Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester; but the author certainly was the Professor Jacob Vernet, of Geneva, who died at the great age of 91, in 1789. He had been the friend of Rousseau, who mentions him in his Confessions, (livre viii.,) but with whom he quarrelled, in consequence of the "Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," in Rousseau's Emile. M. de Boze had no share in writing the inscription: and the paradoxical Father died the 3rd, not the 2nd of September, 1729. In reply to the doubt expressed in the note to page 355, I can say that the article of Hardouin is in Chauffepié, translated, with some additions, from the great English Historical Dictionary, compiled by Birch, Lockman, Desmaiseaux, and others. At page 356 of Mr. D'Israeli's book the learned visionary is named "Le Père de la petite maison," which is without meaning, and should be "des petites maisons," the familiar appellation of a madhouse, or lunatic hospital.

The sphere of action and influence exercised by the Jesuits for above two centuries, was so comprehensive, that deeds and persons utterly foreign to the society have been attributed to them. Some instances of these errors have been occasionally indicated in this Magazine, and one, in another journal, has just now casually attracted my attention, which, from its source and subject, I shall, I trust, be excused for here noticing. In No. 57 of the Foreign Quarterly Review, recently published, at page 97, under the head of "Letters of Henry IV." it is asserted, that Matthieu, the historiographer of that monarch, was a Jesuit, which is quite unfounded; for he was a married man, the father of a family, and never engaged in holy

orders. The reviewer obviously confounds him with a Jesuit of that name, but a Spaniard by birth, and one of the most prominent agitators of the day in the cause of the League, whom that association despatched in 1591, with an offer of the crown, then dubiously contested by Henry IV., still a Huguenot, to Philip of Spain, for his daughter, Isabella, in the expectation of her espousing the young Duke of Guise. (See Journal de Henri IV., tome i., page 150.) The prefix of P, equally to both, one designating Père, and the other Pierre, the historian's christian name, will account for the misconception. The latter, too, was originally a zealous leaguer, but, on Henry's professed conversion, embraced his cause with equal warmth; and surely, the vast Catholic majority of France had as fair a right to interdict the throne to a Protestant, representing not even the twentieth part of the population, as the Protestants of England to exclude Catholics from theirs; though we generally find, in the contrasted appreciation of history, this act, germain in principle, applauded on one side, and reprobated on the other. (See Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1839, page 481.)

Philip's daughter, Isabella, above-mentioned, is entitled to some notice. Her mother Elizabeth, Philip's third wife, was eldest sister of Henry III., on whose death, and consequent extinction of the Valois branch of royalty, the French crown would devolve, by direct right of succession, to Isabella, if not debarred by the ungallant interdict of the Salic Law, of a people, where, says Sterne, "nothing but the monarchy is Salique." She was Philip's favorite child; but, although the Duke of Nevers, (Louis de

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Gonzague,) in his "Traité de la Prise des Armes," (Mémoires, tome i., 1665, folio,) makes the appropriate distinction, and affirms that she was loved as a daughter, while respected as a woman, by her father— 'qui l'aimoit comme fille, en la respectant comme femme," the calumny which, with a foul perversion of the purest of attachments, sought to asperse the memory of Cicero, and estrange the character of his affection for Tullia, did not spare the Spanish monarch. The general tenor, however, of Isabella's life, so contrasted with that of Julia, or the Duchess of Berri, whose fathers, Augustus, and Philip of Orleans, were exposed to the same suspicion, equally groundless, I believe, fully shielded her from the imputation. Brantome, (Dames Illustres, 4eme Discours,) dwells with intense complacency on her and her sister Catharine's praise. He calls them "des honnestes et vertueuses infantes," and Isabella, in particular, "une très belle princesse," though, in the ludicrous exhibitions connected with the history of the Holy League, she is made to say

"Pourtant je suis brunette,

Amy, n'en prenez émoy,

Car autant aimer souhaitte

Qu'une plus blanche que moi."

Satyre Menippée, p. 79, ed. Elzevir, 1664.

She was five years older than her destined consort, the Duke of Guise, (1566-1571,) but her father was twelve years younger than his second wife, our Mary, (1515-1527,) and Elizabeth long encouraged the addresses of Alençon (or Anjou,) her junior by above twenty years (1533-1554.) Isabella subsequently married the Archduke Albert, son of the Emperor

Maximilian II., and in 1597 she was appointed to the government of the Low Countries, where she continued till her decease in 1633, much respected in that arduous period of administration. To her tempered firmness and conciliation of action, may be mainly ascribed the maintenance of the Austrian rule, Spanish, or German, in the preserved Belgian provinces, as appears from the Annals of Grotius, Strada, Khewenhüller, Watson, and Schiller. (Geschichte des Abfalls der Vereinigten Niederlande.)

Isabella was also, we know, put forward as a legitimate claimant of the English throne, in the famous "Conference about the next succession to the Crown, by R. Doleman," or rather the compound work of Cardinal Allen and Persons, 1595, 8vo., in right of descent from John of Gaunt, the Tudor line of succession from him being spurious. A singular concurrence of pretensions to both the French and English thrones! We are likewise told that, during the siege of Ostend, she made a vow never to change her body-linen until its surrender; and, though we are not informed when she thus bound herself, we do know, that she had to wait until the color of her garment had acquired that soiled tint distinguished by her name- Isabelle. The memorable siege lasted three years, three months and three days, from the 11th June 1601, to the 14th Sept., 1604, at the sacrifice, on both sides, of 130,000 men, and expenditure of 800,000 cannon balls, the explosion of which, it is said, was sometimes even heard in London. The captor, Spinola, like Sylla, was thirty years old before he assumed the military habit, of which he became so bright an ornament; but betrayed, as he

conceived, by his Court, his last mournful words were "Me han quitado la honra." He died in Sept. 1630, unmarried, like his opponent in war and rival in fame, Maurice of Nassau; so that their names may be added to those of renown, enumerated in our prior volume, page 278, of whom no direct descendants exist; but they are collaterally represented, Spinola, by a Grandee of Spain, and Maurice, by the King of the Netherlands.

Pursuing a little further the contents of your Magazine, Mr. Urban, I think it right to mark an error, possibly of the press, at page 384, where Jeanne D'Albret, is called D'Albert-very different families; for the latter was scarcely known till the reign of Louis XIII., as may be seen in our preceding volume, page 341.

The illustrious house of D'Albret expired in Jeanne; for the subsequent bearers of the name, among whom we reckon the Maréchal D'Albret, and his wife, the friends of Madame de Sévigné, and protectors of Madame de Maintenon's desolate youth, were of a spurious, though legitimised branch. Some incidental anecdotes of Henry's mother, this Jeanne, will be found in our first volume, page 381, not destitute of interest. But, see her "Mémoires par Madlle. Vauviller, Paris, 1819, 3 vols., 8vo.

M. Millon's positive maintenance, at page 383, of the assassination of Pichegru, instead of his suicide, deserve little faith, as, from much better grounds of information, it would be easy to prove; nor is his mode of self-strangulation without recorded analogy. Tacitus, (Annal. vi., 14,) in relating the consequences of a discovered plot during the secession of Tiberius