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page entered, and pronounced in a tone meant for his particular ear, but loud enough to be heard by every one present, "Please your royal highness, she is come." There was a moment's awful pause. "Who is come?" said his royal highness, in a tone between surprise, embarrassment, and canger. "Sir, she is come," repeated the page, with his bad English and German phlegm. "Eh! what, what! who is come?" exclaimed the king. "She, your majesty, reiterated the unmoved German. "She is come!" cried the queen, bursting with wrath, and supposing that the visiter was one of the house of Luttrell, who already sought an undue influence over the prince. All was for a moment inexplicable confusion. The queen summoned another page, and asked him with fury in her looks, "Who is she that dares inquire for the Prince of Wales ?" "Please your majesty," said the second oracle, "it is Shea, his royal highness's tailor." Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Library, vol. ii.

THE PRINCE OF WALES AND MRS.

FITZHERBERT.

He had now formed an attachment of no common kind to a lady, whose name at this period came frequently before the public associated with his. A veil of ambiguity or mystery covered, and still covers, the relations of the Prince of Wales with Mrs. Fitzherbert. She received all the respect and exercised all the influence which could belong to rank, character, accomplishments, and manners, in the highest class of society in this country during her intimacy with the prince, and after their separation; and she is still living: surrounded, in her advanced years, with all the consideration which could do honour to the

decline of a life the most estimable. Mrs. Fitzherbert was first married at sixteen, and had still all the graces of beauty and youth on the death of Colonel Fitzherbert. She was brought up abroad, with every advantage of a costly and consummate education. Her beauty had that soft and touching character, the result of fair complexion and blue eyes which distinguishes Englishwomen abroad, and obtained her the appellation of the angelic English blonde. The cousin of Lord Sefton, and related to other distinguished families, she lived in a sphere of society in London which necessarily made her acquainted with the Prince of Wales. He became enamoured, declared his passion, and was the cause of her retiring to the conti

nent to avoid his importunities. Having remained abroad about three years, she returned to England in 1784. The prince on her return declared the continuance and repeated the sincerity of his attachment, with, it would appear, more success. Their intimacy for some time was known only to the initiated in high life; they moved and met in the same society, apparently on terms rather of formal than familiar acquaintance. The secret was divulged shortly before the prince's quarrel with the king, and base advantage was taken of it to wound the private feelings of the prince where manly feelings are the most vulnerable. She was of a Catholic family, herself a Catholic; and this was easily turned against the Prince of Wales, at a period of religious bigotry, and political alarm, especially in the mind of George III.— Ibid.

A GREAT SLEEPER.

THE Stadtholder, who had recently fled from Holland, was also the prince's guest, and afforded amusement by the whimsical incongruity with which he chose his occasions for going to sleep. The princess commanded a play for his entertainment in spite of her vivacity and utmost efforts, he slept and snored in the box beside her, and was roused with some difficulty when the curtain fell. A ball having been given in compliment to him at the Castle-tavern, he fell asleep whilst eating his supper, and snored so loud as to disturb the harmony of the orchestra and the decorum of the assembly. His Dutch highness was also entertained, if the term in this instance be admissible, with a grand masquerade, and was perplexed by the difficulty of resolving in what dress or character he should attend it. The Prince of Wales

said he might go as an old woman.

Ibid.

PRIVATE MEMOIRS OF GEORGE III. It was well known to be the habit of Geo. III. to write in various folios, for an hour after he rose in the morning. This practice was not obviously consistent with his want of facility and taste in any sort of composition; but his manuscripts were only registers of names, with notes annexed of the services, the offences, and the characters, as he judged them, of the respective persons. "In addition," says a publication of 1779," to the numerous private registers always kept by the king, and written with his own hand, he has lately kept another, of all those Americans

who have either left the country voluntarily rather than submit to the rebels, and also of such as have been driven out by force; with an account of their losses and services." It is somewhat cruel to lay bare "the bosomed secrets" of any man, even after the grave has closed upon his passions and weaknesses; but if these registers of George III. still exist, and should ever come to light, they will be as curious private memoirs as have ever appeared: they doubtless promoted the remembrance and compensation of losses and services; but they also produced his petty longcherished resentments, less hurtful to their objects than injurious to his own character and torturing to his breast.Ibid.

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SUPPOSED POSTHUMOUS WORK OF DR. JOHNSON'S.

An Ode written April 15, 1786. ST. PAUL'S deep bell, from stately tower, Had sounded once and twice the hourBlue burnt the midnight taper ; Hags their dark spells o'er cauldrons hewed,

While Sons of Ink their work pursued,

Printing "the Morning Paper."
Say, Herald, Chronicle, or Post,
Which then beheld great Johnson's
ghost,

Grim, horrible, and squalid?
Compositors their letters dropt,
Pressmen their printing engines stopt,
And devils all grew pallid.
Enough! the spectre cried, Enough!
No more of your fugacious stuff,

Trite anecdotes and stories!
Rude martyrs of Sam. Johnson's name,
You rob him of his honest fame,

And tarnish all his glories. First in the fertile tribe is seen Tom Tyres, in the Magazine, That teazer of Apollo! With goose-quill he, like desperate knife,

Slices, as Vauxhall beef, my life,

And calls the town to swallow. The cry once up, the dogs of news, Who hunt for paragraphs the stews, Yelp out "Johnsoniana!" Their nauseous praise but moves my bile,

Like tartar, carduus, camomile,

Or ipecacuanha.

Next Boswell comes, for 'twas my lot To find at last one honest Scot

With constitutional veracity; Yet garrulous he tells too much, On fancied failings prone to touch With sedulous loquacity.

At length, Job's patience it would try, Brewed on my lees comes "Thrale's Entrie,"

Straining to draw my picture;
For she a common-place book kept,
"Johnson at Streatham dined and slept,"
And who shall contradict her?
Thrale lost midst fiddles and sopranos,
With them plays fortes and pianos,
I loved Thrale's widow and Thrale's
Adagio and allegro.
wife

But now, believe-to write my life!
I'd rather trust my negro.

I

gave the public works of merit, Written with vigour, fraught with spirit, Applause crowned all my labours; But thy delusive pages speak My palsied powers, exhausted, weak,

The scoff of friends and neighbours.

They speak me insolent and rude,
Light, trivial, puerile, and crude,

Poor Tuscan-like improvisation
The child of pride and vanity.
Is but of English sense castration,

And infantine inanity.

Such idle rhymes, like Sybil's leaves,
Kindly the scattering winds receive→

The gatherer proves a scorner.
But hold! I see the coming day!
The spectre said—and stalked away,
To sleep in Poet's Corner.

WORSE AND WORSE.

DOCTOR PERNE happening to call a clergyman a fool, who was not totally undeserving of the title, but who resented the indignity so highly, that he threatened to complain to his diocesan, the Bishop of Ely, "Do so," says the Doctor, "and he will confirm you." J. G. B.

UNPARALLELED RIDING.

IN 1603, one John Lepton, of Reprich, Esq., in the county of York, undertook

to ride five several times betwixt London and York in six days, to be taken in one week, between Monday morning and Saturday night: he began his journey on Monday morning, and finished it on the Friday after, to the great admiration of all.-Old History. T. GILL.

Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; G. G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.

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ANCIENT PALACE OF HOLYROOD, AT EDINBURGH.

HERE is another of the resting-places of fallen royalty; and a happy haven has it proved to many a crowned head; a retreat where the plain reproof of flattery

How can you say to me, -I am a king? would sound with melancholy sadness and truth.

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The reader of "the age and body of the time" need not be told that the tenancy of Holyrood by the Ex-King of France has suggested its present introduction, although the Engraving represents the Palace about the year 1640. The structure, in connexion with the Chapel, is thus described in Chambers's Picture of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 61. The Chapel and Palace of Holyrood are situated at the extremity of the suburb called the Cannongate. The ordinary phrase "the Abbey," still popularly applied to both buildings, indicates that the former is the more ancient of the two. Like so many other religious establishments, it owns David I. for its

A view of the Chapel, from the Dioraina, in the Regent's Park, with ample descriptive details, will be found in vol. v. of The Mirror. VOL. XVII. M

founder. Erected in the twelfth century, and magnificently endowed by that monarch, it continued for about four centuries to flourish as an abbey, and to be, at least during the latter part of that time, the residence of the sovereign. In the year 1528, James V. added a palace to the conventual buildings. During the subsequent reign of Mary, this was the principal seat of the court; and so it continued in a great measure to be, till the departure of King James VI. for England. Previously to this period, the Abbey and Palace had suffered from fire, and they have since undergone such revolutions, that, as in the celebrated case of Sir John Cutler's stockings, which, in the course of darning, changed nearly their whole substance, it is now scarcely possible to distinguish what is really an

cient from the modern additions.

As they at present stand, the Palace is a handsome edifice, built in the form of a quadrangle, with a front flanked by double towers, while the Abbey is reduced from its originally extensive dimensions to the mere ruin of the chapel, one corner of which adjoins to a poste

479

rior angle of the Palace. Of the pala- Retrospective Gleanings.

tial structure, the north-west towers alone are old. The walls were certainly erected in the time of James V. They contain the apartments in which Queen Mary resided, and where her minion, Rizzio, fell a sacrifice to the revenge of her brutal husband. A certain portion of the furniture is of the time, and a still smaller portion is said to be the handiwork of that princess. The remaining parts of the structure were erected in the time of Charles II. and have at no time been occupied by any royal personages, other than the Duke of York, Prince Charles Stuart, the Duke of Cumberland, the King of France, (in 1795-9,) and King George IV. in 1822. In the northern side of the quadrangle is a gallery one hundred and fifty feet in length, filled with the portraits of nearly as many imaginary Scottish kings. The south side contains a suite of state apart ments, fitted up for the use of the last mentioned monarch. These various departments of the Palace, as well as the Chapel, are shown to strangers, for a gratuity, by the servants of the Duke of Hamilton, who is hereditary keeper of the Palace. It may be mentioned, before dismissing this subject, that the precincts of these interesting edifices were formerly a sanctuary of criminals, and can yet afford refuge to insolvent debtors.

From the time of the departure of George the Fourth from Edinburgh, in 1822, Holyrood Palace remained without any distinguished inhabitant until last year, when Charles the Tenth, and his suite, took up their abode within its walls. In the same year too, died George IV.

THE LAST SOUNDS OF BATTLE.
(For the Mirror.)

HARK! on yonder blood-trod hill,
The sound of battle lingers still,-
But faint it comes, for every blow
Is 'feebled with the touch of woe:
Their limbs are weary, and forget
They stand upon the battle plain,-
But still their spirit flashes yet,
And dimly lights their souls again!
Like revellers, flush'd with dead'ning wine,
Measuring the dance with sluggish tread,
Their spirits for an instant shine,
Ashamed to show their pow'r hath fled.
But hark! e'en that faint sound hath died,
And sad and solemn up the vale
The silence steals, and far and wide
It tells of death the dreadful tale.

J. M. W.

ANCIENT TOPOGRAPHY OF HOLBORN. (For the Mirror.)

THE name of Holborn is derived from an ancient village, built upon the bank of the rivulet, or bourne, of the same name.-Stowe says, "Oldborne, or Hilborne, was the water, breaking out about the place where now the Barres doe stand; and it ranne downe the whole street to Oldborne Bridge, and into the river of the Wels, or Turne-mill Brooke. This Boorne was long since stopped up at the head, and other places, where the same hath broken out; but yet till this day, the said street is there called high, Oldborne hill, and both sides thereof, (together with all the grounds adjoining, that lye betwixt it and the River of Thames,) remaine full of springs, so that water is there found at hand, and hard to be stopped in every house."

"Oldborne Conduit, which stood by Oldborne Crosse, was first builded 1498. Thomasin, widow to John Percival, maior, gave to the second making thereof twenty markes; Richard Shore, ten pounds; Thomas Knesworth, and others also, did give towards it.But of late, a new conduit was there builded, in place of the old, namely, in the yeere 1577, by William Lambe, sometime a gentleman of the chappell to King Henry the Eighth, and afterwards a citizen and clothworker of London, which amounted to the sum of 1,5007.

"Scroops' Inne,* sometime Sergeant's Inne, was situate against the church of St. Andrew, in Oldborne, in the city of London, with two gardens.

"On the High-streete of Oldborne (says Stowe) have ye many fair houses builded, and lodgings for gentlemen, innes for travellers, and such like, up almost (for it lacketh but little) to Sta Giles's in the Fields."

Gerard, the famous herbalist, lived in Holborn, and had there a large botanic garden. Holborn was then in the outskirts of the town on that side. Richard the Third asked the Bishop of Ely to send for some of the good strawberries which he beard the bishop had in his garden in Holborn.

"In 1417, Lower Holborn (says Brayley) one of the great inlets to the city, was first paved, it being then described as a highway, so deep and miry, that many perils and hazards were thereby occasioned; and the King, at his own expense, is recorded to have * From Lord Scroops, of Bolton,

employed two vessels, each of twenty tons burthen, for bringing stones for that purpose.

"In 1534 an act was passed for paving with stone the street between Holborn Bridge and Holborn Bars, at the west end thereof, and also the streets of Southwark; and every person was made liable to maintain the pavement before his door, under the forfeiture of sixpence to the king for every square yard."

On the south side of Holborn Hill was St. Andrew's Church, of considerable antiquity; but rebuilt in a plain, neat manner. Here was buried Thomas Wriothesley, lord chancellor in the latter part of the life of Henry the Eighth a fiery zealot, who (says Pennant) not content with seeing the amiable Anne Askew put to the torture, for no other crime than difference of faith, flung off his gown, degraded the chancellor into the bureau, and with his own hands gave force to the rack.

“Furnival's Inn was one of the hosteries belonging to Lincoln's Inn, in old times the town abode of the Lords of Furnivals.

"Thaive's Inn was another, old as the time of Edward the Third. It took its name from John Tavye.

"Staples Inn; so called from its having been a staple in which the woolmerchants were used to assemble.

“Barnard's Inn, originally Mackworth's Inn, having been given by the executors of John Mackworth, dean of Lincoln, to the dean and chapter of Lincoln, on condition that they should find a pious priest to perform divine service in the cathedral of Lincoln-in which John Mackworth lies interred.

Hatton Garden was the town house and gardens of the Lord Hatton, founded by Sir Christopher Hatton, lordkeeper in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The place he built his house on was the orchard and garden belonging to Ely House.

"Brook House was the residence of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.

"Southampton Buildings, built on the site of Southampton House, the mansion of the Wriothesleys, earls of Southamp ton. When Lord Russel passed by this house, on his way to execution, he felt a momentary bitterness of death, in recollecting the happy moments of the place. He looked (says Pennant) to wards Southampton House, the tear started into his eye, but he instantly wiped it away.

"Gray's Inn is a place of great antiquity: it was originally the residence

of the Lord Grays, from the year 1315, when John, the son of Reginold de Grey, resided here, till the latter end of the reign of Henry the Seventh, when it was sold, by Edmund Lord Grey, of Wilton, to Hugh Dennys, Esq., by the name of Portpole; and in eight years afterwards it was disposed of to the prior and convent of Shene, who again disposed of it to the students of the law; not but that they were seated here much earlier, it appearing that they had leased a residence here from the Lord Grays, as early as the reign of Edward the Third. Chancery Lane gapes on the opposite side, to receive the numberless malheureuses who plunge unwarily on the rocks and shelves with which it abounds."

P. T. W.

ANCIENT SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.
(For the Mirror.)

"O FREEDOM! first delight of human kind.” DRYDEN.

SHARON TURNER, in his interesting "History of the Anglo-Saxons," says, "It was then (during the reign of Pope Gregory I.) the practice of Europe to make use of slaves, and to buy and sell them; and this traffic was carried on, even in the western capital of the Christian Church. Passing through the market at Rome, the white skins, the flowing locks, and beautiful countenances of some youths who were standing there for sale, interested Gregory's sensibility. To his inquiries from what country they had been brought, the answer was, from Britain, whose inhabitants were all of that fair complexion. Were they Pagans or Christians? was his next question: a proof not only of his ignorance of the state of England, but also, that up to that time it had occupied no part of his attention; but thus brought as it were to a personal knowledge of it by these few representatives of its inhabitants, he exclaimed, on hearing that they were still idolators, with a deep sigh, ' What a pity that such a beauteous frontispiece should possess a mind so void of internal grace.' The name of their nation being mentioned to be Angles, his ear caught the verbal coincidence-the benevolent wish for their improvement darted into his mind, and he expressed his own feelings, and excited those of his auditors, by remarking It suits them well: they have angel faces, and ought to be the co-heirs of the angels in heaven.'

"The different classes of society among the Anglo-Saxons were such as belonged to birth, office, or property, and such as were occupied by a free

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