tury passes, divided between the magnificent prosperity of the fifth, and the inglorious wretchedness of the sixth earl; and then, within another term of about the same length, are recorded three more violent deaths-that of the father of the seventh earl, that of the seventh earl himself, and that of the eighth earl-all three charged with rebellion or treason. Thus, in the two centuries, we have only two earls who died in the ordinary course of nature, and no fewer than eight heads of the house suddenly and violently cut off-four of them in battle, two on the scaffold, the other two lawlessly murdered. Nothing can set before us in a more striking way the convulsed or troubled condition of English society throughout those two hundred years. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stand by themselves, and make a cycle in our history. The time between the dethrone ment of Richard II. and the accession of James I. between the era of the Plantagenets and that of the Stuarts, formed a transition period from one state of things to another, both in the social and in the political constitution of the country. The Lancastrian and Tudor domination was something superinduced over the wornout fabric of our original institutions, an interruption of the natural course of events, a new and foreign element thrown into our national system. It served the purpose of stirring the half-exhausted mass into new life. But it necessarily operated by originating and maintaining a process of fermentation, which, so long as it lasted, kept everything in what may be called an abnormal or unnatural condition. In the height of its activity, law and order were utterly overthrown; and even in its stage of subsidence, there continued to prevail a nearly complete eclipse of all constitutional security and free dom, the necessary consequence of the danger of renewed convulsion that still existed, and of the constant state of apprehension, suspicion, and uneasiness in which the government-and it may be said the community in general-were thereby kept. It was not till after the accession of the Stuarts that Englishmen began to remember again that they had, or once had had, a constitution; or ceased to be afraid even to talk or think of their ancient liberties." brought up at the court of Henrietta Maria, and who was married to the great painter Vandyck. Her portrait, by her husband, is now at Hagley, the seat of Lord Lyttleton. She was a great beauty. "The last Lord Cobham" and " the last Lord Grey of Wilton" contain much curious and interesting matter; but we must pass them over, and come to the four concluding stories, which are all, more or less, connected with the public history of the period, and involve the important disputes concerning the succession to the throne of England. These narratives are entitled, "Mary Tudor, the French Queen," Sisters of Lady Jane Grey," Margaret Tudor, the Scottish Queen," and "The Lady Arabella Stuart." "The The portrait of Mary Tudor, prefixed to the volume, is that of a very lovely woman, made up of frankness, sweetness, and dignity. Her story is briefly this:In infancy she was half betrothed to the baby Prince of Castile, afterwards Charles V.; but the matter never went much farther. Before she was sixteen she fell in love with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, a man no longer in sa première jeunesse, and she was far, very far, from being his first love. But Brandon was handsome, brave, gallant, and amiable; and—que voulezvous? as the French say-she loved him; and he thought the beautiful princess a capital match, and had hopes that his royal master Henry VIII. would give him his sister. But, unfortunately, good, gouty, old Louis XII. asked her hand for himself; and Henry could not refuse the crown of France for his sister. So the poor child was sent over to Boulogne, and thence conducted to her lord. He was very kind to her while he lived, but that was only a few months; and after his death she returned to England and marThe next story is that of "Earl Henry the Wizard." ried Brandon. Her descendants by Brandon, the He is this same ninth carl, and was supposed, in his Ladies Jane, Catharine, and Mary Grey, laid claim to own day, to have had some supernatural knowledge. the succession to the English throne before the Stuarts, Mr. Craik speaks of him as a person in whom there who were descended from Margaret Tudor, Mary's was evidently much good." This may have been the elder sister. This claim was founded on an Act of case; but, from aught that we here learn, the facts of Parliament passed in the year 1536, which empowered his life tell much against him. The "good" in him Henry VIII. to make a will postponing the right of was neither good feeling nor good sense, for his con- Margaret's descendants, and giving the priority to duct is, for the most part, selfish and foolish. To our those of his younger sister, Mary, failing the lines of thinking, he was very nearly good for nothing. He his three children, Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward. In might pass for a "wizard" in the seventeenth century; the section entitled "The Sisters of Lady Jane Grey," but we do not think he would be taken for a conjurer their claim to the crown is discussed, and their stories now. This chapter concludes with a brief account of given. The Lady Catharine Grey was an interesting the descent of the earldom to his grandson, the ele- and unfortunate woman; her history is mournful, and venth Earl Percy, and its subsequent transmission in it is well told here. The parents of these distinguished the female line to the present Duke of Northumber-ladies, the Marquis and Marchioness of Dorset (Frances land. Brandon), were by no means of the over-indulgent school, if we may trust their daughter Jane's account of them : "The last of the Ruthvens" is full of interesting matter concerning the remarkable family of the Ruthvens. The Gowrie Conspiracy occupies some space here; and Mr. Craik, in speaking of the original Dorset as a man for his harmless simplicity neither "Sir John Hayward characterises the Marquis of letters of Logan of Restalrig, shows in a very satis- misliked nor much regarded.' On which Strype annofactory manner that the plot must have been planned tates, A disparaging character given of a great man, by the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, and not by without much if any ground for it. This character I can King James, as many persons believed until the dis-give of him, that he was a great friend to the Reformacovery of these original letters by Pitcairn. The last Ruthven was a woman, Maria Ruthven, who was tion, and a patron of learned men.' Dorset appears to have been a man of a higher order of mind than Hayward's splenetic account of him would lead us to suppose. He was, evidently, a person of very considerable literary accomplishment, as we might expect to find the father of Lady Jane Grey; his letters are capitally written; and he had, probably, many estimable qualities. Nor, where his character was defective, would it seem to have been in the way of simplicity or weakness; but rather in that of conceit and pertinacity, the produce of a narrow, not a soft, understanding. This is the impression made by his daughter's report of him. Lady Jane described both her parents, to Roger Ascham, as almost beyond endurance sharp and severe : When I am in presence,' she said, 'of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, bobs, and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them,) so without measure disordered, that I think myself in hell.'" As the Lady Catharine Grey was the representative of Mary Tudor, and was looked upon suspiciously in consequence by Queen Elizabeth, so was Lady Arabella Stuart the representative of Margaret Tudor (in default of the issue of James I.), and she was in consequence jealously watched by that monarch. The position of these two women was very similar; but Lady Arabella led by far the pleasanter life, and she was certainly not the most interesting person. Mr. D'Israeli has given a curious and entertaining, but not very accurate account of her, which is probably in the memory of our readers. The present history is very carefully written, and every authentic source of information seems to have been consulted in order to give a full and correct statement of the facts of this lady's history. Singular enough it is, that the person whom the Lady Arabella married secretly should be a grandson of the Earl of Hertford, whose secret marriage with Catherine Grey brought upon them a fate similar to her own and that of her husband. son, "It was William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp's second with whom she was discovered to be in treaty in February, 1610. His age could not be more than two or three and twenty at the most, while she would by this time be four or five and thirty. Upon being brought up before the Council, they both declared not only that they were not married, but that they had never intended marrying without his majesty's consent. Mr. D'Israeli gives part of a written communication which Seymour addessed to the Lords of the council, detailing every thing that had taken place between them. He says, that upon its being generally reported, after her ladyship's last being called before their lordships, that she might, without offence, make her choice of any subject within the kingdom, he, being a younger brother, alive to his own interest, of moderate estate, and so having his fortunes to raise by his own exertions, -while she was a lady of great honour and virtue, and, as he thought, also of great means-conceived the plan of honestly endeavouring to gain her for his wife; and with that view had boldly intruded himself into her apartment in the court on last Candlemas-day, and imparted to her his said desire, to which she had readily assented. This is certainly all prosaic enough. They had only had two other meetings in all; the first at one Brigg's house in Fleet Street, the second at a Mr. Baynton's. "Upon giving these explanations and assurances, they were both set at large. That followed which might naturally have been expected. The two lovers took the first opportunity of getting married; the ceremony was privately performed in Lady Arabella's chamber in the palace at Greenwich. The fact was discovered in the early part of July. It is mentioned in a letter of Carleton's to Sir Thomas Edmondes, dated the 13th of that month, in terms by no means complimentary to the lady. She was immediately ordered into close custody at Sir Thomas Parry's house, at Lambeth; her husband was sent to the Tower, where the learned and intrepid Presbyterian divine, Andrew Melvil, recently shut up for an irreverent expression he had dropped touching the altar in the Royal Chapel, welcomed the new comer with the well-known epigram, which would alone have sufficed to fix the accepted form of the Lady's name : "Causa mihi tecum communis carceris; Ara Regiæ bella tibi, regiæ sacra mihi." "Thus matters remained for eight or nine months; but although prevented from meeting, the husband and wife found means to hold some intercourse by writing. Mr. D'Israeli has given one of the Lady Arabella's letters from the original, preserved in the Harleian Collection. It was probably upon their correspondence being discovered that it was determined to separate them by a greater distance." In consequence of this marriage, the Lady Arabella underwent persecutions and imprisonments which shortened her life. She died at the age of thirty-nine or forty, in the Tower, 1615. "The Romance of the Peerage," if it be continued in the same spirit of impartial investigation, and with the same ability and thorough mastery of the subject (and those who are acquainted with these two volumes can scarcely doubt this), promises to become a standard authority. The genealogical details which here and there impede the general reader's progress through the book, are among the most valuable portions in the eyes of the historical and biographical student. It is impossible to read these unvarnished records of a past age without making many reflections upon the changes in social morals and a thousand things dependent upon them, which have taken place in England since the Reformation. But we will spare the reader our moralizing, as every right-minded person may easily become his own moralist while reading such records of reality as the "Romance of the Peerage." THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.1 BEAUTIFULLY are we told in the first announcement recorded as having been made from the Creator to the creature, in the opening verses of the revealed word, that "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" and as certainly as that command was followed by immediate obedience, so certainly has it been renewed in varied forms, as some new emanation of immortal spirit has been sent from time to time to enlighten the darkness which was in the world. Towards the close of the last century, was a period (1) The Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell," Edited by William Beattie, M.D. one of his Executors. Moxon. particularly distinguished in our land for increase of mental illumination; and amid the bright galaxy which adorns the period embracing the termination of the one century and the commencement of the other, the name of Thomas Campbell occupies in our estimation a proud position. Born and educated among intellectual giants, it was his good fortune to enjoy, as doubtless he well deserved, the society and affection of many of the most eminent men of the day. James Watt had applied to the affairs of the world a power, in steam, to the rapid progress of which, as the human mind could not have foreseen it, so neither, even in conjecture, can it now set limits. Thomas Telford had, by devoting the high gifts of science to the art of making roads and bridges, of spanning the mighty arch, and penetrating the formidable hills, paved the way to some of the most splendid triumphs which steam now presents to an astonished world. James Thomson, of Clitheroe, was one of the earliest and most successful founders of those colossal factories, which have given to millions bread, and to their country almost inexhaustible wealth. With all of these, and with many more such men, it is delightful to have in these volumes such testimony of the poet's friendship, continued with them or with their families from his earliest to his latest years. Nor can we doubt, when we find them one after another so generously and so readily holding out to him, not only the hand of friendship, but the hand to aid, when his less practical knowledge of worldly things exposed him to occasional difficulties, not in themselves so formidable, as formidable to his sensitive mind; we cannot doubt, we say, that in all this, these master minds often felt richly repaid, amid the severe labours to which they devoted their lives, by the brilliant coruscations of their friend's genius, and the soothing influence of those noble sentiments which it was the aim of all his pure and classical poetry to press home upon the heart. But it was not only with these cultivators of the sterner realities of life that we find him the associate. To Walter Scott-whose astonishing narratives both in prose and verse leave us only one sensation at all allied to discontent; namely, a fear lest the charms of his eloquence should bewilder our historical faith he was the faithful and attached friend. The same may be said of Dugald Stewart, and Thomas Brown, who adorned and elevated the study of the human mind. And Campbell was one of that brilliant association, who, headed by Horner, and Jeffrey, and Brougham, and Sidney Smith, first led the way in that bold and independent spirit of criticism, which, whatever party spirit, in its wrath, may say, did much to raise both the literary and political intellect of the country. That the intimate breathings of such souls as these and the list of the gallant band might be widely extended-should have furnished matter for the most interesting volumes now made public, we could not reasonably have doubted; but upon some, who in the turmoil and toils of this busy world may have almost forgotten the amiable and unobtrusive bard of hope, these delightful revelations may come as a surprise; if so, a pleasant one it must be. The idea may seem fanciful, but when we recall to mind the numerous names of the great and good whom we find forming the society of this period, we cannot help viewing them as raised up to be ministers of happiness and encouragement to each other in their several careers, as well as to be the means of counterbalancing the evil influences of the times, when men's minds were more than enough occupied with the necessity of making money, and when the clang of the trumpet and the roaring of cannon sounded through the world. We can imagine with pleasure the wearied statesman, Fox or Pitt, or the care-worn merchant, or the harassed warrior, enjoying a few moments of gentle pleasure over the pages of the poets, their cotemporaries, and probably their friends; to say nothing of the delight conveyed to thousands of the working men of the earth, to whom the stream of song trickled as rills of delight, affording refreshment and gladness amid their toil;-and this as well in our own population as in many a far distant land, into which the names of Rogers, and Scott, and Campbell, and many more, had penetrated--wherever an Englishman (as where has he not ?) had planted his foot. Some such idea seems to have passed through our poet's own mind when he penned these lines "Oh! deem not, in this worldly strife, When our poet's last hour was come-when he lay on a death-bed--(in a foreign land, it is true, but not unattended by affection)-when his eyelids had been closed by the hand of a friend-a soldier's widow, who had been employed as an attendant, was found in the chamber of death placing a chaplet of laurel on his head, and having also, as her companions, a bible and a volume of his songs, whose voice was now silent for ever. His noble martial lyrics had found a response in her heart, and opened a fountain of tears; but she wept not altogether in sorrow, but turned for consolation to the word of God. When we follow Mr. Campbell into the more sacred scenes of private life, we are struck with the warmth of his domestic affections; with the noble self-denial with which he provided for an aged parent's wants, and aided his somewhat dependent sisters, and persevered, in his very dying moments, in his endeavours to promote the interests of his younger relatives. In the playful, and what perhaps a severer critic might call trifling, notes he was so often addressing to those who had thrown the charm of wit and beauty over his heart, we find much to admire; particularly in the series to the Mayow family, scattered through these volumes. When Shakspeare put into the mouth of the heathen | however, so limited, that in after life they frequently orator that severe sentence on human kindness, "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; " his powers; and that thus originated some weak points in his subsequent character. became dependent on their brother. Thus our poet, who had received the name of Thomas from the eminent moral philosopher Dr. Thomas Reid, became he hardly did justice to that more extended charity of almost the sole object of the cares and affections of feeling which pervades, in general, his portraitures. the family-and amply did he repay them all. His How many instances could be given of the reverse of school and college career are fully detailed: they were the sentence, where the good only has been gladly re- both brilliant; but we cannot help thinking that in membered! Indeed, in such instances as the memory some respects, like many other noble boys, he overof the man before us, it would be difficult to do other-exerted himself, or, at least, did not enough concentrate wise; for, in the long career here faithfully recorded of him, we find so much to admire, to rejoice in, or to sympathize with, that, should any spot or blemish appear, we may well say, "Let it be interred with his bones." And when it is added, that Dr. Beattie has discharged his duty with the manly freedom of the historian, the tenderness of a Christian friend, and the faithfulness of the chronicler, we can assure our readers that they will find placed before them, in the volumes now under notice, ample materials thoroughly to know both the history and nature of that once warm heart which now lies cold in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. The limits of our magazine will necessarily restrain our inclination to quote, and our willingness to give our readers the means of judging for themselves of the value of the high opinion we have formed, of the work before us. Such specimens as we can select, will give those to whom time and opportunity may for the sent be wanting to enable them to peruse the whole work, some idea of the treasures they may anticipate. THE FAMILY AND DOMESTIC LIFE OF CAMPBELL. pre It matters little, perhaps, where we begin; but, for the sake of order, we may commence with the family of Campbell, and his domestic character. Leaving out of view the genealogical history of the Campbell family, we may state that the poet was the eighth son and the youngest and eleventh child of Alexander and Margaret Campbell. He was born at Glasgow, on the 27th of July, 1777; and the exact place of his birth, we can inform the curious in literary antiquities, is now occupied by a large and more modern building, forming the south-west corner of the crossing of George-street and the High-street. His father was a wealthy American merchant, but lost his all during the war of independence with that country. Mr. Campbell was at this time about sixty years of age, and unable by any further exertions to retrieve his affairs. He retired, therefore, into private life, with what little remained to him, and seems to have left the management of his household and numerous family to Mrs. Campbell, a woman of a cultivated mind, and warm heart and temper. The young family received all of them excellent educations. The boys, as they grew up, went with manly independence to different quarters of the world in search of fortune; and had, in after life, varied, but none of them very signal success. The sisters, in the same spirit, refusing to burden their parents, sought every opportunity of acting as governesses-a resource, By his conduct at college he won the esteem of all his professors, at that time most of them men of general, and some of them of European fame; and he seems to have been as great a favourite, as their fellowstudent, of the boys of that day, as he became of their sons and grandsons when Lord Rector at a future period. By his own family he was entirely beloved. His youngest sister, Elizabeth, in a letter to an uncle, after mentioning with pride his college honours, says: "His personal accomplishments keep pace with those of his mind; and the sweetness of his manners render what my happiness is in having such a brother; one, him a most endearing relation indeed. Judge then too, who loves me as much as it is possible." Thomas was then eighteen. An affecting incident occurred to him when a boy. Walking with his sister Isabella on the river side, they came suddenly on the dead body of a brother a few years older, who had been drowned while bathing. This impressed him deeply, and he alludes to it in the lines in "The Pleasures of Hope :"— "Why does the brother of my childhood seem "And fare thee well, whose blessings seem My sister and my friend." The mother was justly proud of her boy, but having, in one sense, become the head of the house, she did not permit her affections to guide her judgment. When Thomas was a boy of fifteen, he was seized with a desire to be present at the trial of Gerald, for treason. Under pretence of wishing to see an aunt who had invited him to Edinburgh, he asked his mother, in her melting mood, for permission, and three shillings to defray charges, proposing to walk the distance (fortysix miles) in day, and return in the same manner. ון To his surprise, he tells us, he received a ready sanction, but five instead of three shillings, and orders to rest a night by the way on each journey." He could sleep for sixpence at the half-way house." "She then gave me, I shall never forget the beautiful coin a king William and Mary crown-piece. I was dumb with gratitude; but sallying out to the streets, I saw at the first bookseller's shop a print of Elijah fed by the ravens. Now I had often heard my poor mother say confidentially to our worthy neighbour Mrs. Hamilton, whose strawberries I had plundered, that in case of my father's death, (and he was a very old man,) she did not know what would become of her. But she used to say, 'Let me not despair, for Elijah was fed by the ravens.' When I presented her with the picture, I said nothing of its tacit allusion to the possibility of my being one day her supporter; but she was much affected, and evidently felt a strong presentiment." On But his affections were soon to be put to a different trial from these amiable little tokens of love. The trial was a severe one, and nobly he stood it. When he had published "The Pleasures of Hope," at the age of twenty-two, and risen suddenly into fame, he was irresistibly attracted to visit Germany. his return the following year, on reaching London he received the news of his father's death. He hastened to his mother. He found her surrounded by her daughters, all in indifferent health, and deprived of the means of living-for Mr. Campbell's annuity had died with him. The poet had spent all, even the mighty sum of 607. he had received for "The Pleasures of Hope." The other brothers, if indeed able and willing, were all beyond the seas. Thomas buckled on his armour, obtained literary labour, and divided with his bereaved relatives every penny. From this time forward he continued to aid his family, even to a second generation, until his dying hour. Some of his friends calculated that at least 100. yearly was set aside for this purpose; and it was often on the same account that he asked temporary aid, never denied, from his richer friends. On this subject Dr. Beattie says:— "It is only by a plain statement of the difficulties that now beset his path, that the reader can form a just appreciation of his character. The favourite of the Muses, but the step-child of Fortune, his whole life was a struggle with untoward circumstances; and though it met with only partial success, it was always maintained with honour. These little points of family history I desire to notice with all possible delicacy; but to pass them over in silence would be an act of injustice to all parties. His conduct at this trying period is worthy of imitation; and others who may be similarly placed on the shifting stage of life, may learn from his example the manly virtues of courage and perseverance. His kindness to his mother and sisters was that of a most affectionate relative, and with them he shared his still scanty earnings." The next event in the poet's domestic history is his marriage. But ere this took place he had removed to London. We ought here to explain that Campbell had chosen no profession. This we deem most unfortunate; nor are the causes assigned at all satisfactory to our minds. Had he been in any profession—even nominally a lawyer—it would have been easy for his friends or the Government to give him some office of moderate leisure and some emolument; but in a nation of shopkeepers, to provide for a man who is nothing but a poet, is no easy matter even for it is true, but the success of the experiment was not a Government. They had made Burns an exciseman, such as to invite repetition. Campbell, therefore, had no resource but literature, and London was found to be the widest field for his talents. He had not been long there when he fell in love with his second cousin, Matilda Sinclair; and she, very naturally-for at this period he was not only a genius and amiable, but remarkably handsome-fell in love with him. They married in spite of the grave shakings of the head of some of their elder friends, and enjoyed a tolerably long life of happiness together, not unchequered by some severe trials. He soon afterwards took a house at Sydenham, where, for many years, he seems to have enjoyed as much felicity as falls to the lot of man. He thus announces his married happiness to John Richardson, a prosperous member of the legal profession, and one of the most judicious and warmest friends a man could be blessed with: "Pimlico, Nov. 3, 1803. "Now that the public astonishment has a little subsided, and the nation at large grown familiar with contemplating my unhappy marriage, I picture to myself the precincts of Edinburgh; be sure a cottage, as the best compromise one could make between town and country Edinburgh; John Richardson and Jemmy Grahame shaking their heads like two mandarins at my fireside, moralizing upon the folly of early wedlock: Mocha coffee-my wife has been in Geneva, and makes it in perfection; she is besides a very mild body, and, except in points of consequence, would give us leave to make as much and talk as much as we liked: such are the scenes, I trust, not in distant perspective. I cannot tax myself with either misapprehending or changing my opinion of the summum bonum. It is precisely what is now before me. I see the book of life opened: the characters written upon it are, mental employment, such as to amount to industry without swelling to fatigue; a friend to be always with, and a friend to have for ever, although met with only in the gay moments of leisure. I have a little too much industry, I own, at present; for the constant consciousness of what I have now to answer for beats an alarm-bell in my heart when I detect myself indolent, and my hours of writing are now from morning to night. "The worthy being who stands first on my list of blessings is such, that if I asked my affections, Did they ever find her match? they would say, upon oath, Nay, never! And now for my friends, John. It was no compliment for a dreary forlorn pilgrim in Germany to wish for your society, and to think that it would be better than solitude; but it is now a pledge how dear I hold you, when I think how blest, how supremely blest I should be, if I had the sum of God's gifts made complete, by having the friend who wishes me most happy to come and see me happy.” A young lady, a distant relative, thus describes his family happiness : "I spent a short but delightful visit with my amiable and talented cousins. They were greatly attached. Mrs. C. studied her husband in every way. As one proof, the poet being devoted to his books and writing |