king too well to suppose that he would ever be guilty of so base an action, adding, "I love my father with the utmost tenderness, but I cannot deliver up a place which I have undertaken to defend." The siege was obliged to be raised; but the king, so far from punishing Anthony for the heroism of his son, continued him in his favour, and raised him to the rank of nobility.

An officer of Henry IV. of France being commanded to undertake a very dangerous expedition, was told by a friend under what pretext he might excuse himself from executing such a hazardous enterprise. "I can easily save my life," said he, “but who will save my honour?"

impetuous river must be crossed by Philip, without shewing the least sign means of a bridge made of wicker, of fear, answered, that he knew the which continually trembles under the feet, and from whence the passengers incur much hazard of falling into the current They who are so unfortunate as to be thrown from this passage are swept away by the stream, and can never return The spirits which have passed the river direct their course for a considerable way along its banks, making provision of fish, which they dry, until they gain an extensive meadow, whose extremity is terminated by precipitous rocks, over which there is a long and narrow path, with a barrier of two large logs of wood, alternately raised and depressed. These are intended to crush the living who might attempt to force a passage, but not as an impediment to the progress of the dead. The soul afterwards arrives at a beau- One of the Lacedæmonian metiful meadow, boundless to the sight, narchs, upon the eve of a battle, being filled with every species of animals, willing to save a favourite officer of and abounding with the most delicious more than fourscore, desired him to fruits; here is heard the sound of go to Sparta under pretence of busidrums, and of other musical instru- ness. "Prince," said the venerable ments, known to savages; from hence old man," why should you send me it is ushered into the abode of happi- so far to seek a bed to die on? Where ness and joy, where its journey is con- can I find one more honourable than cluded, where it is invested with beau- in the field of battle?" He was pertiful raiment, and where it mingles with an assembly of kindred spirits

in the dance.

HEROIC RESOLUTION.

the

SPARTAN RESOLUTION.

mitted to remam; and died in a manner worthy of so noble a character, in fighting for his king and his country.

HINTS respecting the real Character of MARY, QUEEN of ENGLAND, By Mr. BREWER,

Sir,

Prince Maurice of Nassau, at the battle of Nieuport in 1600, having sent away his ships, that there might be no means of retreat for his troops, in leading them to engage, said, "My friends, you have Nieuport behind ses for detraction among hisyou, which is in possession of indTHE motives for partiality and enemy; the sea on your left; a river torians of every nation, but particuon the right; and the enemy in front: larly England, where convulsions in there is no other way for you to pass, religion and politics have been perbut over the bellies of these men.' petually occurring, and where party By this heroic resolution he gained a has raged with proverbial illiberality at battle which saved his republic, and almost every period, would appear did himself the highest honour. too obvious to admit the possibility of implicit reliance in even the cursory In 1477, St. Omer being beseiged reader, did not experience assure us by Lewis XI. was valiantly defended that not only the interested but disby Philip, son of Anthony, a bastard passionate are hourly the dupes of son of the Duke of Burgundy. The the vilest calumny or most egregious French monarch, being irritated at adulation. the obstinate resistance of the young The increasing candour of the latwarrior, threatened him that if he ter eras of literature has nobly endeadid not surrender the city he would voured, in many instances, to remove cut his father's throat before his eyes, that meretricious veil from the face

MAGNANIMOUS REPLY.

of historic truth, with which venality mode of faith. Her father, in the had shaded her instructive features. plenitude of his caprice, and at the The spirit of Historic Doubts, suggestion of his avarice, had thrown has stimulated an inquiry into the off the papal power and commenced genuine failings and pretensions of champion of the new cause. Not the unfortunate Scottish beauty, contented with the wealth, he rioted whose head not even a diadem could in the blood of the overthrown papreserve from the block and scaffold; pists. The scene is too melancholy but still the English sovereign of the to admit an enumeration of the vicsame name, though of more splendid tims. Fire, faggot, and the halter were fortunes, remains the victim of decla- administered with an unsparing hand! matory detestation and merciless ty- As a sample, suffice it to observe, that ranny. The examination of this at one massacre, More, Fisher, and reign, by some scholar at once inqui- eleven monks, were beheaded for desitive and unprejudiced, I hold a desi- nying the king's supremacy! deratum in English literature; and Edward VI. from the simple cirshould feel particular pleasure if this cumstance of his adolescence occurremonstrance, through the medium of ring while his august father was in a your impartial publication, call forth protestant mood, received an educaa pen adequate to the task, wielded by tion from persous directed to instruct a hand which knows no enthusiasm, him in the reformed religion. Durexcept such as a love of veracity in- ing his short reign, accordingly, the noxiously engenders. foot was still kept on the neck of the

Should such a writer generously Roman catholic party; and they restep forward, he will not droop for mained disgraced, in penury, and danwant of materials. At the very out- ger. No scaffolds were built for the set he will perceive the evident possi- express purpose of decapitating the bility of misrepresentation respecting noble papists, nor gibbets erected for this reign, when he finds that its his- the death of the meaner sort, but an torians have been men of an opposite act was passed of the most horrible (though confessedly of a more correct and oppressive cruelty. The poor and desirable) religious persuasion, wandering monks and ejected friars Taking natural probability for his were, at this time, supported by the guide, he will maintain the reasona private alms of those who did not bleness of supposing that a writer dare openly to entertain them. To whose aim was the gratification of drive them from the miserable corpopular credulity, would rather con- ners in which they hovered, it was centrate his invective on one defence- enacted, that if any person should less head, than venture on the attack loiter for three days together without of a numerous and well-lettered offering himself for hire as a labourer, party, whose descendants, if them- he should be aged as a slave for selves had sunk to the peaceful bourne two years to the nrst informer, and where contest is no more, would be should be marked on the breast with found ready to retort the abuse to the the letter V. for vagabond. The vexation, if not discomfiture, of the mark to be made with a hot iron. assailant. Whether protestant or papist, man Thus will he be tempted to trans- is still subject to the passions of hu fer from Queen Mary to her advisers man nature; and revenge, of all pasa portion of that outcry which party sions the most terrific, and in history first set up, and which credulity the most frequent, even christianity, echoes to the discredit of philan- under its more favourable modificathropy, good sense, and the mild tion, is unable to suppress. Perhap❤, tenets of the christian doctrine. .therefore, a candid and benig pant When Mary came to the crown protestant, now that all violent disshe found the state in the most peri- sention between the two parties has lons condition, (as far as regarded in- long since ceased, will scarcely feel dividual conduct) that possibly could surprise at the severity with which exist for a zealot in any particular those of the ejected persuasion con

By Lord Otford. UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. IX.

ducted themselves, on a sudden and nearly unexpected restoration to 3 B

་་

power. Be that as it may, humanity judgment and decision, it may be anhad already blushed for the trium- swered, that her feminine education phant protestants; a blush of a still (for she had not in any view the addeeper dye must assuredly glow on vantages in this weighty respect of her cheek while beholding the unli- Elizabeth) reduced her nearly to the mited vengeance which their oppo- level of her youthful brother. From nents inflicted, when the dangerous infancy to maturity churchmen were talisman of power reversed the tu- her guides and preceptors; and nearly mul uous scene, and recalled the every action of her life proves that she friars from manual labour, or the had earned to sacrifice her opinions mortification of the prescribed brand, habitually to those of her guardians. to their stalls, their mass-books, and Our historians have an ungracious all the scattered parade of their glit- custom of illustrating the characters tering rituals. But in the detestable of their dramatis personæ by compaoperations which now took place, rison. Mary they invidiously place why is the torch ever placed by the by the side of Elizabeth; and while historian in one hand? Is it likely they lavish panegyric on the brow of that a single female should possess the Virgin Queen," they solicit the more rancour than all the heads of a reader's abhorrence of her unhappy disjointed church, inflamed with per- foil not by argument, but by the sonal pique, impoverished by expul- epithets of "blood-thirsty Mary!" sion from their benefices, and inflated and "sanguinary tyrant!" The ma by a bigotry of the most decisive na- nagement of the state this misguided ture? Our historians, in this in- princess appears to have left to the stance, have studied, like the tragic ecclesiastics.* The management of poet, to bring one person forward in her family, the bishops likewise imthe drama, in order to exhibit all the periously solicited; but in this solitremendous beauties of contrast, In tary instance Mary was inflexible; strict conformity to the pernicious and as I think an examination of her system of dressing up their charac- conduct in this particular essential to ters like puppets, either strikingly at- the right understanding of her charac tractive or utterly deformed, the dra- ter, permit me, from authentic domatic recorders who assume the name cuments, though testimonies too of historians, studiously decorate the much neglected by our historical wrisixth Edward with those clement ters, to develope it. qualities which they describe his sister as wanting; and freely place all the ignominy of that unprecedented On act, the branding of the ejected friars, to the account of his advisers. In this latter procedure they are unquestionably correct. Few persons

[To be concluded in our next.]

the ERRONEOUS PRONUNCIATION of the LATIN LANGUAGE. SIR,

OUR correspondent, page 289,

feel on subjects of religious ascendancy vation, that Englishmen do not make with the acuteness of those who, by a sufficient distinction between the their sacred calling," look on church long and short vowels in their power as the highest object of mun- pronunciation of Latin: thus, for dane interest; and therefore to his example, in the verbs volo, doceo, advisers let us freely attribute all the maneo, amo, and many others, we asperity of the hostile edicts which pronounce the first syllable as if it passed in the short reign of this juvehile sovereign. But, admitting the Philip, her husband, likewise, justice of this appropriation, why shall, though silent and unostentatious, bad we deny Mary the same indulgence? the most potent ascendancy over her. Edward was surrounded by church- In a letter to him, during his voyage men, and, as they advised, he acted; to Spain, she expresses the utmost his successor stood in the same predi- deference to his superior judgment. cament, and acted in the same way. Yet, by an absurd cruelty of party If it be objected, that difference of invective, is this queen, stigmatised years enabled Queen Mary to con- with all the intolerance and all the duct the government with greater mischances of her calamitous reign!

were a long vowel. But in the past tion for the embellishment of fiction. tence firi, and the noun nupta, this The aerial beings of the Tempest; distinction is quite unnecessary, as the elves and fairies of the Midsum the syllable will be rendered long by mer Night's Dream, the imager; of the two consonants, which follow the Comus, and Lycidas, are replete with vowel. But, I think, after all, that the allusions which have now become manner in which we articulate the classical: and the mind owns with a vowels is of much less consequence pleasing extacy their power over its than that in which we pronounce the feelings. The pleasure of the scholar, consonants, in which, I believe we however, is twofold: he experiences err very much from the practice of the delight which the poetry, from a the ancients. For instance, we pro- thousand associations, creates; and nounce g and c soft before the vowels besides, he has the gratification which e, i, y, and hard before a, o, u. This arises from his knowledge of the is indeed a very erroneous practice, sources whence these superstitions have for if the Ronians had not always arisen. To extend the sphere of this latpronounced these consonants, g and tergratification. I have thought that the c, hard, the modern Greek writers, following selection of the most striking who wrote the Roman history, would magical incantations and superstitions not have uniformly changed them of the Laplanders, which will be found (in proper names) into their and r. to bear so close an analogy with many Concerning the consonants j and v, I of our own, might not be unacceptathink it is probable they were an- ble to some of your readers. Of the ciently pronounced like our present northern origin of the greater part of y and, there being only one cha- our ancient superstitions, there can racter for the consonant j and the be little doubt; and therefore it will vowel i, and only one for the conso- be gratifying to trace them. I select nant v and the vowel u; whence we them from Knud Leems' Account of may infer, that was pronounced like the Laplanders of Finmark, c. pubi, repeated very quickly, and that v lished in the Danish and Latin Lanwas pronounced like u, repeated guages, Copenhagen 1767, 4to: my quickly also, which, in course of time, labours, indeed, cannot aspire to the would naturally glide into the pronun- dignity of original composition: but ciation of our y and w. This pronun- perhaps they will be found as interciation is universally adopted by the esting as a vapid essay upon a vapid Germans, who also pronounce g subject, in which nothing is new but always hard, though they vary as the arrangement of the words, and we do. The insertion of this in your which is read only to be forgotten. useful and entertaining miscellany Aberdeen, I remain, &c. will much oblige, Sir, April 30, 1808. A STUDENT. "Witches made various confessions, in themselves absurd and ridiculous, of the manner in which they acquired the magic art. Some asserted that they obtained it from a certain charmed preparation, brought to them

- your constant reader, F. R.

On the MAGICAL INCANTATIONS, and the various SUPERSTITIONS of

the LAPLANDERS. SIR,

NOTHING which tends to shew by another witch, made from a piece the human mind under any of of the greater flounder, a piece of its aspects ought to be a matter of in- bread spread with butter, from a draft difference to us. Superstition, which of milk, a piece of cheese, a salt heris the child of ignorance, has, not- ring, and bread. One confessed that withstanding, something in it calcu- she had obtained obtained the art of lated in a high degree to arrest our fascination from stroking down a cat; attention. Its chimeras and its vi- another, from putting three eggs into sions are often grand: and the fairies a cask, and filling it with water, said and goblins of the middle ages are she had got the same magic art; anoas interesting to a poetical mind ther added, on her part, that it was as the dryads, hamadryads, tritons, got from a certain old woman, who and pierides of antiquity. Chaucer, gave her a pipe with this qualification, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, that on filling it she would bring in. drew largely from popular supersti- 3 B 2

fection on man and beast of any kind dog, and overset it. Another related whatever, and that she by this means made herself witness of the art. Many other absurd confessions were in like manner made on witchcraft."

that she, by putting two egg-shells into a cask filled with water, could take away the lives of men; she added, that a boat, in which were sailors, perished on twirling round the shells of the said egg.”

66

Another woman was accused of witchcraft, practised on a poor girl, after this manner :-she turned her son into a cat, and made him roll himself before the girl, drawing a sledge of sand. The girl struck him several times when he got in, and killed him at last with the instrument in her hand. On her return, she passed by the house of the said woman, when she came out, and addressed her in these words: You have killed my sen; may it be ill with you. Scon after the girl was distracted and died."

"They further confessed, that while they fastened three knots on a linen towel in the name of the devil, and had spit on them, &c. they called the name of him they deemed to destruction. One confessed that she had raised a tempest, by means of wind she had shut up in a sack; and added, that she destroyed a vessel of Bergen, for which undertaking an immense wave came to her assistance and sunk the ship. Another said that she, with other orceresses, had raised a tempest on some sailors in this manner: they went to the sea-side in a human frigate, and going aboard a small bark, in which were some men who had a black heifer with them, they trod down with their united force the vessel on the way. Another told a story, how, after she had brought, with another witch, destruction on a small bark and its crew, they threw a piece of spongy wood fastened to a stone into the sea, and openly darted en it. Another added, on her part, that she, blowing into a pipe in the name of the devil, not only overturned a boat, in which were two young men, but, accompanied by three other witches, had brought destruction on a vessel; for which purpose the one assumed the figure of an eagle, the second of a swan, the third of a crow, and she herself of a dove, and all siting in the bottom of a tub, were carried over the sea from Vasoea to Domen, a rock so called, distant from Vasoe the space of a few iniles, where leaving their ship, or rather the bottom of their tub, they fled aloft, and then untying the knots, they exclaim ed, Wind, in the name of the devil: when this was done they fled to the sea, and did not stop until they came up with the vessel they doomed to de struction; on which, in the abovementioned shape, they all perched, one on the helm, two on the hatches, and one in the hold. Another con- "That the Laplanders were formerfessed that she had destroyed a vessel ly addicted to a variety of superstitions that loosed anchor, and put into a is well known. With some Thursday creek, on stress of weather; for that was kept holy; at least it was thought on its putting out a little to sea, she impious to handle wool on that day. approached it in the shape of a sea- Almost all held Saturday, some Fi

"A certain one told that when she and other witches were assembled on the eve of the festival of Christ, the evil spirit had danced with them (what the dance was, Polish or English, I know not), when one of the witches lost, her shoe, and the master of the ceremonies, by good fortune, put another in its place. Another, said that she, together with other witches, was in hell, (a thing horrid and ridiculous in order to render the scene familiar to them, where an immense boiling lake was to be seen, in which were many men; she added besides, that the devil had an iron pipe, from which he breathed out fire, and that he had drawn out a piece of bacon, put into the same lake, which was dressed in an instant; she insinuated that the said lake was in a valley. Of her accom panying friends she related, that one put on the likeness of a cormorant (commonly called Krykke); another of a marine bird, called Havelde; another of a dove; another of a dark bird, called Skarv; others of jackdaws; and that she herself put on the form of a crow. Another said, that being at a certain place with another witch, called Hildere, they drank from two garters, from the one of water and honey, from the other strong beer."