LONDON AND ITS CELEBRITIES. THE celebrities of London have so large a claim upon the attention of the people that we need not wonder that the Press teems ever and anon with fresh supplies of "Pen and Ink Sketches" therefrom, for not only the amusement but the instruction of those who are curious and desire to become learned in such matters. A short time since we had "London," by Mr. Charles Knight; "The Town," by Mr. Leigh Hunt; then Mr. Peter Cunningham's "Hand-Book," decidedly the best modern work of the kind that has been published, and eminently superior to the two volumes that have now attracted our attention. By the way, Mr. J. Heneage Jesse, the author, candidly acknowledges himself indebted to Mr. Cunningham for the supply of "many valuable additional facts;" and intimates that "had he been aware of the formidable literary rivalship which he was likely to encounter, he would on no account have entered the lists." His being there, however, entitles him to our consideration, and we shall present our readers with a few "touches of his quality."

OLD SOMERSET HOUSE

has afforded Mr. Jesse a good opportunity for exhibiting his descriptive powers:

At the extremity of the apartments which had been occupied by Henrietta Maria, and subsequently by Catharine of Braganza, two large folding-doors opened into the ancient portion of the structure, into which it would seem for nearly a century a human foot had scarcely ever intruded. Wandering through gloomy and uninhabitable apartments-passing from room to room, and from corridor to corridor-the intruders witnessed a strange and melancholy spectacle of departed splendour-a scene of mouldering walls and broken casements, of crumbling roofs and decayed furniture. The first apartment which they entered had apparently been the bedchamber of royalty. The floor was of oak, and the ceiling stuccoed. It was also panneled with oak, with gilt mouldings: some of the sconces still remained attached to the walls of the apartment, and from the ceiling there still hung a chain, from which a chandelier had once been suspended. In another of the apartments a chandelier was still hanging, and in a third were velvet curtains -which had once been crimson-fringed with gold. Their colour had faded to a tawdry olive, and only a few spangles and shreds of gold afforded evidence of their former costliness. In the audience-chamber the silken hangings still hung in tatters from the walls, There were two apartments which excited especial

attention from their having been converted into storerooms for those trappings of royalty, which, in consequence of the gradual modernisation of the rest of the structure, had from time to time been deposited in them. They contained articles of various kinds, the production and the fashion of different reigns, if not of different ages. Mixed with broken couches and tattered hangings-with stools, screens, sconces and fire-dogswere discovered the vestiges of a throne, together with the spangled velvet with which it had once been canopied. Altogether, these deserted apartments presented a scene in which the imagination of Mrs. Radcliffe would have delighted to revel; and in which the muse of Dr. Johnson might have found fit food for meditating on the vanity of human wishes.

THE YOUNG PRETENDER.

It was in Essex-strect, at the house of a staunch Jacobite, Lady Primrose, that Prince Charles Edward was concealed during the secret visit which he paid to London, in 1750. “In September, 1750," says Dr. King, "I received a note from my Lady Primrose, who desired me to see her immediately. As soon as I waited on her, she led me into her

dressing-room, and presented me to the Pretender. If I was surprised to find him there, I was still more astonished when he acquainted me with the motives which had induced him to hazard a journey to England at this juncture. The impatience of his friends, who were in exile, had formed a scheme which was impracticable; but although it had been as feasible as they had represented it to him, yet no preparation had been made to carry it into execution. He was soon convinced that he had been deceived; and, therefore, after a stay in London of five days only, he returned to the place whence he came." It was in Lady Primrose's hospitable mansion, in Essex-street, that the interesting Flora Macdonald had previously found an asylum, when released from confinement by the Act of Grace, in 1747. At the south end of Essex-street may be seen two large pillars, with Corinthian capitals, apparently a portion of the old water-entrance to Essex-house.

BOW CHURCH AND ITS BALCONY.

Over the doorway of Bow Church, as seen from the side of Cheapside, may be observed a small balcony, to which considerable interest attaches itself. When tournaments were held in Cheapside, and when all great processions passed through this important thoroughfare, there stood on the north side of the old church, as early as the reign of Edward the Third, a stone building, called the crown-sild or shed, in which the kings of

England and their consorts sat as spectators; and from

this circumstance there can be little doubt that the

balcony to which we have alluded owes its origin. It was in the crown-sild, in 1509, that Henry the Eighth sat, disguised in the garb of a yeoman of the guard, to witness the procession of the city watch at night, on the eve of St. John. "The city music," we are told, preceded the Lord Mayor's officers in party-coloured liveries; then followed the sword-bearer, on horseback, in beautiful armour, before the Lord Mayor, mounted also on a stately horse, richly caparisoned, and attended by a giant and two pages on horseback, three pageants, morrice-dancers, and footmen. The sheriffs marched next, preceded also by their officers in proper liveries, and attended by their giants, pages, morriee-dancers, and pageants; then followed a large body of demilancers in bright armour on stately horses; and after them a body of carabineers in white fustian coats, with the city arms upon their backs and breasts; a division of archers with their bows bent, and shafts of arrows by their side; a party of pikemen in crosslets and helmets; a body of halberdiers also in crosslets and helmets; and a great party of billmen, with helmets and aprons of mail, brought up the rear. The whole consisted of about two thousand, in several divisions, with musicians, drums, standards, and ensigns, ranked and answering each other in proper places; who marched from the conduit at the west end of Cheapside, through Cheapside, Poultry, Cornhill, and Leadenhall-strect to Aldgate; and back again through Fenchurch-street, Gracechurch-strect, Cornhill, and so back to the conduit from whence it first set out; illuminated with nine hundred and forty cressets, or large lanthorns, fixed at the end of poles, and carried on men's shoulders; of which two hundred were provided at the expense the city, five hundred at the expense of the incorporated companies, and two hundred and forty at the expense of the city constables. And besides these, the streets were well lighted with a great number of lamps, hung against the houses on each side, decorated with garlands of flowers and greens. So delighted was king Henry with the spectacle, that on the occasion of the next procession, which took place on the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul, he carried the queen and her ladies to witness the sight, from the "crown-sild" in Cheapside. Charles the Second and queen Anne are severally mentioned as witnessing the pageantry of Lord

of

Mayor's day from a "balcony" in Cheap ide; but whether or no it was from the "crown-sild" of Bow Church, we have no means of ascertaining.

The author speculates in a somewhat plausible way upon the final resting-place of the remains of

OLIVER CROMWELL.

Formerly there existed a favourite tradition among the inhabitants of Red Lion-square and its vicinity, that the body of Oliver Cromwell was buried in the centre of their square, beneath an obelisk, which stood there till within the last few years. The likelihood of such a fact strikes us, at first thought, as improbable enough; and yet, on consideration, we are inclined to think that beneath this spot not improbably moulder, not only the bones of the great Protector, but also those of Ireton and Bradshaw, whose remains were disinterred at the same time from Westminster Abbey, and exposed on the same gallows. As regards the last resting-place of these remarkable men, the contemporary accounts simply inform us, that on the anniversary of the death of Charles the First, their bodies were borne on sledges to Tyburn, where, after having hung till sunset, they were cut down and beheaded; that their bodies were then flung into a hole at the foot of the gallows, and their heads fixed upon poles on the roof of Westminster Hall. From the word Tyburn being here so distinctly laid down it has usually been taken for granted that it was intended to designate the wellknown place for executing criminals, nearly at the north end of Park-lane, or, as it was anciently styled, Tyburn-lane. When we read, however, of a criminal in old times being executed at Tyburn, we are not necessarily to presume that it was at this particular spot; the gallows having unquestionably been shifted at times from place to place, and the word Tyburn having been given indiscriminately, for the time being, to each distinct spot. For instance, sixty years before the death of Cromwell, the gallows were frequently erected at the extremity of St. Giles' parish, at the end of the present Tottenham-court-road; while for nearly two centuries the Holborn end of Fetter-lane, within a short distance of Red Lion-square, was no less frequently the place of execution. Indeed, in 1643, only a few years before the exhumation and gibbeting of Cromwell, we find Nathaniel Tomkins executed at this spot for his share in Waller's plot to surprise the city. In addition, however, to these surmises, is the curious fact of the bodies of Cromwell and Ireton having been brought in carts, on the night previous to their exposure on the gibbet, to the Red Lion Inn, Holborn, --from which Red Lion-square derives its namewhere they rested during the night. In taking this step it is surely not unreasonable to presume that the government had in view the selection of a house in the immediate vicinity of the scaffold, in order that the bodies might be in readiness for the disgusting exhibition of the following morning. Supposing this to have been the case, the place of their exposure and interment could scarcely have been the end of Tyburn-lane, inasmuch as the distance thither from Westminster is actually shorter than that from Westminster to Red Lion-square; while, at the same time, there was apparently no good reason for adopting so circuitous a route. The object of the government could hardly have been to create a sensation by parading the bodies along a populous thoroughfare, inasmuch as the ground between St. Giles' Pound and Tyburn, a distance of a mile and a half, was at this period almost entirely open country. The author has dwelt longer, perhaps, on the subject than such vague surmises may seem to deserve. The question, however, is not altogether an uninteresting one, and there may be others probably, who may have the means of, and who may take a pleasure in, further elucidating it.

The admirers of the gossiping Pepys will take pleasure in accompanying Mr. Jesse to

THE CHURCH OF ST. OLAVE'S, where they will find that not the least interesting object therein is a small monument of white marble, surmounted with the bust of a female displaying considerable beauty, and enriched with cherubims, skeletons' heads, palm-branches, and other ornaments. This monument is to the memory of Elizabeth, the fair wife of the gossiping, bustling, good-humoured Secretary of the Admiralty, Samuel Pepys, who erected this memorial in testimony of his affection and his grief. To many persons, indeed, the principal charm of St. Olave's Church consists in its connexion with the personal history of that most entertaining of autobiographers, and the frequent notices of it which occur in his amusing pages. Pepys resided close by it in Seething-lane, and St. Olave's was his parish church. So little, indeed, has the old building been altered by time, and so graphic are the notices of it which cccur in his "Diary" that we almost imagine we see the familiar figure of the smartly-attired Secretary in one of the old oak pews; his fair wife reading out of the same prayer-book with him; her long glossy tresses falling over her shoulders; her eye occasionally casting a furtive glance at the voluptuous looking satin petticoat of which she had borrowed the idea either from the Duchess of Orleans, or Lady Castlemaine; and her pretty face displaying as many of the fashionable black patches of the period as her good-natured husband would allow her to disfigure herself with. The inscription on her monument, in Latin, informs us that she was descended in the female line from the noble family of the Cliffords; that she received her education at the court of France; that her virtues were only equalled by the beauty of her person and the accomplishments of her mind; that she was married at the age of fourteen, and that she died at the age of twenty

nine.

The book is begemmed with curious and interesting anecdotes, with two of which, relating to Dr. Johnson, we shall close:

66

Ac

The author of the 'Pleasures of Memory' informs us that, when a boy, having an ardent desire to behold and converse with a man whose name was so illustrious in English literature, he determined on introducing himself to the great lexicographer, in the hope that his youth and inexperience might plead his excuse. cordingly, he proceeded to Bolt-court, and after much hesitation, had actually his hand on the knocker, when his heart failed him, and he went away. The late Mr. D'Israeli used to relate, in conversation, a somewhat similar anecdote. Anxious to obtain the acquaintance and the countenance of so illustrious a name, and smitten with the literary enthusiasm of youth, he enclosed some verses of his own composition to Dr. Johnson, and in a modest appeal solicited the opinion of the great critic as to their merits. Having waited for some time without receiving any acknowledgment of his communication, he proceeded to Bolt-court, and laid his hand upon the knocker with the same feeling of shyness and hesitation which had influenced his youthful contemporary, Mr. Rogers. His feelings may be readily imagined, when, on making the necessary inquiries of the servant who opened the door, he was informed, that only a few hours before the great lexicographer had breathed his last.

ought to be, and judgment enough to discern what you may be, WHEN you have sufficient intelligence to perceive what you and decision enough to determine what you will be, the next indispensable qualities to success are industry and perseverance. Labour is the universal law, a law in which all who have their fortunes to make, that is, all the young and enterprising, ought especially to rejoice.-Burnap.

TO A POET LAMENTING.

BY CALDER CAMPBELL.

Should we water the fields of the Present
With tears for the flower-strewn Past?
Or deny to the fresh and the recent

The love which, though Time hath o'ercast
Its bloom with the dust of the grave-yard,

Is claim'd by new hopes and new friends?
Dare we frown because God hath ta'en from us
Our dear ones, to serve His high ends?
Should we wander alone, discontented,
Because our best comrades are gone
From the halls of existence, lamented,

To regions where grief is unknown?
Should we linger o'er tombs where are hidden
No treasures that God cares to claim;
And pour out reproaches forbidden,

And call out for dead ones by name?
Should the mortal thus wail the immortal;
The weary call back him at rest;
The captive to sin's dreary portal

Conjure up with loud voice the peace-blest?
Should a poet. with querulous sadness,

And cries, like a rod-beaten hound,

Vex the air, which God fills with such gladness,
Because he hath felt his heart's wound?

Fie upon it!-for sin should be weeping,
For sin-not for death or for pain;
For the waking, and not for the sleeping-
For the slave-not the freed from life's chain!
The poet should bear uncomplaining

All the ills that make other men fret:
From his Muse should he gather such strains, as
Best teach him life's cares to forget!

To forget-not with lack of right feeling,
But firm in the creed that each care
Hath been sent as a heav'nly revealing
Of visions that knew not despair!
Meet, Poet, all danger undaunted!

Climb, Poet!-all heights may be won;'
Undazzled pass on through grief's lightning-
For a Poet should look at the sun!

HENRY THE FOWLER,

THE FIRST ELECTIVE MONARCH OF GERMANY.

RIGHTLY to understand the present engraving, which is a specimen of German art, we must glance backward to the commencement of the Carlovingian line who from Charlemagne (whence arose their cognomen) formed a continuous succession of impotent monarchs. Louis the German, the last and weakest of the sons of Charlemagne, resembled his warlike father merely in the size of his person, but inherited none of his spirit. He had three sons by his empress Irmingarde, Lothar, Pipin, and Louis, between whom he partitioned his empire; Lothar was to rule over Italy and the Rhine country as far as the sea, and to be invested with the imperial dignity; Pipin was to reign over France, and Louis over Germany: thus the great empire was broken up, but it was destined to farther change, for his second wife, Jutta, presenting him with a fourth son, a new partition was made, which incensed the elder sons so much that they rose against their father. This unnatural war continued with various success. Lothar, the eldest, joined with his father, deserting his brothers Pipin and Louis, who leagued themselves against him. A negociation took place at Aix-la-Chapelle (A.D.

He

831), whereat Lothar sued for pardon, and the empress Jutta gained an immense accession of power, and attempted to give the greater part of her large empire to her son, Charles the Bald, the half-brother of Louis, Lothar, and Pipin. The three latter on this again joined together, and were aided by Pope Gregory IV., who, according to the then spirit of the papal chair, sided with the strongest, and Louis, deserted by his army, became (A.D. 833), prisoner to his sons. was carried to Soissons and compelled to do penance for various crimes, one of which was for being deceived by the witchcraft of his empress Jutta. Again getting free, he divided his empire between Pipin, Louis, and Charles, to the exclusion of Lothar, who retired to Italy, carrying on intrigues with Jutta till the emperor's death, which took place on a little island in the Rhine, the emperor shouting with his latest breath "Hutz, hutz!" (the cry of the huntsmen), to scare the devil from his bed-side.

On this event more fighting took place, the two Louis against Lothar and Pipin, who were defeated at Fontenay (July, 841), whereat fell one hundred thousand men, so thinning the nobility, that noble ladies were obliged to marry their freemen for many years after, and to raise them to their own rank to repair the loss. But not satisfied with this more blood was shed, till at the treaty of Verdun (843) Lothar received the imperial crown, the Netherlands, Rhine country, &c.; Louis the greater portion of Germany, and Charles the Bald, France. But before this settlement the common people rose against Louis, who having defeated them, beheaded their leaders and chopped off the hands of the lesser rebels.

During these negociations the Normans, who were always pirates, landed and spoiled Germany. Lothar died in 855, dividing his kingdom amongst his three sons, who did not long survive him; one of them only was of any importance; another, Louis the Second, defended Benevento against the Moors, who had conquered Rome and turned St. Peter's into a stable. In the meantime, Louis the Younger, son of Louis the German, was busy fighting against the Bohemians. He was brave and successful, and a story is related of his making an excursion and surprising them when they were about to celebrate a great marriage, from which he bore the bride; hence the saying, common in Ger many, No one knows who may lead home the bride."

In the year 880 the race of Lothar became extinct; and Charles the Bald and Louis the Younger fell to fighting for the Lothringian inheritance. Louis was victorious; and Charles died the following year, leaving an only son, who died in 879, leaving three sons; of whom in a short time the youngest, Charles the Simple, only remained. The result of these repeated quarrels and divisions was that the Normans and Moors became every day bolder and more successful; that the Pope became more and more powerful; that a new kingdom of Sclavians was founded; and that the power of the great vassals surely and slowly increased, to the detriment of kingship.

Let us turn a step out of our way for an episode in Norman freebooting. About the year 853 the Normans invested Tours, and were bought off by Charles the Bald with much gold. Encouraged by this their leader, Hasting, turned his attention to Rome-paved, to the Norman imagination, with veritable gold and silver. He sailed through the straits of Gibraltar, and plundered Spain and Africa. Arriving at Lucca, he mistook it for Rome: the inhabitants were engaged in their Christmas festival, and the robbers sent a deputation to ask them-the city being fortified-to permit them to bury their dead chieftain. The Lombards granted the favour; and Hasting, in armour and sword in hand, and covered with a pall, was carried at the head of his followers into the church; once there, with