Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

servant, with fifty bobs and tags dangling from his shoulder, clatters up the aisle behind them, to perform the essential offices of carrying one little prayer-book, and shutting the door of their pew. Whatever be the rank of those who practise this obtrusive and indecorous display, it is of the very essence of vulgar upstart pride, and constitutes an offence, which the beadle of every parish ought to have special orders to prevent.

The city dandy and dandisette, arrayed in the very newest of their septenary fashions, pick the cleanest way to the Park, and leaving the verdant sward, umbrageous avenues, and chirping birds of Kensington-gardens, to nursery maids and children, prefer taking the dust, and enjoying the crowd by the road-side, accompanied by the unceasing grating of the carriage-wheels in the gravel.

The maid-servant, having a smart new bonnet, asks her mistress's permission to go to morning-service; and, when her fellow servants inquire what the sermon was about, exclaims, with a toss of her head, "I always told Mary what the flirting of that fellow Tomkins would come to; spite of all his fine speeches about the banns, they was'nt no more asked in church than I was."

The labourer, or mechanic, who was formerly enabled to freshen his feet in the grass of the green fields, and recreate his smoke-dried nose with the fragrance of a country breeze, can no longer enjoy that gratification now that London itself is gone out of town. He prowls about the dingy swamps of Battersea or MileEnd, with a low bull dog at his heels, which he says he will match, for a gallon of beer, with e'er a dog in England. Being of the same stock with the cockney young lady, who pathetically lamented that she "never could exasperate the Haitch," and then innocently inquired "whether the letter we was'nt a wowell?" he, with a scrupulous inaccuracy, misplaces his H's, V's, and W's. At Vauxhall he stops to buy an ash-stick; because, as he argumentatively tells Bill Gibbons, his companion, " I always likes a hash un." However numerous may be his acquaintance, he never meets one without asking him what they shall drink, having a bibulous capacity as insatiable as that of a dustman, who, beginning at six o'clock in the morning, will swallow a quart of washy small beer at every door on both sides of a long street. The more decent artisan, having stowed four young children, all apparently of the same age, in a hand-cart, divides with his wife the pleasure of dragging them, for the benefit of country air, as far as the Mother Red Cap in the Hampstead-road, where he ascends into a balcony commanding a fine view of the surrounding dust, smokes his pipe, drinks his ale, and, enjoying the heat of the high road as he lugs his burden back again, declares, that "them country excursions are vastly wholesome."

It was my intention to have contrasted with these scenes "the

[blocks in formation]

sound of the church-going bell" in a quiet sequestered village; but, in writing of London, I have so far caught its spirit, as to have left myself little room for further enlargement, and I shall, therefore, comprise all I had to say in the following extract from Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone"

"From Bolton's old monastic tower,

The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun is bright; the fields are gay,
With people in their best array

Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of the crystal wharf,
Through the vale, retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.

And up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus, in joyous mood, they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory."

H.

ANECDOTES OF THE GUELPHS.

It is singular that, in an age when the biography of individuals forms so great a portion of our national literature, the history of the illustrious House, which now enjoys the crown of England, should have been so long neglected. On the accession of the Brunswick family, indeed, several volumes appeared, which professed to contain authentic accounts of that house, but which were, for the most part, collected from the ancient chronicles, and filled with the most ridiculous fictions. The attempt of Gibbon, therefore, has been the only source to which we have hitherto had resort, for any thing like accurate and historical information on this subject. At length, however, a more extensive and finished work has been given to the public, which, if it does not supersede the labours of the future historian, will at least furnish him with a fund of accurate and valuable information.* As the annals of this warlike and adventurous family abound with interesting relations, we have selected such as were the most striking,

* A general History of the House of Guelph, or Royal Family of Great Britain, from the earliest period in which the name appears upon record, to the acces sion of his Majesty King George the First to the throne, with an appendix of authentic and original documents. By Andrew Halliday, M. D. Domestic Phy. sician to H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence. 4to. London, Underwood, 1821.

and which, by being collected together, will perhaps afford a characteristic picture of the ancestors of the monarchs, who now, for more than a century, have swayed the sceptre of these realms.

The origin of the family name is involved in great obscurity. John Tambactus, a writer of the eleventh century, has related the following fable respecting it. The wife of a certain knight, having borne, at one birth, (simul et semel) twelve sons, and being apprehensive, on account of her husband's poverty, that they would prove too great a burden for him, bribed her handmaid to carry her infants to the river, and drown them. While the maid was about to consign her young charge to the waves, the Bishop of Cologne happening to pass near the banks of the river, observed her, and despatched one of his suite to inquire what she was doing; the messenger reported what he had discovered, and the good bishop, moved with compassion, took the infants under his own care, and charged himself with their education. It is said, that the maiden-executioner, when first questioned by the bishop's messenger as to what she had in her apron, answered whelps, whence the youths afterwards assumed it as the surname of their family. The same verbal derivation is supported by the author of the "Origines Guelficæ," who says that the word is considered by some as a translation of the Latin Catulus, amongst the Saxons written and pronounced Woëlpe; among the Belgians Welpe, Wolpe, and Wülpe; and among the English, Whelp. The learned Professor Eichorn is inclined to think that the name is derived from the Saxon huelpe, written in German hülpe, and signifying aid or assistance; while, in the opinion of Dr. Halliday, it was assumed from the badge or emblem of the family, as the figure of some animal was usually painted on the banners of the chiefs, which served as the rallying war-cry of the tribe they commanded.

The earliest annals of the Guelphs are too obscure to furnish much interesting information. The first of the name was a Prince of the Scyrri in the fifth century; and, in the seventh century, a Guelph was the chamberlain of Dagobert, King of France; and about the year 823, Wolfardus, a descendant of the chamberlain, was made count of Lucca by Charlemagne, and, by a translation of his name into Latin, was called Boniface the First. His son, Boniface the Second, made an expedition into Africa; and, after a sanguinary conflict, defeated a formidable army of Arabs and Moors. Collaterally related to these were the Kings of Burgundy, who failed in the person of Rudolph the Third, and the Counts of Altdorf, which latter family became again united to that of the descendants of Boniface, by the marriage of Cunigunda, daughter of the fourth Count of Altdorf, to Azo, the second Marquis of Este. Among the ancestors of the Altdorf branch, was Henry of the Golden Chariot, who acquired that

appellation from the following circumstance. Having consented to receive, as the feudatory of the Emperor Arnulph, as much land as he could surround in one day with a chariot, he had a little vehicle made of gold, with which he mounted his fleetest horses, stationed at proper distances, and so acquired about four thousand mansi, or measure of land, in the four-and-twenty hours. Of these states, which lay in Upper Bavaria, he was created Duke. The degrading stratagem by which he gained his principality, so disgusted the independent spirit of his father, that, in the height of his despair, he retired, with twelve of his lords, to the forest of Ambergau, where he erected thirteen cells, and passed there the remainder of his life, without ever again seeing or forgiving his degenerate son.

Henry, the fourth in descent from Henry of the Golden Chariot, met with an early and melancholy death. The Guelphic princes were bound annually to present a degrading tribute, or sin-offering, at the shrine of St. Othmar. This the young prince refused to do; but soon afterwards, as he was hunting the roe in the mountains of the Tyrol, he threw himself on the ground for repose, under the shadow of a rock, a huge fragment of which fell upon his head, and killed him on the spot. His brother Guelph, more pious than he, dutifully paid the tribute, and, of course, was blessed with a long and happy reign.

Guelph, the sixth Count of Altdorf, and the third Duke of Bavaria, was the issue of the marriage of Cunigunda and Azo the Second; and from him, Henry the Lion, one of the most celebrated of the Guelphic princes, was lineally descended. His father died in 1139, leaving him, his only son, in the tenth year of his age. To add to his misfortune, the young Duke was abandoned by his mother, who, in 1141, married Henry, the Margrave of Austria, the enemy of her house. His grandmother, Richenza, however, became his guardian; and the Saxons showed themselves faithful to the son of their late sovereign. Having been prevailed upon to surrender his title to Bavaria, the young prince was acknowledged by the empire as Duke of Saxony, and enjoyed some years of domestic peace. His early attachment to warlike and manly sports, his fortitude, his energy, and his decision of character, acquired him the title of the Lion; and at the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Diet at Frankfort, composed of men and princes, where he received the order of knighthood, which had then been newly instituted.

In the crusade against the idolatrous Sclavi of the Baltic, Henry the Lion took a distinguished part; and on the return of the Emperor Conrad, who had taken the cross against the Saracenic infidels, he endeavoured to recover his Bavarian dominions from the Margrave of Austria, to whom they had been resigned. While he was thus employed, he was informed that Conrad had entered Saxony at the head of an army, with the intention of de

priving him of those dominions also. "Command my vassals," cried Henry," to assemble at Brunswick on Christmas-day; they will find me at their head." Though the time was short and the distance great, and all the passes guarded, the young Duke, with only three attendants, having disguised his person, darted swiftly and secretly through the hostile country; and, appearing on the fifth day in the camp at Brunswick, forced his Imperial adversary to retreat. To the successor of Conrad, the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, Henry was united by the bonds of mutual kindness and obligation; and it was chiefly by his influence that the territories of Bavaria were restored to their ancient possessor. At a public assembly in the plains of Ratisbon, the Margrave of Austria resigned, into the hands of the Emperor, the seven symbols of the Bavarian duchy, which were immediately delivered to Henry the Lion, who restored two of them to the Margrave, in right of three counties, which were then enfranchised from the dominion of Bavaria. When the Emperor was engaged in war against the rebels of Lombardy, he summoned the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria to attend him; but Henry, displeased at the Emperor's refusal to grant him the city of Goslar, which would have given him the command of the silver mines of the Hartz, disobeyed the summons. The Emperor, unable to contend with the league of Lombardy, again solicited the assistance of the Duke, who, it is said, smiled at the Imperial distress. An interview took place between them at Chiavenna, near the Lake of Como. Henry was still inexorable; and the Emperor, after every other argument had failed, threw himself at his feet. The vassal raised his sovereign from the ground, when one of the attendants whispered in his ear, "Suffer, dread Sir, the Imperial crown to lie at your feet; speedily it must be placed on your head." Even this degradation failed to accomplish the Imperial wishes. The Empress, indignant at the scene, bitterly desired the Duke to remember what had passed; and added, "God will remember it one day." From this hour, the prosperity of Henry was viewed with jealousy, and he was even accused by the Emperor of an indirect conspiracy against his life and honour. In 1168, the Duke, having been divorced from his former wife, solicited and obtained the hand of the Princess Royal of England, and the marriage was celebrated at Minden. In 1172, Henry determined on making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and he left the Duchess regent of his dominions in his absence. The vicissitudes, which marked the remainder of the life of Henry the Lion, were various and many, but he continued, to his death, to hold the first rank amongst the princes of Germany. The following anecdote, relating to Henry, surnamed the Younger, the only son of Henry the Bad, of Brunswick-Wolfen

« ZurückWeiter »