoodwink their General Fairfax to condefcend to this bloody facri fcc. Whereas Oliver Cromwell and Ireton would appear only to be his admirers, and fpectators of the regicide, by ftandig in a window at Whitehall, within view of the fcaffold and the people; whilt Peters, fearing a tumult, diffembles hinfelf ́fick at St. James's; concciting that he might thereby plead not guilty, though no man was more forward than he to encourage Colonel Axtell in this action, and to animate his regiment to cry for juftice against the travter, for fo they called the King." "The refidy e paft," adds Dr. Young, "that the King inuft be conveyed from

Windfor Caftle to Hampton Court. Harrifon rides with him, and upbraids him to his face. Peters riding before him out of the Castle cries, "We'll whifk, we'll whisk him, now we have him.' A pattern of loyalty, one formerly a Captain for the King's intereft, feizing Peters his bridle, fays, "Good Mr. Peters, what will you do with the King? I hope that you will do his perfon no harm." That Peters might be Peters, he replies, "He fhail die the death of a traitor, were there never a man in England but he." The Captain, forced to loofe his hold of the reins by a blow given him over his hand with Peters's ftaff, this Trumpeter of Sorrow rides on finging his fad note, whifk him, we'll whisk him, I warrant you, now we have him !?

"We'll

Oliver Cromwell is faid to have put his hand to the neck of Charles as he was placed in his coffin, and to have made obfervations on the extreme appearance of health and a long life that his body exhibited upon diffcction.

Oliver was at first anxious to have stained

his memory, by pretending that the King had a fcandalous difeafe upon him at the time of his death, had he not been prevented by a bold and steady affertion to the contrary made by a Phyfician, who chanced to be prefent at the opening of the body.

ANTHONY JONES.

The prefent defervedly popular Air of "God Save the King" is fuppofed to have been compofed by this Mufician, contemporary with Purcell, and grandfather of the late Mrs. Arne, Mrs. Lampe, and Mrs. Jones, all Stage Singers, while fpinfters, by the name of Young. When this tune was revived in 1745, tradition faid, that the word. of “God save the King" were written, and the tune compofed, for King James the Second, during the time that the Prince of Orange was expected to land in England. During the Rebellion of 1745,. the learned and ingenious Dr. Burney, auther of the General Hiftory of Mufic, compofed parts to the old melody at the defire of Mrs. Cibber, for Drury-lane Theatre, where it was fung in a flow and folemn manner, in three parts, by Mrs. Cibber, Mr. Beard, and Reinhold, the father of the prefent finger of that name; and repeated in chorus, augmented in force, ufually, by the whole audience. It was called for at this Theatre for near

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two years after the fuppreffion of the Indies. He went immediately to the Rebellion.

Mr. POPE.

According to the account a very fenfible and ingenious Lady now living, and who was in Mr. Pope's houfe at the time of his death, gives of that melancholy tranfaction, Mr. Pope did not in his laft hours like the Catholic Prieft recommended by Mr. Hooke to come to him, till he knew that Lord Bolingbroke had quitted his house. Mr. Pope died as he was receiving extreme unction. Mr. Pope, very probably from not having fufficiently attended to his religious faith and principles, was a good deal in the ftate of that French Nobleman mentioned in one of their Mifcellanies, called Ana, who at the requifition of his wife fent for a Prieft, and when the Prieft asked him, whether he believed fuch and fuch a particular

Article, he turned to his wife, and faid, "My dear, fhould I believe that?" -Mr. Pope indeed, in one of his letters to Atterbury the Bishop of Rochester, talking of his reading books of controverfy on religious fubjects, fays, "At the age of feventeen I warmed my head with them, and the confequence was, that I found myfelf a Proteftant and a Papist by turns, according to the laft book I read." "This," adds Bishop Warburton, his Editor, "is an admirable picture of every reader bufied in religious controverfy, without poffeffing the principles in which a right judgment of the merits in queftion is to be found." It were then furely much fafer and more modeft for the mafs of mankind not to trouble their heads about religious. controverfies, and not like fools"rufh in where Angels dare

not tread."

LORD GEORGE GERMAINE. This eloquent and acute man, who, like all other Politicians, was occafionally the prey of faction and party malignity, during the time that he was Minifter for that unfortunate department of the State called the American one, behaved with the greatest nobleness and independence of fpirit. A fecond Naval Review was propofed during the American War, at a time in which this noble Lord thought the fhips that were to afford the amufement of it, would be much better employed in the Weft VOL. XXIII.

Council with his refignation in his pocket, threatening inftantly to give up bis place, if the fhips that were wanted for operations of infinite moment and concern were to be made ufe of for fo The Naval Retrifling an occafion. view did not take place.-Lord George's behaviour in this inftance fhews what a proper degree of influence, in any Cabinet whatfocver, a Minifter of fenfe joined with integrity and spirit must ever obtain.

Shakespeare makes King John say ' well to Hubert

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LORD BOLINGBROKE,

In a letter of his lately printed, but not published, by Sir William Young, Bart. in a very elegant and entertaining book, entitled, " Contemplatio Philofophica," a pofthumous work of the late Brooke Taylor, LL. D. author of that bears his name, fays, "If you the celebrated Treatife on Perspective. fee the Abbe Conti, afk him, whether it be true that there is at Venice a MS. Hiftory of the Cæfars by Eunapius, of whom it is pretended that Zofimus was only an abridger, as Juftin was of Trogus Pompeius, or Hepheftion of Dion Caffius.' In fpeaking of Dr. the Caufes and King's Treatife on Origin of Moral Evil, he fays, "It runs in my head, that the Author has not taken all the advantages which, as a Philofopher, he might have done against the Defender of the Epicurean and Manichean Syftems; and fure it is, that as a Divine he lies under fome additional

difadvantages, cafily understood, and therefore not neceffary to be explained.”

In the fame work there is a very pretty letter from the fecond Lady Bolingbroke, Madame de Maintenon's niece, to Dr. Taylor, grandfather of the Editor, in which there is this true fentiment, very elegantly expressed :--"Je fuis bien fachee que vous aviez trouvé tant de difficultés dans vos affaires; mais avec de l'amour & du courage dequoi ne vient on point au bout?"

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XIV. with great gallantry, made him a prefent of his own fuit of armour. In his Oratory, after his death, fcourges tinged with blood were found. Not long before his death he paid a vifit to the Convent of La Trappe in Normandy, in company with the Duke of Berwick, Lord Dumbarton, and the Marinal de Belfonds; and after having paid great attention to the regulations and difcipline of the houfe, he faid at parting, to the famous Abbe de Rancé, Abbot of the Convent, who attended him, "Monfieur, il faut venir ici pour

THE

apprendre comme Dieu doit être prie & fervi. Je tâcherai de faire enfuite que chacun dans fa fituation vous imite en quelque chofe, & j'efpere fi Dieu m'en donne le temps, que ce voyage ne fera pas la dernier." Many of the papers and MSS. which James left to the Scotch College at Paris, have never yet been opened. It is to be hoped our Miniftry will take the proper means to fecure them for this country, in cafe of the diffolution of that venerable eftablishment.

(To be continued. )

The ABBEY of St. DENIS, near PARIS.

(WITH A VIEW. )

HIS Abbey is of royal foundation, being endowed by Charlemagne, St. Louis, and Philip the Bold. The Abbot was appointed by the Sovereign. The laft of the Abbots was the celebrated Cardinal de Retz, who was named to that dignity by Louis XIV. in confequence of his refignation of the Archbishopric of Paris into the hands of that Prince after his return from Italy. After his death the revenues of that dignity were annexed by Louis to Madame de Maintenon's foundation for the daughters of the poor nobility of France. The church of St. Denis is the Westminster Abbey of France, most of its monarchs having been entombed in it. The Princes of the Houfe of Valois have a magnifi cnt maufoleum appended to the north fide of the church. The godlike Turenne, and Bertran du Gueflin, Great Conftable of France, are nearly the only private perfons that have the honour of fepulture in this royal Abbey. Part of the weft end of the fabric remains as it

was built in the tune of Charlemagne. The nave of the prefent church was built by St. Louis in 1231, and the choir was finished in 1281, by Philip the Bold. The treafury of the church was fuppofed to have been extremely rich in vafes of gold and filver, and in precious ftones.. In the prefent fyftem of plunder that prevails in France, there is no reafon to fuppofe that they have efcaped the general wreck which every thing divine and human have undergone in that country. Louis the Fifteenth is the laft fovereign that was buried at St. Denis. No monument, however, was erected to him, or even to Louis XIV. The late excellent and

of

unfortunate Monarch France, butchered on a fcaffold by his inhuman and faithlefs fubjects, without shadow of law or pretence of right, was, after his execution, thrown into a hole, without the leaft femblance of religious rites, and was immediately confumed, fome quick-lime being thrown into the grave for that purpofe. His fpirit, were it not at prefent employed in matters of greater concern, might have cryed out, with that of Archytes in Horace,

-Vage ne parce malignus arenæ Particulam dare. Offibus & capiti inhumato

Which may be thus paraphrafed: Ye cruel faithlefs fons of Gallia's race, 'Tis infult fure enough, enough dif

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dare,

Your victim's afhes ye difdain to fpare ;
And the fad rites of fepulture deny
To injur'd and to murder'd Majefty.

The infide of the nave of the church of St. Denis, in the lightness of its conftruction, and in the elegance of its proportions, very much refembles the nave of our very beautiful fabric Westminster Abbey. The print we prefent to our readers was taken from an old engraving by the celebrated Marot, made about the year 1670. The monks that attended in the Abbey were of the Order of St. Benedict. They, with the rest of the religious orders, have been fuppreffed by the prefent Government of France.

BREAD

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EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

The Royal Abbey of S. Denis.

Publish'd by J.Sewell Cornhill1 April1793.

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