tion might be wished or suggested in the present frame of Parliaments, it should be in favour of a more complete representation of the people." It will remain therefore to be proved by the working, as it is termed, of the Reform Bill, whether this more complete representation has been effected; whether patriot talent, unendowed with the less noble qualification of wealth, has an equal chance as formerly of admission to the Senate; and more especially, as in all great changes the brute mob contribute an active and powerful share of agency, whether care has been taken that they shall be excluded from such an influence on the institutions of the country as may tend to affect their dignity and permanence. In all the restless eagerness for change which the noisy heralds of the march of intellect have endeavoured to arouse, by pandering to the passions and imposing on the credulity of the people, a strong conservative spirit has been demonstrated in favour of our ancient architectural structures devoted to ecclesiastical or other purposes; as if the Public entertained something of a prospective prudence derived from former experience of times of persecution and state convulsion; as if they recollected the havoc of works of art which attended even a salutary reformation of Religion, the desecrating impieties which were enacted during a period of fanaticism and democracy; as if they foresaw a day when the just balance of the three ancient constitutional elements, if now vacillating, would be regained, and the old structure would arise, like some recently renovated Gothic fane, more beautiful and symmetrical for the efforts to repair it, more firmly seated for the wanton endeavours of its enemies to undermine and subvert it. In the general although somewhat artificial cry for innovation, we have not ourselves escaped, nor indeed expected to escape, without attack. Because we have refused to depart from our steady course, and to pander to that taste which seeks rather for momentary amusement than solid instruction, we have been designated as dull; sleepless ourselves to make our readers sleep!" Pass but a few short years, and we shrewdly suspect that we shall be able to turn the point of the jest on our opponents, and that old Sylvanus Urban will be taken from the shelf, and consulted for just and unbiassed views of “the age and body of the time, its form and pressure," when the ephemeral gentry who now carry their heads so high will have sunk into one long oblivious undisturbed repose. To conclude-we shall not deviate one jot from the principles and objects we have defined for our line of action, well contented with the approbation of the truly patriotic, the just, and the good, those rocks of eternal adamant, against which the surges of party spirit spend their fury in vain. December 31, 1832. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. Norwich, Oxf.,Portsm.,Preston, Sherb., Shrewsb, Southampton,Truro,Worcester 2Aylesbury, Bangor, Barnst. Berwick, Blackb., Bridgew. Carmar., Colch,, Chesterf Devizes, Dorch., Doncaster Falmouth, Glouc., Halifax Henley, Hereford, Lancaster, Leaming, Lewes, Line Lichf. Macclesf. Newark Newc.-on-Tyne, Northamp. Reading, Rochest., Salish Shields, Staff., Stockp., Sun derl.,Taunt..Swans., Wakef. Warwick, Whiteh., Winches. Windsor, Wolverha., 1 each Jreland 61-Scotland 37 Jersey 4-Guernsey 3 19 Memoir of Sextos Julius Frontinus ......... 28 Historical Researches concerning the Bank Classical Literature. 56 60 Simoni's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon...... 59 67 68 Historical Chronicle. 37 On the Radicals of the Greek Language.... 35 45 77 Bill of Mortality.-Markets.-Shares.... 95 Embellished with a View of EXETER HALL, Strand; By SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. Printed by J. B. NICHOLS and SON, CICERO'S HEAD, 25, Parliament Street, Westminster; where all Letters to the Editor are requested to be sent, POST-PAID. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. MR. URBAN,-I should feel obliged to any of your Correspondents to inform me, through the medium of your Magazine, the particulars of the wreck of the Hunter Cutter, off the Hasbro' Sands (Norfolk Coast), and whether the officers and crew of that vessel were all lost, or, as has been generally reported, were prevented by smugglers on the coast from effecting a landing, and consequently drowned; also whether Captain Manby's Life Boat had been invented previously to the loss of the Hunter? for in a poem now in my hand on the wreck of the Hunter, by the niece of the Lieutenant (Ostler), I find these words: "And the Life-boat, alas! had not yet come to light." "Had that noble invention then fearlessly sailed, They might have been sav'd from the perilous sea. A husband-a father had not been bewailed, And a sister been still from insanity free." "But was there triumph o'er his mancs; Let such wretches then be told That Heaven's probation shall unfold All to their cursed dark soul's view!" The circumstances of the Life-boat mentioned above, and the horrid insinuation in the poem on the death of Captain William Ostler will, I hope, justify in some measure my claiming your indulgence to the insertion of this letter. CLIO. In A. J. K's notices of Crosby Place, in our last Number, a passage, p. 505, is reudered illegible by an accidental derangement of the type, which passage should run thus: " of which the Hall, the immediate subject of this notice, affords so beautiful an example, and a most noble entrance-porch or oriel. Here we may be allowed to remark, as so much has been ingeniously said by a late antiquary," &c. Also at p. 506, paragraph 4, for Sir John Crosby was no patent feudatory of the Crown, read potent feudatory. H. P. inquires" on whom the Baronetcy in the family of Philipps has devolved by the death of its late possessor, Sir Rowland Henry Philipps Laugharne." H. P. is requested to inform us of the date of Sir Rowland's death. In the last edition of Debrett's Baronetage it is stated that "Rowland Philipps, who took the name of Laug harne, was great-grandfather of Rowland Henry Phillips Laugharne, esq. in whom (if living) this title appears to be vested [having devolved to him on the death of Lord Milford in 1828]; but the Editor is not aware that he has hitherto assumed, or proved his right to it." Mr. JAMES LOGAN inquires if any correspondeut can inform him whether a law of Edward the Confessor, reported in Sammes' "Brittania Ant. Illust." in favour of the Armoricans be considered as still in force? This curious enactment was induced by national relationship. "Britones vero Armorici cum venerint in isto regno, suscepi debent, et in regno protegit sicut probi cives. De corpore hujus exierunt quondam de şanguine Britonum hujus." The Of the chambered cannon called pallerers, (noticed in part i. p. 451) there are two other figures in the 5th volume of Archæogia, pl. xii.; one representing a piece which was dragged out of the Goodwin Sands in 1775, and the other copied from a Spanish work on artillery, by Diego Veano. Mr. King, who wrote the description, endeavours to assign their age to the fourteenth instead of the sixteenth century, notwithstanding several reasous to the contrary which may he detected in the course of his arguments, besides others which are obvious. form of the crown, which surmounts the arms of Portugal, (impressed on the Goodwin Sands cannon), assimilates to that of King Henry VII. engraved in the Gentleman's Magazine vol. ci. pt. ii. p. 120. The device of the armillary sphere, which is also impressed, originated at the same æra. The variations in the arms, of a fleur-de-lis and rose, are perhaps nothing more than the arbitrary insertions of the founders, whose heraldry as seen on old bells, &c. was frequently very free. It is possible, however, that they constitute the mark of cadency of some junior branch of the royal house of Portugal. Mr. King was not aware that these cannon were formed for the purpose of discharging stones. SENECTUS observes, "Among the good old customs which have fallen into disuse, that of inscribing texts from Scripture in or upon our public buildings, seems one that is worthy of revival. In old village churches such inscriptions are still to be met with, but I believe few modern religious edifices have any thing beyond the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Creed. But it is in other buildings also that an appropriate sentence might be of great importance-if, for example, in all our Courts of Justice, the words "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour were painted so conspicuously as to meet the eye of every witness when he stood up to take the oath, would not the force of the command thus appropriately introduced have a beneficial effect? It might in some cases check intended perjury, and in all would inspire that reverence for sacred things which none but reprobates can totally lay aside." GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. JULY, 1832. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HISTORICAL VIEW OF PESTILENTIAL DISEASES. AT the present alarming crisis, when the whole empire is exposed to the pestiferous influence of a new and unaccountable disease, which is daily on the increase, and which threatens every portion of the community with devastation and death, the following historical view of the various pestilential visitations, collected from various authentic sources, will possess deep and impressive interest. With respect to diseases on the Continent, we do not profess to do more than allude to the most prominent cases. To commence with our own country, we do not discover the record of any pestilence prior to the year A.D. 448, when it appears that an epidemic disease, after having ravaged the continent of Europe, visited Great Britain. "It availed itself," as Grafton informs us," of a remarkable season of prosperity, there being in the realme so great plentie of corne and fruite, that the lyke thereof had not been seene in many yeres passed;" followed therewithal," as Speed adds, "with such riot and excesse, that the people's sinnes grew to a plentiful harveste, running at randome, in the wide way of all wickednesse; when, lo! (he quotes from Gyldas) a pestilent contagion fell heavily upon this foolish people, which in short space of time destroyed such multitudes of them, that the living were not able to bury the dead." A. D. 542. In Gibbon, vol. vii. p. 419, we have an excellent summary of a pestilential disorder which made great havoc in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and lasted for many years. We may judge of its malignance from the asserted fact that in Constantinople 10,000 persons died daily, that many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. Itisremarkable that the medi cal feeling was anti-contagious, though experience warranted no such conclusion; the symptoms nearly resembled those of the common plague, beginning with delirium. The ill-fated victim sunk as if under the stroke of an invisible spectre, under a succession of swellings and tumours of a black colour, which, if they continued without suppuration till the fifth day were usually fatal, accompanied as they were with vomiting of blood and mortification of the bowels. A. D. 664. On the authority of Bede (lib. iii. c. 27.), we again find the plague, how introduced he does not say, extending itself from the southern parts of the island towards the north, and then turning westward into Wales, which so alarmed the natives, that considerable numbers emigrated to Bretagne, accompanied by Cadwalædyr, the son of Cadwallon. In 772 mention is made of a disorder that carried off in England 34,000; and in Scotland of another, whereof died, in 954, about 40,000 persons. As this last appears on somewhat doubtful authority, we suspect it is confounded with an extraordinary 66 sicknesse" mentioned by Speed in A. D. 982. "It was," says he, 66 a sicknesse till then' unknown in England, being a strong burning fever and bloody flux;" this, however, by the historians of the time, was received as sent for the offences of some few, and whollie imputed to "the king and his raisers," by Dunstan, who was well skilled in giving natural events preternatural complexions, and than whom no man better knew how to assume and assert, that Heaven was at hand to second his purposes on earth. A.D. 1086. Fire and pestilence combined to depopulate London and the land. For in the former, says Baker, in his Chronicles, " so great a fire happened, that from the west gate to the east gate it consumed houses and churches all the way, and amongst the rest the church of St. Paul, the most grievous fire that ever happened in this citie. Also the same year, by reason of distemperature of weather, thunderings and lightenings by which many men perished, there ensued a famine, and afterwards a miserable mortality of men and cattle, and what is very strange, hens, peacocks, geese, and ducks, bred in and accustomed to houses, forsook their wonted hives, and turned wild." A.D. 1093. Matthew Paris, without particularising, merely remarks that there was a pestiferous mortality amongst men and animals. Grafton and Holinshed are however more explicit. Their accounts are nearly similar. We give that of the latter, as perhaps the most expressive and concise of the two: "This yeare England and Normandie were sore vexed with mortalitie both of men and beasts, insomuch that tillage of the ground was laid aside in manie places, by reason whereof there folowed great dearth and famine. Manie grizely and hideous sights were seene also in England, as hosts of men fighting in the aire, flashes of fier, stars falling from heaven, and such like wonders." 1247. On doubtful authority, without particulars, is recorded as one marked by pestilence. 1279-1316. Baker mentions a sickness prevailing in 1279, to which we allude more for the strange extremities to which men were reduced by the cause, rather than the malady, which naturally enough might be expected to ensue. So great a dearth befel the land that horses and dogs were eaten, and thieves in prison pluckt in pieces those that were newly brought in amongst them, and eat them up half alive, which continuing three years, brought in the end such a pestilence, that the living scarcely sufficed to bury the dead." But for other attending circumstances, it might have been supposed that this was confounded with a similar event recorded by Speed in 1316, when the same atrocities were repeated. He says, "The Peeres assembled at a Parleament in London, where no great matter was concluded, for famine and pestilence increased. The famine was grown so terrible that horses, dogges, yea men and children, were stolen for food, and (which is horrible to think) the thieves newly brought into the gaoles were torne in pieces and eaten presently half alive, by such as had been longer there. The bloody flux or dissentrie, caused through raw and corrupt humours, engendered by evil meat and dyet, raged every where, and together with other maladies, brought such multitudes of the poorer sort to their end, that the living could scarce suffice to bury the dead." It seems, indeed, to have been attended with a prodigious mortality, when considering the comparatively small population of London, according to Grafton (Chron. p. 386), besyde the bodies that were buried in sundrie churches and church-yards, there were also buried in the Charter-house church-yard 50,000 persons and above. -Daniel again, in his Collections (p. 209) speaks of it as exceeding any that ever before had been known, attended with famine; as a remedy for which the political economists in parliament propounded a system, the merits and consequences of which afford an excellent lesson to some more mo. dern, though not much wiser advocates for maximum and minimum prices in our own days. "A parliament was called at London upon the beginning of this dearth, to abate the prices of victuals, which suddenly grew to be excessive; and therefore it was ordained that an oxe fatted with grasse should be sold for 15s., fatted with corn for 20s., the best cow for 12s., a fat hog of two yeares old for 38. 4d., a fat sheep shorn 1s. 2d., with the fleece 1s. 8d., a fat goose for 24d, a fat capon 2d., a fat hen 1d., four pidgeons a penny; whosoever sold above, should forfeit their ware to the king." These were in fact the prices of similar articles in the 11th yeare of Edw. III.'s reign, called the year of plenty, by Baker, in his Chronicles, p. 131. "Here," observes the author, seem then to have been no calves, lambs, goslings, chickens, young pigs, to be sold; such dainties were not in use." Now for the consequences of this sagacious law: "All kind of victuals grow more scarce than before, so that in addition to a murren, which also prevailed, provisions could not be had for the kinge's house, nor means for other great men to maintain their tables (such a just punishment had excess and riot inflicted thereon in those |
