your lordshipe; for it goeth muche abrode; and, as I am also informed, that the byshops are the setters forth thereof; as it maie stand with your lordship's most honorable commandment therein.”—p. 169. Some ballads on the same subject, and about that time, are introduced into Bishop Percy's "Reliques;" but it is not likely that either of them is the one alluded to by Lord Wharton. 66 Among the numerous letters of the reign of Elizabeth, a few will be found of importance, and many of much interest: of the former is a copy of the commission for the execution of the Queen of Scots," penned," the compiler says, by Lord Burghley." It is dated on the 1st Feb. 29 Eliz. 1587, and was directed to the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Derby, Cumberland, and Pembroke. The date there assigned to that instrument fully agrees with Secretary Davison's assertion, that it was signed on Friday the first of February. Following the warrant, Dr. Howard has inserted the correspondence between James the First and Elizabeth, relative to his mother; but it has been frequently printed elsewhere. There are, however, two letters from James on another affair, which we do not remember to have read before *. The well known Duke of Norfolk, who lost his life from his connexion with the Queen of Scots, writing to the Earl of Sussex in August, 1560, betrays his suspicion of Elizabeth's duplicity; a suspicion justified by almost every action of her life. "I am at the last arrived at the court, good cosyne, after long delays, where, by my will, I mind not long to tarry. All things at my coming out of the north were in as good state as it was possible to make broken matters to be. God send the queens majesty quickly to take order for the redress thereof; it is now an easy matter to do it, which with prolonging may become almost impossible. I have received at the queen's majesty's great heap of fair words, both openly and privately. Her majesty promises me great matters, God send me to feel of some in effect, as by my lords here I am put in good hope. Thus being sorry, that through my man's negligence I have been fain to make your man tarry for this scribbling so long, I bid you, good cosyne, most heartilye farewell. Pray make my commendations unto my lady. From Southehamtone, the 1st of August, 1560. "Your loving cosyne assuredly, "THOMAS NORFOLKE."-pp. 203-4. Another letter from that unfortunate nobleman well merits a place among these extracts. "To the Earl of Sussex. "I am glad, good cosyne, that in the ende the queen's majestye will consider of the service you have done her in Ireland, not dowtynge, but that tyme shall brynge her majesty to know her true and heartye servants from dysemblyng and flattering lyars; and as to the * P. 244, 245. or any others, they be soe errante lyes, as I care lyttle for them. I thynke the world thynkes we have not so lyttle wit to deal in that sort; but if some heads were not occupyed in some matters, the clock should stand still: I smell whence these storyes rise: I, for my own parte, remain ready at all tymes, upon my friends advertisements. Marry, and if by any means it might be, I would be very lothe to come unsent for, if occasion served for my comyng. Mr. Secretary may soon dyvyse to cause the queens majesty to claime my promise; which is upon a letter from him, to come up with all speed. I shall doe more good, being sent for, than in comyng upon any other occasion: but because I here cannot so well judge what is best to be done as you there, and Mr. Secretary, I have sent myself to be ordered therein as you two shall thynke good: and so for this tyme, thankyng you for your friendly letters, I bid you, good cosyne, most heartilye farewelle. From Norwich, this 15th of July, 1565. "Your assured loving cosyne, Few people would suppose that Richard Barnes, Bishop of Carlisle from 1570 to 1577, was speaking of the wife of the former bishop, John Best, who filled that See from 1561 to May, 1570, had he not used the word "predecessor." Addressing the Earl of Sussex in January, 1571, he says, "I am bold to beseche, and most humblie to crave, your honor's lawful and good favour and furtherance towards a poore blinde woman, and her poore children, Elizabethe Beeste, late wife to my predecessour at Carlyle; who is in good forwardness to receive some relief at the queenes majestie's gracious hands, towards the payment of the debtes to the quene, before his death, in consideration of great charges; which he is said in the quenes service to have sustayned; and the rather by your good means and helpe; which to bestowe, I dowte not your honor will be redie, according to your accustomed wonte. And for that ende my simple sewte is, if the same unto your honor may be found reasonable, and seeme worthie to be consydered."―p. 200. The speech of Henry Cuffe, secretary to the Earl of Essex, at his execution in 1601, for the part he took in the earl's rebellion, has perhaps been before printed: but as it is too good to lose its value from repetition, we shall insert it: "I am here adjudged to die for acting an act never plotted; for plotting a plot never acted. Justice will have her course; accusers must be heard; greatness will have the victory: scholars and martialists (though learning and valour should have the pre-eminence) in England must die like dogs, and be hanged. To mislike this, were but folly; to dispute of it, but time lost; to alter it, impossible; but to endure it, is manly, and to scorn it, magnanimity. The queen is displeased, the lawyers injurious, and death terrible: but I crave pardon of the queen; forgive the lawyers, and the world; desire to be forgiven; and welcome death.”—p. 152. A long correspondence is introduced relative to the Earl of Suffolk, who with his lady, in 1619, were fined £30,000, and imprisoned in the Tower, for malversation in his office as lord treasurer; but about which his biographer, Collins, is wholly, and unless it were from ignorance, criminally silent in his account of the earl in his "Peerage." But we must hasten to a conclusion. Among the articles which deserve notice, is a petition from Mr. Francis Phylipes, on behalf of his brother, Sir Robert, then a prisoner in the Tower, which is very eloquently written; an account of the reception of James the Second at Oxford; of the meeting between the Czar and William the Third in Holland; and the speeches of Lord Howard in the House of Commons, from 1660 to 1673, and some others. Our extracts shall, however, terminate with a modern letter from a maid of honour to a fair friend who was afflicted with the small-pox, which displays the vivacity of the writer in a manner that we think cannot fail to please our readers; and will serve either as a foil or a relief, as their taste may be, to the earlier correspondence which we have brought to their notice. "My dear Lady Charlotte, "The concern which your illness gave me, could be equalled by nothing but the present contrast, my joy at your recovery. I am told you are very angry at my not coming to see you; but pray, my dear, hear the reason before you condemn me. You must know I never had the small-pox, and tho' there may be no danger, I cannot help my fears; I had once plucked up my spirits, and sent for my chair; but the thought immediately came into my head, that the hail which fell upon you, without its usual effects, might revenge itself on me, and pepper me off for a ceremonious and imprudent civility; and then what must have become of a poor maid of honour, with nothing but her royal mistresses bounty, to get her a husband? "As yet my face has no pimples, nor have I drank it into redness, nor painted it into wainscot, but it retains the tolerable form and features which my good Maker gave it. If it has not charms enough to catch a duke or an earl, yet it may get a young pair of colours in the Guards, or throw perhaps an old battered colonel at my feet: but disfigured by that spightful and ugly distemper, I must either die a maid, or end my days behind a counter in the city, with no more balls, or pleasures in my prospect, but a walk with my spruce husband to his hall on a lord mayor's day, to open the ball with some clean-shirted 'prentice, or merchant's book-keeper. If this is not a sufficient plea to excuse my not waiting on your ladyship, your good nature, that beauty of your mind, is gone, however favourable that disease, which is the common enemy of a complexion has been to your face. All her friends trembled for lady Charlotte but myself: and now mark how I am going to present you with a fine stroke, and a simile. As the sun drives back the vapours of the earth, by the strength of its beams; so your bright eyes have sent back the malignity of the small-pox, from your lovely face, which heaven would not suffer that distemper to pit and spoil, because it was unwilling one of the finest of its works should fall its victim, and cease to promote its Creator's praise and honour. I forget, the princess has sent, and the chair waits, or I could say a thousand such things. Lord keep every girl of face and condition from such a misfortune as you have wonderfully escaped, to the joy of all the pretty fellows in town, and the particular pleasure and satisfaction of, my dear lady, 66 your whimsical friend, "A. B."-pp. 459-460, signature M m m. The selections we have made will show that this volume contains too many articles of value to justify the neglect which it has received; and though we have extracted only such letters as appeared most likely to be popular, there are many, for which we had not space, of considerable merit. Indeed no writer of history, either general or personal, ought to omit perusing it; for although he will have to wade through an immensity of chaff, he may find a grain, which he would in vain seek for in publications of higher reputation: and should any person be induced to edit a collection of such documents, we strongly recommend him to rescue a large portion of those in this work from the comparative oblivion into which they have fallen. It is perhaps useful to add, that it is sometimes cited as Lord Howard's Collection of Letters ;" and that it is frequently quoted in Walpole's "Royal and Noble Authors." 66 The Poetry contained in the Novels, Tales, and Romances of the Author of Waverley.-Edinburgh and London, 1822.—12mo. WE have spent a few idle hours in tracing the Great Novelist to the sources of many of his poetical allusions. It may be not uninteresting to track the favourite paths of so distinguished a genius, and the more especially do we feel at home in so doing, since they so generally lie among our strictly retrospective domains. The snatches of verse thickly scattered over the series of his novels indicate the description of study to which he has resorted for the nourishing his imagination; and in this point of view our task absolutely assumes an air of utility and importance. It will be seen that he has been by no means anxious to exhibit his quotations with minute and faithful accuracy; but he has put together those parts of the different originals; and even made such alterations of his own, as fancy or convenience might suggest. The present collection is by no means offered as complete, although we believe it to be perfect as far as it goes; yet there remain passages which we fancy to remember having seen in other places; and which more extensive reading, and a more correct memory, may enable the reader to verify for himself. To save trouble, we shall give references, not to the volume * and page of the different tales; but, as far as it is practicable, to the pages of the elegant little work before us. This may cause our notices to be less complete than perhaps they might otherwise have been; since that collection does not contain all the poetical passages interspersed in the text of the earlier novels and tales. Our task concludes with the Tales of the Crusaders; and was completed long before the avowal which decided the much-agitated question as to the "Author of Waverley." WAVERLEY, p. 22. The charm is to be found, as follows, in the 12th book, chap. xiv. p. 177, of" Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft:....Whereunto is added, a Treatise upon the Nature and Substance of Spirits and Divels, &c. all written and published in Anno 1584, by Reginald Scot, Esquire.-Printed by R. C. and are to be sold by Giles Calvert, dwelling at the Black Spread-Eagle, at the West-end of Pauls, 1651."-small 4to. “Another charme that witches use at the gathering of their medicinable herbs. Haile be thou holy herbe Growing on the ground, Thou art good for many a sore, -p. 28. "O gin ye were dead, gudeman,” is the first verse and burden of a song of five stanzas : "I wish that you were dead, goodman, And a green sod on your head, goodman, * An omission has been made in the late collective reprints of the "Novels and Tales," in 8vo. and smaller sizes; the numbers of the chapters do not correspond with those in the original editions, and each size has a numeration of its own. The publishers might easily rectify this by printing upon a single sheet a table of the variations of the different editions; and adapting it so as to be bound up with any them. "Though neither the herb nor the witch never came there.” VOL. I.-PART I. C of |