words, which your gravity may more easily understand, I would not from the fountain of Honour give lustre to the dull and ignorant, deadening and leaving in "cold obstruction," the lamp of literature and genius. I ardently wish my reign to be remembered; if my actions were different from what they are, I should as ardently wish it to be forgotten. Those are the worst of suicides, who voluntarily and prepensely stab or suffocate their fame, when God has commanded them to stand up on high for an ensample. We call him parricide who destroys the author of his existence tell me, what shall we call him who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey, its most faithful propagator and most firm support? The parent gives us few days and sorrowful; the poet many and glorious; the one (supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best remunerates our virtues.

A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one, that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast board, but I may not save those upon whose head I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. This year they and their sovran dwell together, next year they and their beagle. Both have names, but names perishable. The keeper of my privy-seal is an earl; what then? the keeper of my poultry-yard is a Cæsar. In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him: what is not natively his own, falls off and comes nothing.

I desire in future to hear no contempt of pen-men, unless a depraved use of the pen shall have so cramped them, as to incapacitate them for the sword and for the council-chamber. If Alexander was the great, what was Aristoteles who made him so? who taught him every art and science he knew, except three; those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of murdering his bosom-friends. Come along : I will bring thee back again nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, and never eke out the substance of a stanza: but Edmund, if perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for the injustice we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for the mortification they must suffer at seeing their inferiors set before them. Edmund is grave and gentle: he com

plains of Fortune, not of Elizabeth, of courts, not of Cecil. I am resolved, so help me God, he shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, convey unto him those twelve silver spoons, with the apostols on them, gloriously gilded; and deliver into his hand these twelve large golden pieces, sufficing for the yearly maintenance of another horse and groom: besides which, set open before him with due reverence this bible, wherein he may read the mercies of God towards those who waited in patience for his blessing; and this pair of cremisin silken hosen, which thou knowest I have worne only thirteen months, taking heed that the heel-piece be put into good and sufficient restauration, at my sole charges, by the Italian woman at Charing-cross.-By W. T. Landor.

If we compare Washington and Buonaparte, man to man, the genius of the former seems of a less elevated order than that of the latter. Washington belongs not, like Buonaparte, to that race of the Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpass the ordinary stature of mankind. Nothing astonishing attaches to his person; he is not placed on a vast theatre: he is not pitted against the ablest captains and the mightiest monarchs of his time; he traverses no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna and from Cadiz to Moscow, he defends himself with a handful of citizens on a soil without recollections and without celebrity, in the narrow circle of the domestic hearths. He fights none of those battles which renew the triumphs of

Something of stillness envelopes the actions of Washington; he acts deliberately you would say that he feels himself to be the representative of the liberty of future ages, and that he is afraid of compromising it. It is not his own destinies but those of his country with which this hero of a new kind is charged; he allows not himself to hazard what does not belong to him. But what light bursts forth from this profound obscurity! Search the unknown forests where glistened the sword of Washington, what will you find there? graves? no! a world! Washington has left the united States for a trophy of his field of battle.

Buonaparte has not any one characteristic of this grave American: he fights on an old soil, surrounded with glory and celebrity; he wishes to create nothing but his own renown; he takes upon himself nothing but his own aggrandizement. He seems to be aware that his mission will be short, that the torrent which falls from such a height will speedily be exhausted: he hastens to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as men do a fugitive youth. Like the gods of Homer, he wants to reach the end of the world in four steps: he appears on every shore, he hastily inscribes his name in the annals of every nation; he throws crowns as he runs to his family and his soldiers; he is in a hurry in his monuments, in his laws, in his victories. Stooping over the world, with one hand he overthrows kings, and with the other strikes down the revolutionary giant; but in crushing anarchy he stifles liberty, and finally loses his own in the field of his last battle.

Each is rewarded according to his works: Washington raises his nation to independence: a retired magistrate, he sinks quietly to rest beneath his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen and the veneration of all nations.

Buonaparte robbed a nation of its independence: a fallen emperor, he is hurried into an exile where the fears of the world deem him not safely enough imprisoned in the custody of the ocean. So long as, feeble and chained upon a rock, he struggles with death, Europe dares not lay down its arms. He expires: this intelligence, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had caused so many funerals to be proclaimed,

neither stops nor astonishes the passenger, what had the citizens to deplore?

The republic of Washington subsists, whereas the empire of Buonaparte is destroyed: he died between the first and second voyage of a Frenchman, who found a grateful nation where he had fought for a few oppressed colonists.

Washington and Buonaparte sprang from the bosom of a republic: both born of liberty, the one was faithful to it, the other betrayed it. Their lot in futurity will be as different as their choice.

The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age; it will mark the commencement of a new era for mankind.

The name of Buonaparte also will be repeated by future generations; but it will not be accompanied with any benediction, and will frequently serve for authority to oppressors, great or small.

Washington was completely the representative of the wants, the ideas, the knowledge, and the opinions of his time; he seconded instead of thwarting the movement of mind; he aimed at that which it was his duty to aim at: hence the coherence and the perpetuity of his work. This man, who appears not very striking, because he is natural and in his just proportions, blended his existence with that of his country; his glory is the common patrimony of growing civilization: his renown towers like one of those sanctuaries, whence flows an inexhaustible spring for the people.

Buonaparte might, in like manner, have enriched the public domain: he acted upon the most civilized, the most intelligent, the bravest and the most brilliant nation of the earth. What rank would he occupy at this day in the universe, if he had combined magnanimity with the heroic qualities, which he possessed-if, Washington and Buonaparte in one, he had appointed liberty the heir to his glory.

But this prodigious giant did not completely connect his destinies with those of his contemporaries: his genius belonged to modern times, his ambition was of bygone ages; he did not perceive that the miracles of his life far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this Gothic ornament would ill become him. Sometimes he advanced a step with the age, at others he retrograded towards the past; and whether he opposed or followed the current of time, by his immense strength he repelled the waves or hurried them along with him. In his eyes men were but an engine of power; no sympathy subsisted between their happiness and his. promised to deliver and he fettered them;

He

he secluded himself from them; they withdrew from him. The Kings of Egypt placed their sepulchral pyramids not among flourishing fields, but amid sterile sands; those vast tombs stand like eternity in the desert: in their image Buonaparte built the monument of his renown-Chateaubriand's Travels.

vent, Friar Juan Parez de Marchena, happening to pass by, was struck with the appearance of the stranger, and observing from his air and accent, that he was a fo reigner, entered into conversation with him, and soon learned the particulars of his story. That stranger was Columbus, accompanied by his young son Diego. Whence he had come from does not clearly appear that he was in destitute cir

SPAIN.

COLUMBUS, upon discovering the treachery that had been practised upon him, in regard to the putting the scheme of discovering America in execution, by John II. King of Portugal, left his dominions in disgust. This was in the year 1484+. Many writers have thought that he went to his native place Genoa; some have stated that he proceeded to Venice. All this, however, lies hidden in obscurity. His first appearance in Spain is given as follows, in the recently published biography of this great man, by Mr. Washington Irving :

"It is interesting to notice the first arrival of Columbus in that country, which was to become the scene of his glory, and which he was to render so powerful and illustrious by his discoveries. In this we meet with one of those striking contrasts which occur in his eventful history.

"The first trace we have of him in Spain, is in the testimony furnished a few years after his death, in the celebrated law-suit between his son Don Diego, and the crown, by Garcia Fernandez, a physician resident in the little sea-port of Palos de-Moguer, in Andelusia. About half a league from that town stood, and stands at the present day, an ancient convent of Franciscan friars, dedicated to Santa Maria de Rabida. According to the testimony of the physician, a stranger on foot, accompanied by a young boy, stopped one day at the gate of the convent and asked of the porter a little bread and water for his child. While receiving this humble refreshment, the prior of the con

+ It was about this time that he dispatched his celebrated brother Bartholemew Columbus, to England, to make proposals relative to the Captidiscovery of America, to Henry VII. vity, and other delays long prevented his reachng England, and then his poverty was such, that he was a long time before he could fit himself to appear at Court. During this time, he supported himself by making Maps and Charts. At last he laid his plans before Henry, who, in the most extraordinary contradiction to his paltry and penurious character, seems to have receive them with great encouragement. But as Bartholemew returned to Spain, he heard at Paris of the successful arrival of his brother from his first voyage.

his way-faring; he was on his way to the neighbouring town of Huelva, to seek his brother-in-law, who had married a sister of his deceased wife.‡

"The prior was a man of extensive information. His attention had been turned in some measure to geographical and nautical science, probably from his vicinity to Palos, the inhabitants of which were among the most enterprising navigators of Spain, and made frequent voyages to the recently discovered islands and countries on the African coast. He was greatly interested by the conversation of Columbus, and struck with the grandeur of his views. It was a remarkable occurrence in the monotonous life of the cloistered monk, that a man of such singular character, intent on so extraordinary an enterprise, should apply for bread and water at the gate of his convent. He detained him as his guest, and diffident of his own judgment, sent for a scientific friend to converse with him; that friend was Garcia Fernandez, the physician of Palos, the same who furnishes this interesting testimony. Fernandez was equally struck with the appearance and conversation of the stranger. Several conferences took place at the old convent, and the project of Columbus was treated with a deference in the quiet cloisters of La Rabida, which it had in vain sought amidst the bustle and pretensions of a court-sages and philosophers. Hints, too, were gathered among the veteran mariners of Palos, which seemed to corroborate his theory. One Pedro de Velasco, an old experienced pilot of the place, affirmed that nearly thirty years before, in the course of a voyage, he was carried by stress of weather so far to the north-west, that Cape Clear in Ireland lay to the east of him. Here, though there was a strong wind blowing from the west, the sea was perfectly smooth, a remarkable circumstance, which he supposed to be produced by land being in that direction. It being late in August, however, he was fearful of the approach of winter, and did not venture to proceed on the discovery.

+ Probably Pedro Correa, already mentioned, from whom he had received information of signs of land in the west, observed near Puerto Santo.

"Fray Juan Perez possessed that hearty zeal in friendship, which carries good wishes into good deeds. Being fully persuaded that the proposed enterprize would be of the utmost importance to the country, he offered to give Columbus a favorable introduction at court; and he advised him by all means to repair thither, and make his propositions to the Spanish sovereigns. Juan Perez was on intimate terms with Fernando de Talavera, prior of the monastery of Prado, and confessor to the Queen, a man high in royal confidence, and possessing great weight in public affairs. To him, he gave Columbus a letter, strongly recommending the adventurer and his enterprize to the pa tronage of Talavera, and requesting his friendly intercession with the King and Queen. As the influence of the church was paramount in the court of Castile, and as Talavera, from his situation as confessor, had the most direct and confidential communication with the Queen; every thing was expected from his mediation. In the meantime, Fray Juan Perez took charge of the youthful son of Columbus, to maintain and educate him at his convent. The zeal of this worthy man, thus early enkindled, never cooled; and many years afterwards, in the day of his success, Columbus looks back through the brilliant crowd of courtiers, prelates, and philosophers, who claimed the honour of having patronized his enterprize, and points to this modest friar, as one who had been most effectually its friend. He remained at the convent until the spring of 1476, when the court arrived in the ancient city of Cordova, where the sovereigns intended to assemble their troops and make preparations for a spring campaign against the Moorish Kingdom of Granada. Elated then with fresh hopes, and confident of a speedy audience, on the strength of the letter to Fernando de Talavera, Columbus bade farewell to the worthy prior of La Rabida, leaving with him his child, and set out, full of spirits,

for the Court of Castile.

MODES OF PUNISHMENT IN ENGLAND IN

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

It is a fact very little known that "the gallies" are mentioned in a statute late in the reign of Elizabeth, as a punishment not uncommon. Lord Coke, too, in his Institutes, speaks of them in the same light. There were three in the navy, even when the larger ships were in number not more than nineteen; "The Speedwell, the Try-ryghte, and the Blacke Galleye."

Fuller, in his "Historie of the Holy Warre," mentions, when Lewis the IXth was prisoner at Cairo, he was restored to his liberty on condition that the Christians should surrender up to them the city of Damietta, and pay for his ransom, and the devastations they had committed in Egypt, 400,000 pieces of silver, Lewis, for the security of this money, pawned to the Turks the Pyx and Host, (that is, the Body of Christ transubstantiated in the Eucharist) as his chiefest jewel, which he should be most careful to redeem. Hence, in perpetual memory of this conquest, we may see a wafer-cake and a box always wrought in the borders of that tapestry which is brought out of Egypt.-R.

MEN AND CANDLES.

"An able chymist and physician declares his conviction, that it would be possible to transmute dead bodies into CANDLES"—Times Jan, I, 1828.

Now this idea, which the philosopher cannot sufficiently admire, has already Voltaire been practically illustrated. tells us, that, during the Irish rebellion, the bodies of the English slain were most economically worked up into candles. A good wife complaining at the huckster's that the candles were not so good as they were wont to be-" That arises," replied the tradesman, " from the scarcity of tallow; we can get but few dead Englishmen !" We cannot but regret that this important chemical truth was not enforced on the attention of the late Emigration Committee. The idea of transporting ten thousand human beings from their native land is shocking to every benevolent breast; but what a grand work of political economy to transmute

this superflux of humanity into candles!

There is a sublimity in the idea, together with evident profit. With this truth in view, and with a redundant Irish population, we may snap our fingers for the future at any chance of war with Russia. We will not, at the present moment, bring into figures the number of candles which every Irish family—allowing one able-bodied man, one woman, and nine children to each-would produce; but it is evident the product would be immense, To be sure, from the natural irritability of the people, we do not believe an Irishman would burn as well as a Hollander: there would doubtless be an occasional spluttering from the taper. But, after gravely considering the matter, we do not see why England, (it being ordered to such effect by the solemnity of an act of parliament,) having on her hands a heavy Irish population, might not become a great exporting country. Nothing remains for the government but to advertise for contractors, to furnish a certain number of journeymen tallow-chandlers, with a sufficiency of pipe-staving, to be shipped immediately for Ireland, when a due portion of the people being melted and hooped in the allotted casks, ships may be ordered to take in the produce at the several sea-ports; and the work is finished! In considering this question, one knows not which sufficiently to admire-its ingenuity, or its evident humanity. But we would now speak of the philosophy of the question; or, rather, of those incidents which in the adoption of the melting system in England, must give rise to philosophical disquisition. The dust of Alexander in a bung-hole is a startling mockery of human greatness; and yet we know not if a more painful sense of debasement, mingled with a touch of the ludicrous, would not be in the thought of the tallow of an Alexander-formed into the solitary rushlight of the wretched poor depending from a nail in the empty cupboard. Cowper speaks of a candle in a strain which associates the taper with the most chilling and miserable attributes of want: it is in The Winter Evening— "The taper soon extinguished, which I saw Dangled along at the cold finger's end, Just when the day declined,"

What a situation-what a change for one of the mighty! It would be odd, too, to recognize, in the tapers of a ballroom, the remains of departed beauty. Contrasting the flame that shone from them with a recollection of their living brightness, we might exclaim with Gray,

"E'en in their ashes live their wonted fires."

The melting system, indeed, once become general, there would be no end to the philosophical observations that must arise from it-to the ludricous and touching contrarieties to which it must give place. Thus some future strolling actor might murder Otway and Shakspeare, before Kean, Young, and Kemble, dwindled into the three tallow foot-lights! The gentlemen at Crockford's might see to ruin new dupes by the last remains of former victims. A dead husband, placed in the bed-room, might gutter away in the candlestick on the nuptial night of his too-forgetful spouse. How many of our saints would be compelled to flare at masquerades and the opera! Parson Irving, made into long sixes, might serve to illuminate the dressing-room of some future Grimaldi; whilst Messrs. Egerton and Claremont of Covent Garden might cast a light upon the Hebrew volume at the Jew's Synagogue. It would be a hard fate for the remains of a vegetable-dieted person to be used in any of our meat-markets, it would be no less hard for an author to fall into the hands of a trunkmaker-to afford a light for the pasting of well-remembered, unsold sheets. It would be grevious for a President of a Royal Society to be crammed into a bottle, and placed in a back garret, to twinkle the hours away, until the tenant-some sansculotte bricklayer's labourer-staggered home, and puffed the ex-President out. We wonder how a tailor would burn in the room of a creditor; or how a timid lady would deport herself with pistols over the mantel-piece-or left alone with a party of carousing fox-hunters! Gentlemen of economical dispositions would certainly be most desirable-they would make the most of themselves. Lawyers, for instance, it would, we imagine, be very hard to put out; tax-gatherers would last for ever, sinecurists would be most unprofitable burning. Not so with some long-winded members of Parliamentthe regular five-column men would be invaluable. Watchmen must sell at a reduced rate; they would give a dull, sleepy night-moreover, have a cont nual tendency to gather what housewives call thieves, about them. We wonder how Mr. Cobbett would burn!-certainly, with great economy, it would, however,

we

with "

should think, be necessary to put him into a perforated lantern. Physicians and Doctors would make but tolerable candles-they would always appear winding-sheets" in them. How it would frk the heart of a country gentlemen-of a fine, unbending game-preserver-one who had imprisoned his fifty poachers a season-to be reduced into a