The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Various
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 269.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE'S VILLA, CHISWICK.
[Illustration]
The lamented death of the Right Hon. George Canning has naturally
excited the curiosity of our readers to the villa in which that eminent
statesman breathed his last; and we have therefore obtained from our
artist an original drawing, which has been taken since the melancholy
event occurred, and from which we are now enabled to give the above
correct and picturesque engraving.
Chiswick House is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, built by the last
Earl of Burlington, whose taste and skill as an architect have been
frequently recorded. The ascent to the house is by a noble double flight
of steps, on one side of which is a statue of Palladio, and on the other
that of Inigo Jones. The portico is supported by six fluter Corinthian
pillars, with a pediment; and a dome at the top enlightens a beautiful
octagonal saloon. "This house," says Mr. Walpole, "the idea of which is
borrowed from a well-known villa of Palladio, and is a model of taste,
though not without faults, some of which are occasioned by too strict
adherence to rules and symmetry. Such are too many corresponding doors
in spaces so contracted; chimneys between windows, and, which is worse,
windows between chimneys; and vestibules however beautiful, yet little
secured from the damps of this climate. The trusses that support the
ceiling of the corner drawing-room are beyond measure massive, and the
ground apartment is rather a diminutive catacomb than a library in a
northern latitude. Yet these blemishes, and Lord Hervey's wit, who said
'the house was too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to one's
watch,' cannot depreciate the taste that reigns throughout the whole.
The larger court, dignified by picturesque cedars, and the classic
scenery of the small court, that unites the old and new house, are more
worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur which our
travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long voyages. The
garden is in the Italian taste, but divested of conceits, and far
preferable to every style that reigned till our late improvements. The
buildings are heavy, and not equal to the purity of the house. The
lavish quantity of urns and sculpture behind the garden front should be
retrenched." Such were the sentiments of Mr. Walpole on this celebrated
villa, before the noble proprietor began the capital improvements which
have since been completed. Two wings have been added to the house, from
the designs of Mr. Wyattville. These remove the objections that have
been made to the house, are more fanciful and beautiful than convenient
and habitable; the gardens have also been considerably improved, and now
display all the beauties of modern planting.
It is a remarkable coincidence that at this secluded and beautiful villa
Charles James Fox terminated his glorious career, in the same month, and
having arrived at the same age (fifty-seven) as Mr. Canning.
As many of our readers may be induced to visit this quiet and
picturesque spot, we would recommend them to pass down the private
carriage-way which leads from Turnham-green to the porter's lodge, and
having reached the door that opens to a rural lane which runs in front
of the villa, to turn into the field, the gate of which is situated near
a small bridge, and from thence a delightful view may be obtained of
this celebrated villa. It was on this spot the above view was sketched.
In returning through the lane which we have just alluded to, the first
turning on the right conducts to the church, which interestingly-ancient
edifice demands a remark in this place.
Chiswick church is situated near the water side. The present structure
originally consisted only of a nave and chancel, and was built about the
beginning of the fifteenth century, at which time the tower was erected
at the charge of William Bordal, vicar of Chiswick, who died in 1435. It
is built of stone and flint, as is the north wall of the church and
chancel; the latter has been repaired with brick: a transverse aisle, at
the east end of the nave, was added on the south side in the middle of
the last, and a corresponding aisle on the south side, towards the
beginning of the last century. The former was enlarged in the year 1772,
by subscription, and carried on to the west end of the nave: both the
aisles are of brick.
In the churchyard is a monument to the memory of William Hogarth. On
this monument, which is ornamented with a mask, a laurel wreath, a
palette, pencils, and a book, inscribed, "Analysis of Beauty," are the
following lines, by his friend and contemporary, the late David
Garrick:--
"Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reached the noblest point of art,
Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart!
If genius fire thee, reader, stay;
If nature move thee, drop a tear;
If neither touch thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here."
Near this is the tomb of Dr. Rose, many years distinguished as a critic
in a respectable periodical publication.
In the church, in the Earl of Burlington's vault, is interred the
celebrated Kent, a painter, architect, and father of modern gardening.
"In the first character," says Mr. Walpole, "he was below mediocrity; in
the second, he was the restorer of the science; in the last, an
original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves
nature. Mahomet imagined an Elysium, but Kent created many." He
frequently declared, it is said, that he caught his taste in gardening
from reading the picturesque descriptions of Spencer. Mason, noticing
his mediocrity as a painter, pays this fine tribute to his excellence in
the decoration of rural scenery:--
----"He felt
The pencil's power--but fir'd by higher forms
Of beauty than that pencil knew to paint,
Work'd with the living hues that Nature lent,
And realiz'd his landscapes. Generous be,
Who gave to Painting what the wayward nymph
Refus'd her votary; those Elysian scenes,
Which would she emulate, her nicest hand
Must all its force of light and shade employ."
On the outside of the wall of the churchyard, on a stone tablet, is the
following curious inscription:--"This wall was made at ye charges of ye
right honourable and trulie pious Lorde Francis Russel, Duke of Bedford,
out of true zeal and care for ye keeping of this churchyard, and ye
wardrobe of God's saints, whose bodies lay therein buried, from
violating by swine and other profanation, so witnessed! William Walker,
V., A.D. 1623."
We cannot better conclude our description than with a sketch from Sir
Richard Phillips's "Morning's Walk to Kew." He was walking on the
opposite banks of the river, when on a sudden he caught the sound of a
ring of village bells. "Surely," he exclaimed, "they are Chiswick
bells!--the very bells under the sound of which I received part of my
early education, and, as a schoolboy, passed the happiest days of my
life!--Well might their tones vibrate to my inmost soul, and kindle
uncommon sympathies!" I now recollected that the winding of the river
must have brought me nearer to that simple and primitive village than
the profusion of wood had permitted me to perceive, and my memory had
been unconsciously acted upon by the tones which served as keys to all
the associations connected with these bells, their church and the
village of Chiswick! I listened again, and now discriminated those
identical sounds which I had not heard during a period of more than
thirty years. I distinguished the very words in the successive tones,
which the school-boys and puerile imaginations at Chiswick used to
combine with them. In thought, I became again a schoolboy--"Yes," said
I, "the six bells tell me that _my dun cow has just calv'd_, exactly as
they did above thirty years since!"--Did the reader never encounter a
similar key-note, leading to a multitude of early and vivid
recollections? Those well-remembered tones, in like manner, brought
before my imagination numberless incidents and personages no longer
important, or no longer in existence. My scattered and once-loved
schoolmates, their characters and their various fortunes, passed in
rapid review before me; my schoolmaster, his wife, and all the gentry,
and heads of families, whose orderly attendance at divine service on
Sundays, while those well-remembered bells were "chiming for church,"
(but now gone and mouldering in the adjoining graves,) were again
presented to my perceptions! With what pomp and form they used to enter
and depart from their house of God! I still saw with the mind's eye the
widow Hogarth, and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle
dressed in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black
hoods, their lace ruffles, and their high-crook'd canes, preceded by
their aged servant, Samuel; who, after he had wheeled his mistress to
church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and
opened and shut the pew! There too was the portly Dr. Griffiths, of the
_Monthly Review_, with his literary wife in her neat and elevated
wire-winged cap! And oftimes the vivacious and angelic Duchess of
Devonshire, whose bloom had not then suffered from the canker-worm of
pecuniary distress, created by the luxury of charity! Nor could I forget
the humble distinction of the aged sexton, Mortefee, whose skill in
psalmody enabled him to lead that wretched group of singers, whom
Hogarth so happily portrayed; whose performance with the pitch-fork
excited so much wonder in little boys; and whose gesticulations and
contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not outdone
even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel! Yes, simple and
happy villagers! I remember scores of you;--how fortunately ye had, and
still have, escaped the contagion of the metropolitan vices, though
distant but five miles; and how many of you have I conversed with, who,
at an adult age, had never beheld the degrading assemblage of its
knaveries and miseries!
I revelled in the melancholy pleasure of these recollections, yielding
my whole soul to that witchery of sensibility which magnifies the
perception of being, till one of the bells was overset, when, the peal
stopping, I had leisure to think on the rapid advance of the day, and on
the consequent necessity of quickening my speed.
* * * * *
THE SKETCH-BOOK.
NO. XLIV.
* * * * *
THE BLUE BOTTLE
"A _fly_ your honour."--_Brighton Cliff_
Talk of musquitoes!--a musquito is a gentleman who honourably runs you
through with a small sword, and from whom (as from a mad dog) we may
easily seek a defence in--_muslin_.
But your rory-tory, hurly-burly blue-bottle, is no better than a bully.
His head is a _humming-top_, and his tight blue little body like a
tomahawk, cased in glittering steel, which he takes a delight in
whirling against your head. I really believe, that to confine a nervous
man in a room with one of these winged tormentors, on a July day, would
inevitably destroy him in less than an hour.
He rudely and unceremoniously bumps away all sober reflection,--(I
wonder whether the phrenological Spurzheim ever felt the _bumps_ of a
blue-bottle!) then his whimsical vagaries effectually defy repose; now
settling with his tickling bandy legs upon your nose, and industriously
insinuating his sharp proboscis, and anon abruptly buzzing in your
ear--no secret--off he shoots again to his own music.
Now, truly, his _hum-drum_ puts me in mind of the whirring tone of the
hurdy-gurdy, while his _ad libitum_ bumping against the booming
window-panes sounds, to my fancy, like the unskilful accompaniment of a
double drum, beaten by some unmusical urchin.
The house spider who spreads with so much care his beautiful nets for
gnats, and moths, and smaller flies, finds alike his labour and his
toils in vain to secure this rampaging rogue; and, indeed, when the
turbulent blue-bottle chances, in his bouncing random flight, to get
entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so
loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably
takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the
cracked wainscot--like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter
a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the
security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel into
another _beat_.
Your noisy people generally grow taciturn in their cups--but Sir
Blue-bottle, though he drinks deep draughts of your wine, particularly
if it abound in sweetness, is never changed. He is naturally giddy, and
according to entomologists, always sees more than double, while his head
was never made to be turned. So may you hope for peace--only in his
flight or death!--_Absurdities: in Prose and Verse_.
* * * * *
LAW AND LAWYERS.
(_For the Mirror._)
William the Conqueror entertained the difficult project of totally
abolishing the English language, and for that purpose, he ordered that
in all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be instructed in
the French tongue. Until the reign of Edward III. the pleadings in the
supreme courts of judicature were performed in French, when it was
appointed that the pleas should be pleaded in English; but that they
should be entered or recorded in Latin. The deeds were drawn in the same
language; the laws were composed in that idiom, and no other tongue was
used at court. It became, says Hume, the language of all fashionable
company; and the English themselves ashamed of their own country,
affected to excel in that foreign dialect. At Athens, and even in France
and England, formal and prepared pleadings were prohibited, and it was
unlawful to amuse the court with long, artful harangues; only it was the
settled custom here, in important matters, to begin the pleadings with a
text out of the holy scriptures. It is of late years that eloquence was
admitted to the bar.
The account which the learned judge Hale gives of the lawyers, who
pleaded in the 15th century, does them little honour. He condemns the
reports during the reigns of Henry IV. and V. as inferior to those of
the last twelve years of Edward III. and he speaks but coolly of those
which the reign of Henry VI. produces. Yet this deficiency of
progressive improvement in the common law arose not from a want of
application to the science; since we learn from Fortescue that there
were no fewer than two thousand students attending on the inns of
chancery and of court, in the time of its writer. Gray's-inn, in the
time of Henry VIII. was so incommodious, that "the ancients of this
house were necessitated to lodge double." Indeed until the beginning of
the last century the lawyers lived mostly in their inns of court, or
about Westminster-hall. But a great change has been effected; they are
all now removed to higher ground, squares and genteel neighbourhoods, no
matter how far distant from their chambers.
The number of judges in the courts of Westminster was by no means
certain. Under Henry VI. there were at one time eight judges in the
court of common pleas. Each judge took a solemn oath that "he would take
no fee, pension, gift, reward, or bribe, from any suitor, saving meat
and drink, which should be of no great value." In 1402, the salary of
the chief justice of the king's bench was forty pounds per annum. In
1408, the chief justice of the common pleas had fifty-five marks per
annum. In 1549, the chief justice of the king's bench had an addition of
thirty pounds to his salary, and each justice of the same bench and
common pleas, twenty pounds. At this time, a felony under the value of
twelve pence, was not a capital offence; and twelve pence then was equal
to sixty shillings at the present day.
To Richard III. on whom history has cast innumerable stains, England has
considerable obligations as a legislator. Barrington thus speaks of him:
"Not to mention his causing each act of parliament to be written in
English and to be printed, he was the first prince on the English throne
who enabled the justices of the peace to take bail; and he caused to be
enacted a law against raising money by 'benevolence' which when pleaded
by the citizens of London against Cardinal Wolsey, could only be
answered by an averment, that Richard being a usurper and a murderer of
his nephews, the laws of so wicked a man ought not to be forced." And a
noble biographer, (Bacon's Henry VII.) says, "He was a good lawgiver for
the ease and solace of the common people." Cardinal Wolsey to terrify
the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, told them
plainly, _that it were better that some should suffer indigence than
that the king at this time should lack, and therefore beware and
resist not, nor ruffle not in the case, for it may fortune to cost some
people their heads_. And says Hume, when Henry VIII. heard that the
commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was
so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one of the members who had
a considerable influence on the house; and he being introduced to his
majesty, had the mortification to hear him speak in these words: _Ho!
man! will they not suffer my bill to pass?_ And laying his hand on
Montague's head, who was then on his knees before him, _get my bill
passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off_.
This cavalier manner of Henry's succeeded; for next day the bill passed.
Another instance of arbitrary power is worth relating. In Strype's life
of Stow we find, a garden house belonging to an honest citizen of
London, (which chanced to obstruct the improvement of a powerful
favourite. Thomas Cromwell,) "loosed from the foundation, borne on
rollers, and replaced two and twenty feet within the garden," without
the owner's leave being required; nay without his knowledge. The persons
employed, being asked their authority for this extraordinary proceeding,
made only this reply, "That Sir Thomas Cromwell had commanded them to do
it," _and none durst argue the matter_. The father of the antiquary,
Stow, (for it was he that was thus trampled upon,) "was fain to continue
to pay his old rent, without any abatement, for his garden; though half
of it was in this manner taken away."
TRIAL AND EXECUTION.
In days of yore, (says Aubrey) lords and gentlemen lived in the country
like petty kings, had _jura regalia_ belonging to the seignories, had
castles and boroughs, had gallows within their liberties, where they
would try, condemn, and execute; never went to London but in parliament
time, or once a year to do _homage_ to the king. Justice was
administered with great expedition, and too often with vindictive
severity. Pennant informs us that "originally the time of trial and
execution was to be within three suns!" About the latter end of the
seventeenth century the period was extended to _nine_ days after
sentence; but since a rapid and unjust execution in a petty Scottish
town, 1720, the execution has been ordered to be deferred for forty days
on the south, and sixty on the north side of the Tay, that time may be
allowed for an application to the king for mercy. Stealing was first
capital in the reign of Henry I. False coining, which was then a very
common crime, was severely punished. Near fifty criminals of this kind
were at _one time_ hanged or mutilated. Laws were passed in Henry
VIIth's reign ordaining the king's suit for murder to be carried on
within a year and a day. Formerly it did not usually commence till
after, and as the friends of the person murdered often in the interval
compounded matters with the criminal, the crime frequently passed
unpunished. In 1503, an act was passed prohibiting the king from
pardoning those convicted of wilful and premeditated murder; but this
appears to have been done at the monarch's own request, and was liable
to be rescinded at pleasure. In Henry the Eighth's reign, Harrison
asserts that 73,000 criminals were executed for theft and robbery, which
was nearly 2,000 a year. He adds, that in Elizabeth's reign, there were
_only_ between three and four hundred a year hanged for theft and
robbery. It is said that the earliest law enacted in any country for the
promotion of anatomical knowledge, was passed in 1540. It allowed the
united companies of _Barbers_ and _Surgeons_ to have yearly the bodies
of four criminals for dissection. In the year 1749, were executed at
Tyburn, Usher Gahagan, Terence O'Connor, and Joseph Mapham, for filing
gold money. Gahagan and Connor were papists of considerable families in
Ireland; the former was a very good Latin scholar, and editor of
Brindley's edition of the Classics; he translated _Pope's Essay on
Criticism_, in Latin verse, and after his confinement, the _Temple of
Fame_, and the _Messiah_, which he dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle,
in hopes of a pardon; he also wrote verses in English to prince George
(George III.) and to Mr. Adams, the recorder, which are published in the
ordinary's account, together with a poetical address to the Duchess of
Queensbury, by Connor. In 1752, it was enacted that every criminal
convicted of wilful murder should be executed on the day next but one
after sentence was passed, unless that happens to be on a Sunday: and in
that case, they are to be executed on the Monday following. The judge
may direct the body to be hung in chains, or to be delivered to the
surgeons in order to its being dissected and anatomized; but in no case
whatsoever is it to be buried till after it is dissected. The first
punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering, occurred in the year
1241. The form of our gallows was adopted by the Roman Furca, when
Constantine abolished crucifixion. In France it had either a single,
double, or treble frame, denoting the rank of the territorial seigneur,
whether gentleman, knight, or baron. The ancient gallows near London,
had hooks for eviscerating, quartering, &c. the bodies of criminals. In
the 15th century, the top, like the beam of a pair of scales, was made
to move up and down; at one end hung a halter, at the other a large
weight, the halter was drawn down, and being put round the criminal's
neck, the weight at the other end lifted him from the ground.
F.R.Y.
* * * * *
MY COMMON-PLACE BOOK,
NO. XIX.
* * * * *
NOVEL WRITERS AND NOVEL READERS.
Auto-biography of men, who held no distinguished rank in the political
world, is often very pleasant reading; especially where the writer has a
strong tincture of vanity, and is obviously blind to his own character;
for, if he does not know it himself, he is sure to let his readers know
it; if he does not see the dark spots, he will not endeavour to conceal
them; and, if he thinks them bright ones, he will blazon them. But
novel-writing, when well done, is, after all, the best species of
writing; for, if what all the world says, is true; what all the world
reads, must be good. A novel writer, of any talents, will draw his
portraits from the life--will catch at every striking feature, and
generally paint man as he is; and there is this difference between
actual histories and works of imagination, that the former are for the
most part true in letter, but false in spirit; and the latter, false in
letter, and true in spirit; the one is correct in names, dates, and
places, but out of truth in everything else: the other is not correct in
names, dates, and places, but perfectly true in every other point.
The worst part of a novel is the hero or heroine: these are too
frequently fabrications from the author's fancy, instead of portraits
from nature; or, if taken from life, they are tortured into a perfection
that life never knew. This is too much the case with "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," and ten thousand others. Ladies are not good hands in painting
heroes, nor gentlemen always equal to the portraying of heroines. The
author of _Werter_ knew that, and therefore he did not disfigure his
wicked and interesting work with an artificial Charlotte: he leaves her
to the reader's own fancy, who has nothing to do but to fancy himself
Werter, and his own imagination will paint Charlotte.
When the hero is made the vehicle of one moral lesson, as Vivian, in
Miss Edgeworth's "Tales of Fashionable Life," then there is no need of
artificial ornament; and when there is no intention of presenting an
unmixed character of evil, nothing remains but to draw from life, and
the work is perfect. One of Miss Edgeworth's failings is of great
service to her, in this kind of painting: she wants what some persons
call feeling, that is to say, she does not believe in the omnipotence of
love, and therefore would never have written such a book as the "Sorrows
of Werter;" and if she had possessed the same materials, she would have
produced a very different work--not so full of genius, perhaps, but an
interesting and instructive tale.