Page images
PDF
EPUB

glory, not less dear to his chivalrous temper, of saving the life and honour of the beautiful Duchess of Popoli, Popoli, whom he met flying with dishevelled hair from the fury of the soldiers. He availed himself dexterously of the jealousy with which the Catalonians regarded the inhabitants of Castile. He guaranteed to the province in the capital of which he was now quartered all its ancient rights and liberties, and thus succeeded in attaching the population to the Austrian cause.

The open country now declared in favour of Charles.

Tarragona, TorTarragona, Tor

tosa, Gerona, Lerida, San Mateo threw open their gates. The Spanish government sent the Count of Las Torres with seven thousand men to reduce San Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with only twelve hundred men, raised the siege. His officers advised him to be content with this extraordinary success. Charles urged him to return to Barcelona; but no remonstrances could stop such a spirit in the midst of such

The

It was the depth of winter. The country was mountainous. The roads were almost impassable. men were ill-clothed. The horses were knocked up. The retreating army was far more numerous than the pursuing army. But difficulties and dangers vanished before the energy of Peterborough. He pushed on, driving Las Torres before him. Nules surrendered to the mere terror of his name; and, on the fourth of February, 1706, he arrived in triumph at Valencia. There he learned that a body of four thousand men was on the march to join Las Torres. He set out at dead of night

from Valencia, passed the Xucar, came unexpectedly on the encampment of the enemy, and slaughtered, dispersed, or took the whole reinforcement. The Valencians could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the prisoners brought in.

Such was the nature of Peterborough's exploits. Scarcely any general had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any general had ever displayed equal originality and boldness. He possessed, in the highest degree, the art of conciliating those whom he had subdued. But he was not equally successful in winning the attachment of those with whom he acted. He was adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generals whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with his own. The English government could not understand him. He was so eccentric that they gave him no credit for the judgment which he really possessed. One day he took towns with horse-soldiers; then again he turned some hundreds of infantry into cavalry at a minute's notice. He obtained his political intelligence chiefly by means of love affairs, and filled his despatches with epigrams. The ministers thought that it would be highly impolitic to entrust the conduct of the Spanish war to so volatile and romantic a person." He was, therefore, recalled, and soon afterwards returned to England; but the fortunes of war did not again go so well in this war, for the English and their allies, as they had done under his leadership.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

and moved, no doubt, by some random thought, gave the word Soho as his watchword at the battle of Sedgmoor. Here the remains of Sir Cloudsley Shovel, recovered from the sea, lay in state previous to their interment. Bishop Burnet here had a house, and at the corner lived Alderman Beckford, famous for the speech which he did not deliver. Here the jeunesse dorée of the Georgian period, down to the fashionable bucks of

usual profusion of Vestals and Dianas. By a change that seems due to the very "irony of fate," the chief room in Carlisle House is now used as a Catholic chapel. A masterpiece of Vandyke's, a painting of the crucifixion above the altar, has succeeded to the gay pictures that once hung on the walls, and the solemn Latin litany has replaced the revellers' song. But the square is full of such things. At the corner of Sutton-street stands the

SIR J. REYNOLDS.

the Regency, drank and danced, and indulged in many a wild revel. At Carlisle House Mrs. Cornely held her famous masked balls, where a peer's daughter would appear as an Indian Princess, adorned with "barbaric pearls and gold" of inestimable value. Adam was represented "in flesh-coloured tights and an apron of fig leaves;" Death was seen "in a white shroud bearing a coffin and epitaph," whilst there was the

"White Horse," which once vied with Carlisle House in the splendour and recklessness of its entertainments, and this now is occupied by a pickle factory! It was in Soho that many of the nobility had their town houses. We have already mentioned several cases, and the names of many streets in this district are a reminder of others. In Gerrard-street stands Gerrard House, once the residence of Lord Gerrard, the first Earl of Mac

clesfield, and Newport Market was called so because here Newport House, once the residence of the Earl of Newport, stood, where now there is a daily sale of fruit, meat, and eatables of all sorts, cheap and nasty. Some of the grandeur still lingers, "though all hath suffered change." The dirt cannot quite hide the armorial bearings above the door of many a once noble house, nor the delicately-carved cornices or ceiling. The staircase is rarely clean, but it is broad and wide, and ought to lead to something better. Here and there you come unexpectedly upon a marble mantelpiece. But Soho is haunted by other and higher memories than those of fashion. The most eminent literary men of the day dwelt here. In the square Sir Roger de Coverley lived when he came to town, and as the creations of the mind are immortal, does he not dwell there yet? The locality has as strong a hold on Dr. Johnson as Fleet-street, for it was in the "Turk's Head" tavern, in Comptonstreet, that the famous Literary Club was founded in 1764 by Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and here attended the faithful Boswell, the impecunious "Goldy," and the philosophic Burke. The club under various names has lived down to our own time, and is still, we believe, in existence, though in a somewhat formal way. Its membership is said to be more select than numerous, and its dinners of the most sumptuous description; but it is no injustice to say that while it has excelled the "plain living," it hardly equals the "high thinking" of a former day, when in ponderous sentences Johnson reproved Boswell, with perhaps unnecessary severity, for some more than usually idiotical remark, and Goldsmith "talked like poor Poll," to the amusement, if not to the edification, of the assembled wits.

The meetings of the club were afterwards held for some time in Gerrardstreet, and here, in 1787, lived Edmund Burke. In the same street died John

Dryden in 1700, and here occurred the singular and almost incomprehensible disturbance at his funeral. If we step up again to the neighbourhood of the square, we come on traces of other famous men. In Frith-street lived Sir Samuel Romilly, and here William. Hazlitt, the essayist, specially noted for his excellent series of Shakesperian criticisms, died.

But Soho has connections not merely with the past, but with the distant. It has been the great foreign quarter of London for many years. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, its back lanes received a host of refugees. It was here the emigrées of the Reign of Terror and-strange contrast! the Communists of 1871 took refuge. Polish Patriots, German Socialists, Russian Nihilists, Italian Irreconcilables, pour into it and are lost in its hospitable shades. Many parts are almost taken possession of by foreigners German and French are the prevailing languages. The shops sell only foreign stuffs. Strange wines done up in strangelooking flasks, sausages as long and thick as those produced in sausagefamed Göttingen, Italian macaroni, and other continental delicacies, are offered in the windows of grocers and general merchants. The familiar English public-house is present (where is it not present in London ?), but it is frequently disguised almost beyond recognition. Sometimes it is fairly transformed to the cafe of the Latin quarter. Here,

if you have courage, you may eat a dinner of four courses for a shilling (for Soho is pre-eminently the region of the shilling table d'hôte), and you may wash it down with a bottle of claret-often wonderfully good-at the same price. It is worth while, if you care for such things, to take a stroll into Soho of an evening, and sit for awhile in one of these places. If you avoid the better class, can stand a stifling atmosphere for an hour, and are able to make out the drift

of the conversation-the French is none of the purest-you may chance to hear many a strange tale of the days when mad ruffianism gave some of the best buildings in Paris to the flames, and a whole population went mad with rage. and drink. Not this alone, but any European revolution, or attempted revolution, for the past twenty years, is discussed or alluded to by those who have taken part in it. You may, again, see some strangely foreign-looking individual smoking his cigarette in quiet thought, with a far-away look. Be sure that to him the narrow walls have ex

panded, and the inside and outside fog have cleared away. His vision is of vine-clad hills and clearer skies-of some never-to-be-forgotten home in the sunny south. What do these individuals do in the day-time? How do they live? Who can tell! Some of them supply the wants of the others, some manufacture "Old Masters," or "genuine Louis XIV. bric-a-brac" in back rooms in Wardour-street. That they do live is certain, though the how may be dubious. Let us not indulge in unprofitable speculations-speculations to which it would not be easy to find an end.

1

CORSICA AND ITS BEGGAR KING.

HIS STRANGE LIFE AND ADVENTURES.

[graphic]

ORSICA, like the neighbouring islands, had successively submitted to the Carthaginians and Romans. the seventh century it passed under the dominion of the Saracens; and Lanza Anciza, of the family of the caliph Valid Almanzor, established himself there with the title of king, a distinction borne by five of his successors; the last of whom, Nugolo, was contemporary with Charlemagne. Audemar, who then governed Genoa, in the name of the emperor, seized upon Corsica for himself; and the inhabitants, changing their religion with their master, ceased to be Mussulmen in order to become Christians.

No sooner had the Genoese thrown off the imperial yoke, than they attempted to impose their own upon these islanders; and, as they were imbued with the superstition common to new converts, the authority of the Catholic Church was called in to rivet their bondage. But

the Pope, who affected to consider this kingdom as a fief appertaining to the Church, in virtue of a pretended donation from King Papia, refused his assent, and granted the investiture of it to the republic of Pisa, on condition of receiving a nominal acknowledgment of fifty livres a-year! This occasioned a war between the Genoese and Pisans, in 1125, which ended in a truce. Hostilities, however, commencing in 1280, and the Pisans having lost part of their fleet, Corsica was ceded to the victors.

But the dominion of that nation was ever odious to the natives, and they called in to their assistance, by turns, the kings of Naples, of Arragon, and the Pope. Nicolas V., being born in Genoa, at length granted the investiture of Corsica to his countrymen; and they, by way of consolidating their power, purchased the claims of the kings of Naples and Arragon with a sum of money. This was borrowed from the bank of St. George, and the island was pledged as a security for repayment; from that period the doge has always been crowned king of Corsica.

« PreviousContinue »