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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 10, No. 262.] SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1827. [PRICE 2d.



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HIS MAJESTY'S PONEY PHAETON.

[Illustration]


We commence our tenth volume of the MIRROR with an embellishment quite
novel in design from the generality of our graphic illustrations, but
one which, we flatter ourselves, will excite interest among our friends,
especially after so recently, presenting them with a Portrait and Memoir
of his Majesty in the Supplement, which last week completed our ninth
volume. His Majesty, when residing at his cottage in Windsor Forest, the
weather being favourable, seldom allows a day to pass without taking his
favourite drive by the Long Walk, and Virginia Water, in his poney
phaeton, as represented in the above engraving. Windsor Park being
situated on the south side of the town, and 14 miles in circumference,
is admirably calculated for the enjoyment of a rural ride. The entrance
to the park is by a road called the _Long Walk_, near three miles in
length, through a double plantation of trees on each side, leading to the
Ranger's Lodge: on the north east side of the Castle is the _Little Park_,
about four miles in circumference: _Queen Elizabeth's Walk_ herein is
much frequented. At the entrance of this park is the _Queen's Lodge_,
a modern erection. This building stands on an easy ascent opposite the
upper court, on the south side, and commands a beautiful view of the
surrounding country. The gardens are elegant, and have been much
enlarged by the addition of the gardens and house of the duke of St.
Albans, purchased by his late majesty. The beautiful _Cottage Ornee_, an
engraving of which graces one of our early volumes, is also in the park,
and to which place of retirement his present Majesty resorts, and passes
much of his time in preference to the bustle and splendour of a royal
town life.

Having now given as much description of the engraving as the subject
requires, we shall proceed to lay before our readers some further
anecdotes connected with the life of his Majesty; for our present
purpose, the following interesting article being adapted to our limits,
we shall introduce an

    _Original Letter of his present Majesty, when Prince of Wales, to
    Alexander Davison, Esq., on the death of Lord Nelson._

    I am extremely obliged to you, my dear sir, for your confidential
    letter, which I received this morning. You may be well assured,
    that, did it depend upon me, there would not be a wish, a desire of
    our-ever-to-be-lamented and much-loved friend, as well as adored
    hero, that I should not consider as a solemn obligation upon his
    friends and his country to fulfil; it is a duty they owe his memory,
    and his matchless and unrivalled excellence: such are my sentiments,
    and I should hope that there is still in this country sufficient
    honour, virtue, and gratitude to prompt us to ratify and to carry
    into effect the last dying request of our Nelson, and by that means
    proving not only to the whole world, but to future ages, that we
    were worthy of having such a man belonging to us. It must be
    needless, my dear sir, to discuss over with you in particular the
    irreparable loss dear Nelson ever must be, not merely to his friends
    but to his country, especially at the present crisis--and during the
    present most awful contest, his very name was a host of itself;
    Nelson and Victory were one and the same to us, and it carried
    dismay and terror to the hearts of our enemies. But the subject is
    too painful a one to dwell longer upon; as to myself, all that I can
    do, either publicly or privately, to testify the reverence, the
    respect I entertain for his memory as a Hero, and as the greatest
    public character that ever embellished the page of history,
    independent of what I can with the greatest truth term, the
    enthusiastic attachment I felt for him as a friend, I consider it as
    my duty to fulfil, and therefore, though I may be prevented from
    taking that ostensible and prominent situation at his funeral which
    I think my birth and high rank entitled me to claim, still nothing
    shall prevent me in a private character following his remains to
    their last resting place; for though the station and the character
    may be less ostensible, less prominent, yet the feelings of the
    heart will not therefore be the less poignant, or the less acute.

    I am, my dear sir, with the greatest truth,

    Ever very sincerely your's,

    G. P.[1]

    _Brighton, Dec, 18th, 1805_.


    [1] _New London Literary Gazette_.

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BYRON AND OTHER POETS COMPARED.

(_For the Mirror._)


There is a natural stimulus in man to offer adoration at the shrine of
departed genius.--

    "There is a tear for all that die."

But, when a transcendant genius is checked in its early age--when its
spring-shoots had only began to open--when it had just engaged in a new
feature devoted to man, and man to it, we cannot rest

    "In silent admiration, mixed with grief."

Too often has splendid genius been suffered to live almost unobserved;
and have only been valued as their lives have been lost. Could the
divine Milton, or the great Shakspeare, while living, have shared that
profound veneration which their after generations have bestowed on their
high talents, happier would they have lived, and died more
extensively beloved.

True, a Byron has but lately paid a universal debt. His concentrated
powers--his breathings for the happiness and liberty of mankind--his
splendid intellectual flowers, culled from a mind stored with the
choicest exotics, and cultivated with the most refined taste are all
still fresh in recollection. As the value of precious stones and metals
have become estimated by their scarcity, so will the fame of Byron live.

A mind like Lord Byron's,

    "----born, not only to surprise, but cheer
    With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,"

was one of Nature's brightest gems, whose splendour (even when
uncompared) dazzled and attracted all who passed within its sight.

    "So let him stand, through ages yet unborn."

As comparison is a medium through which we are enabled to obtain most
accurate judgment, let us use it in the present instance, and compare
Lord Byron with the greatest poets that have preceded him, by which
means the world of letters will see what they have _really_ lost in Lord
Byron. To commence with the great Shakspeare himself, to whom universal
admiration continues to be paid. Had Shakspeare been cut off at the same
early period as Byron, _The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Julius
Caesar, Coriolanus_, and several others of an equal character, would
never have been written. The high reputation of Dryden would also have
been limited--his fame, perhaps, unknown. The _Absalom_ and _Achitophel_
is the earliest of his best productions, which was written about his
fiftieth year; his principal production, at the age of Byron, was his
_Annus Mirabilis_; for nearly the whole of his dramatic works were
written at the latter part of his life. Pope is the like situated; that
which displayed most the power of his mind--which claims for him the
greatest praise--his _Essay on Man_, &c. appeared after his fortieth
year. _Windsor Forest_ was published in his twenty-second or
twenty-third year, both were the labour of some _years_; and the
immortal Milton, who published some few things before his thirtieth
year, sent not his great work, _Paradise Lost_, to the world until he
verged on sixty.

With the poets, and the knowledge of what Byron _was_, we may ask what
he would have been had it pleased the Great Author of all things to
suffer the summer of his consummate mental powers to shine upon us? Take
the works of any of the abovenamed distinguished individuals previous to
their thirty-eighth year, and shall we perceive that flexibility of the
English language to the extent that Byron has left behind him? His
versatility was, indeed, astonishing and triumphant. His _Childe
Harold_, the _Bride of Abydos_, the _Corsair_, and _Don Juan_, (though
somewhat too freely written,) are established proofs of his unequalled
energy of mind. His power was unlimited; not only eloquent, but the
sublime, grave and gay, were all equally familiar to his muse.

Few words are wanted to show that Byron was not depraved at heart; no
man possessed a more ready sympathy, a more generous mind to the
distressed, or was a more enthusiastic admirer of noble actions. These
feelings all strongly delineated in his character, would never admit, as
Sir Walter Scott has observed, "an imperfect moral sense, nor feeling,
dead to virtue." Severe as the

    "Combined usurpers on the throne of taste"

have been, his character is marked by some of the best principles in
many parts of his writings.

    "The records there of friendships, held like rocks,
    And enmities like sun-touch'd snow resign'd,"

are frequently visible. His glorious attachment to the Grecian cause is
a sufficient recompense for _previous_ follies exaggerated and
propagated by calumny's poisonous tongue. In a word, "there is scarce a
passion or a situation which has escaped his pen; and he might be drawn,
like Garrick, between the weeping and the laughing muses."

A. B. C.

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THE SONG OF THE WIDOWED MOTHER TO HER CHILD.

BY THE AUTHOR Of "AHAB."

(_For the Mirror._)


    O Sink to sleep, my darling boy,
      Thy father's dead, thy mother lonely,
    Of late thou wert his pride, his joy,
      But now thou hast not one to own thee.
    The cold wide world before us lies,
      But oh! such heartless things live in it,
    It makes me weep--then close thine eyes
      Tho' it be but for one short minute.

    O sink to sleep, my baby dear,
      A little while forget thy sorrow,
    The wind is cold, the night is drear,
      But drearier it will be to-morrow.
    For none will help, tho' many see
      Our wretchedness--then close thine eyes, love,
    Oh, most unbless'd on earth is she
      Who on another's aid relies, love.

    Thou hear'st me not! thy heart's asleep
      Already, and thy lids are closing,
    Then lie thee still, and I will weep
      Whilst thou, my dearest, art reposing,
    And wish that I could slumber free,
      And with thee in yon heaven awaken,
    O would that it our home might be,
      For here we are by all forsaken.

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PAY OF THE JUDGES IN FORMER TIMES.

(_For the Mirror._)


In the twenty-third year of the reign of king Henry III., the salary of
the justices of the bench (now called the Common Pleas) was 20l. per
annum; in the forty-third year, 40l. In the twenty-seventh year, the
chief baron had 40 marks; the other barons, 20 marks; and in the forty,
ninth year, 4l. per annum. The justices _coram rege_ (now called the
King's Bench) had in the forty-third year of Henry III. 40l. per annum.;
the chief of the bench, 100 marks per annum; and next year, another
chief of the same court, had 100l.; but the chief of the court _coram
rege_ had only 100 marks per annum.

In the reign of Edward I., the salaries of the justices were very
uncertain, and, upon the whole, they sunk from what they had been in the
reign of Henry III. The chief justice of the bench, in the seventh year
of Edward I., had but 40l. per annum, and the other justices there, 40
marks. This continued the proportion in both benches till the
twenty-fifth year of Edward III., then the salary of the chief of the
King's Bench fell to 50 marks, or 33l. 6s. 8d., while that of the chief
of the bench was augmented to 100 marks, which may be considered as an
evidence of the increase of business and attendance there. The chief
baron had 40l.; the salaries of the other justices and barons were
reduced to 20l.

In the reign of Edward II., the number of suitors so increased in the
common bench, that whereas there had usually been only three justices
there, that prince, at the beginning of his reign, was constrained to
increase them to six, who used to sit in two places,--a circumstance not
easy to be accounted for. Within three years after they were increased
to seven; next year they were reduced to six, at which number they
continued.

The salaries of the judges, though they had continued the same from the
time of Edward I. to the twenty-fifth year of Edward III., were become
very uncertain. In the twenty-eighth year of this king, it appears, that
one of the justices of the King's Bench had 80 marks per annum. In the
thirty-ninth year of Edward III. the judges had in that court 40l.; the
same as the justices of the Common Pleas; but the chief of the King's
Bench, 100 marks.

The salaries of the judges in the time of Henry IV. were as
follows:--The chief baron, and other barons, had 40 marks per annum; the
chief of the King's Bench, and of the Common Pleas, 40l. per annum; the
other justices, in either court, 40 marks. But the gains of the
practisers were become so great, that they could hardly be tempted to
accept a place on the bench with such low salaries; therefore in the
eighteenth year of Henry VI. the judges of all the courts at
Westminster, together with the king's attorney and sergeants, exhibited
a petition to parliament concerning the regular payment of their
salaries and perquisites of robes. The king assented to their request,
and order was taken for increasing their income, which afterwards became
larger, and more fixed; this consisted of a salary and an allowance for
robes. In the first year of Edward IV., the chief justice of the King's
Bench had 170 marks per annum, 5l. 6s. 6d. for his winter robes, and the
same for his Whitsuntide robes. Most of the judges had the honour of
knighthood; some of them were knights bannerets; and some had the order
of the Bath.

In the first year of Henry VII. the chief justice of the court of King's
Bench had the yearly fee of 140 marks granted to him for his better
support; he had besides 5l. 6s. 11-1/4 d., and the sixth part of a
halfpenny (such is the accuracy of Sir William Dugdale, and the
strangeness of the sum,) for his winter robes, and 3l. 6s. 6d. for his
robes at Whitsuntide.

In the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII. a further increase was made to
the fees of the judges;--to the chief justice of the King's Bench 30l.
per annum; to every other justice of that court 20l. per annum; to every
justice of the Common Pleas, 20l. per annum.

There were usually in the court of Common Pleas five judges, sometimes
six; and in the reign of Henry VI. there were, it is said, eight judges
at one time in that court; but six appear to have been the regular
number. In the King's Bench there were sometimes four, sometimes five.
They did not sit above three hours a day in court,--from eight in the
morning to eleven. The courts were not open in the afternoon; but that
time was left unoccupied for suitors to confer with their counsel
at home.

F. R. Y.

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THE SELECTOR
AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

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SIR WALTER SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.


Sir Walter Scott, the author of _Waverley_, has become the biographer of
Napoleon Bonaparte; and the deepest interest is excited in the literary
world to know how the great master of romance and fiction acquits
himself in the execution of his task. In the preface to this elaborate
history, Sir Walter, with considerable ingenuousness, informs us that
"he will be found no enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of
hostility is ended when the battle has been won, and the foe exists no
longer." But to our task: we shall attempt an analysis of the volumes
before us, and endeavour to gratify our readers with a narrative of
incidents that cannot fail interesting every British subject, whose
history, in fact, is strongly connected with the important events that
belong to the splendid career of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The first and second volumes of Sir Walter's history are taken up with a
view of the French Revolution, from whence we shall extract a sketch of
the characters of three men of terror, whose names will long remain, we
trust, unmatched in history by those of any similar miscreants. These
men were the leaders of the revolution, and were called

THE TRIUMVIRATE.

Danton deserves to be named first, as unrivalled by his colleagues in
talent and audacity. He was a man