ed to the king, who, having addressed and styled Ravillac my friend, cautioned the prisoner to beware and not implicate the innocent." The confusion and piercing screams which at intervals resounded in the breeze, at length gained the ears of the queen. Her majesty inquired the reason; when, observing nothing but sad countenances, and many bathed in tears, she immediately conceived the full extent of the loss sustained. The princess in consequence rushed from her study, and meeting the chancellor, exclaimed, "Alas! sir, the king is dead!”- -upon which that grave personage, without testifying the least emotion, replied: "Your majesty must excuse me-kings never die in France." Having then requested her to re-enter the apartment, Villeroy immediately followed, exclaiming: "Madam, we must reserve our tears for another occasion, lest in shedding them at the present moment we render our affairs desperate: it is your majesty who must now toil for us; we stand in need of remedies, and not tears." He then represented that time was precious, and that advantage ought to be taken of the absence of the two princes of the blood, and the weakness of the third, to declare herself regent during the minority of the king her son. On the same day, being the 14th of May, the queen was declared regent during the minority of her son, and vested with all the requisite powers and authority. The body being embalmed, and placed in a leaden coffin, says Perefixe, was then deposited in a wooden bier covered with cloth of gold, under a canopy in the royal apartment. After eighteen days it was conducted to St. Denis, and buried with the accustomed ceremonies. Henry the Great perished at the age of fifty-seven years and five months, having reigned twenty-one years; of which period the five first were spent in fighting for the conquest of his kingdom, while subsequently he had to maintain the war against Spain; so that Providence only accorded him twelve years to repair the countless evils which forty years of civil warfare, revolts, and those convulsions brought on by anarchy and disorders of every description, had occasioned. Notwithstanding this, at the period of his decease, all the debts of the state were liquidated, the people eased of the burthensome taxations which had completely overpowered them, and agriculture had regained its most flourishing condition. We have before adverted to the efforts made by Henry in support of the liberal sciences, letters, and the arts: on ascending the throne the state was indebted in no less a sum than three hundred and thirty million; and as money was then valued at twenty-two livres the mark, the sum was equivalent to upwards of eight hundred and ten millions of the actual currency; yet every farthing was liquidated; in addition to which he left twenty-four millions in his treasury, the fruits of a wise economy, that never proved detrimental to princely munificence, which was carried to the highest pitch under the auspices of this magnanimous king. The result of a careful examination of the interrogatories of Ravillac tends to prove that he was a man of heated imagination, who, conceiving, according to his statement, that Henry had resolved on declaring war against the pope, and did not take efficient measures to convert the Huguenots, adopted the resolution of assassinating him, whom he regarded as a tyrant that ought to be destroyed; in which ideas he had been strengthened by the sermons of the infamous preachers of the League, who uniformly justified the act of James Clement. Ravillac, when subjected to torture, uniformly maintained that no Frenchman or stranger had been instrumental in urging him to commit the deed; that the prince had never injured him; and that, if his death had remained unpunished, it would have been productive of no benefit to himself. Immediately prior to the dissolution of Ravillac, he most ardently craved absolution of De Fillesac and Gamache, two able doctors of the Sorbonne, who attended; when he was told that it could not be granted unless he divulged the names of his accomplices. "I have none," said Ravillac; "but give me a conditional absolution condemn my soul to Hell flames if I have accomplices; and grant me absolution under the proviso that I have uttered the truth." This was complied with, and the wretch was absolved accordingly. At four o'clock on the evening of the unfortunate day that terminated the earthly career of this great prince, the inhabitants of Paris, who still continued in suspense respecting his death, were thrown into a general state of ferment. It was observed that all those who issued from their dwellings wandered through the streets and public places, having no other object in view but to ascertain for a certainty the state of the king. One only idea occupied every mind; the ordinary routine of business, and private engagements, were wholly forgotten; or, to speak more properly, being occupied in thinking of the author of all public felicity, each conceived that he was dwelling upon his individual interest. Every one approached his neighbour to make the same inquiries; strangers interrogated one another as a matter of course, while each countenance bore the stamp of the deep affliction that reigned within. During the whole of this momentous period, the inhabitants of the city conducted themselves as brothers; the same sentiment predominated over all hearts; the citizens became as one family united by similar troubles and corresponding emotions. At length, however, it was announced that the king was no more! This dreadful confirmation of the greatest of misfortunes paralyzed with horror the whole population of that vast city. Men fell speechless in the streets; and many instances are upon record of individuals who suddenly expired on this mournful occasion. Among others was a most wealthy and respectable citizen named Marchant, who had at his own expense erected the bridge of the Change: this worthy citizen expired from excess of grief on learning the death of Henry the Fourth. The brave and virtuous De Vic, some time after chancing to pass through the street Ferronnerie, where the fatal deed had been perpe trated, was seized with such horror at the recollection, that he was conducted home to his hotel and died the following day; and Perefixe states, that many females refused to take sustenance, and became the victims of their rooted grief. No sooner was the monarch's death made public than the citizens paraded through Paris, pressing one another by the hands, and exclaiming, What will become of us? Others shut themselves up in their dwellings to weep in privacy for the dreadful calamity sustained. Young people were prohibited from indulging in their accustomed sports; and the aged addressed them in the following terms: "Children, we have lost our common father! he was preparing for you days of felicity; and, now, who will watch over you?" Nothing was looked for in future but storms and disquietude; Henry had borne with him to the tomb the felicity and heartfelt security of the whole French nation; for the same regrets and melancholy presages were reiterated throughout the whole realm. The af fliction of the Parisians, however, very speedily assumed an alarming aspect: this general consternation was succeeded by the fury of despair; women with dishevelled locks rushed through the streets uttering the most frantic exclamations; while the men, bewildered from the effects of poignant anguish, talked of exemplary vengeance, named imaginary accomplices, and swore to sacrifice them to their vengeance. The tumult in consequence became so terrifying, that the queen was compelled to issue orders for its suppression; she directed the duke d'Epernon to proceed on horseback, accompanied by all the noblemen of the court who could be assembled; and in this manner the cavalcade proceeded through the capital, the duke constantly haranguing the assembled crowds, whom he with infinite difficulty succeeded in bringing to reason. IMITATIONS OF COCKNEY WRITERS. (Extracted from Blackwood's Magazine.) HUNT AND HAZLITT. WE, Leigh the First, Autocrat of all the Cockneys, command our trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor, William Hazlitt, Gentleman of the Press, &c. &c &c., to furnish forthwith, in virtue of his allegiance, an article for Blackwood's Magazine-in which there shall be nothing taken out of the Edinburgh Review or any other Periodicals for which the said William Hazlitt scribbleth, and in which there shall be as little as may be possible to the Gentleman of the Press aforesaid, about "candied coats of the auricuIF. la,”—" a fine paste of poetic diction encrusting" something or another" clear waters, dews, moonlit bowers, Sally L-," &c. &c. As witness our hand. S LIUNTO, Imperatore e Re di Cocagna. TABLE-TALK. A NEW SERIES. No. I. On Nursery Rhymes in general. To me the meanest flower that blows can give WEET are the dreams of child- own. We once said in Constable's Magazine, that "to be an Edinburgh reviewer, was the highest distinction in literary society;" because, about that time, we began to write in the Edinburgh Review. We were proud of it then, and we are so yet!-But it is a One could not then finer thing now. be radical, if one would. Now it is tout au contraire-Whigs and Radicals have met together-Jeffrey and Hunt have embraced each other. And it is right they should. Jeffrey is the "Prince of Critics and King of Men;" just as Leigh Hunt is King of Cockaigne, by divine right. They are your only true legitimates. They are like the two kings of Brentford! There they sit upon their thrones-the Examiner and the Edinburgh Reviewsedet, eternumque sedebit—" both warbling of one note, both in one key." Each "doth bestride his little world like a Colossus"-(little, but oh! how great!) There they are teres et rotundus; while Universal Suffrage, like "Universal Pan, knit with the graces of Whiggism, leads on the eternal dance! We have said in The London, that "to assume a certain signature, and write essays and criticisms in THE LONDON MAGAZINE, was a consummation of felicity hardly to be believed." But what is writing in the Edinburgh Review, or the New Monthly, or the London, compared to writing in Blackwood's Magazine? That, a ter all, is your only true passport + Quære, years.-Printer's devil. In the original MS. wartue. Mr. Hazlitt here omits the name of another sovereign, of whom he thus speaketh in the Edinburgh Review-" The Scotsman is an excellent paper, with but one subjectPolitical Economy-but the Editor may be said to be King of it!" But perhaps he bethought him afterwards, that to be "King of one subject," was no very brilliant sover eignty. Fame. We thought otherwise once -but we were wrong!-Well, better late than never. But we must get to our subject. What admirable pictures of duty (finer than Mr Wordsworth's Ode to Duty) are now and then presented to us in these rhymes!-what powerful exhortations to morality (stronger and briefer than Hannah More's) do we See saw, Margery Daw, sold her bed, and lay in the straw; Look at the paternal affection (regardless of danger) so beautifully exemplihed in this sweet lullaby : Bye, baby bunting! papa's gone a hunting, To catch a little rabbit-skin, to wrap the baby bunting in. There is a beautiful spirit of humanity and a delicate gallantry in this one. The long sweep of the verse reminds one of the ladies' trains in Watteau's pic tures: One a penny, two a penny, hot cross-buns, If your daughters do not like them, give them to your sons; You cannot do better than to eat them yourselves. Economy is the moral of the next. It is worth all the Tracts of the Cheap Repository! When I was a little boy, I lived by myself, And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon the shelf. What can be more exquisite than the way in which the most abstruse sciences are conveyed to the infant understanding? Here is an illustration of the law of gravitation, which all Sir Richard Phillips's writings against Newton will never overthrow !— Rock a bye, baby, on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock : If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, Then down tumbles baby and cradle and all. The theories of the Political Economists are also finely explained in this verse, which very properly begins with an address to J. B. Say, who has said the same thing in prose : See, Say, a penny a-day, Tommy must have a new master Why must be have but a penny a-day? Because he can work no faster. This is better than the Templar's Dialogues on the Political Economy in The London, and plainer and shorter than the Scotsman. It is as good as the Ricardo Lecture. Mr. M'Culloch could not have said anything more profound! There is often a fine kind of pictured poetry about them. In this verse, for instance, you seem to hear the merry merry ring of the bells, and you see the tall white steed go glancing by : Ride a cock-horse to Bamborough Cross, To see a fair lady sit on a white horse! With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes, That she may have music wherever she goes. There is also a rich imagination about the "four-and-twenty black-birds, baked in a pye ;" it is quite oriental, and carries you back to the Crusades. But, upon the whole, we prefer this lay, with its fearful and tragic close : Bye, baby bumpkin, where's Tony Lumpkin ? My lady's on her death-bed, with eating half a pumpkin. No wonder !-for we have seen pumpkins in France, that would "make Ossa like a wart!" There is a wildness of fancy about this one, like the night-mare. What an overwhelming idea in the last line ! We're all in the dumps, for Diamonds is trumps, And the kittens are gone to St. Paul's: But yet there is another, finer than all, of which we can only recollect a few words. The rest is gone with other visions of our youth! We often sit and think of these lines by the hour together, till our hearts melt with their beauty, and our eyes fill with tears. We could probably find the rest in some of Mr Godwin's twopenny books; but we would not dissolve the charm that is round the mysterious words. The " gay ladye" is more gorgeous to our fancy than Mr. Coleridge's "dark ladye!" London bridge is broken down- The following is "perplexed in the extreme"-a pantomime of confusion ! Cock-a-doodle-doo, my dame has lost her shoe ; The cat has lost her fiddle-stick-I know not what to do. There is "infinite variety" in this one: the rush in the first line is like the burst of an overture at the Philharmonic Society. Who can read the second line without thinking of Sancho and his celestial goats-"sky-tinctured ?” Hey diddle, diddle, a cat and a fiddle, The goats jump'd over the moon; And the little dogs bark'd to see such sport, And the cat ran away with the spoon. But if what we have quoted is fine, the next is still finer. What are all these things to Jack Horner and his Christmas-pye? What infinite keeping and gusto there is in it!(we use keeping and gusto in the sense of painters, and not merely to mean that he kept all the pye to himself, like a Tory,) or that he liked the taste of it-which Mr. Hunt tells us is the meaning of gusto.) What quiet enjoyment! what serene repose! There he sits, teres et rotundus, in the chiar oscuro, with his finger in the pye! All is satisfying, delicious, secure from intrusion, "solitary bliss!" Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, Eating his Christmas-pye : He put in his thumb, and he pull'd out a plum, What a pity that Rembrandt did not paint this subject! But perhaps he did not know it. If he had painted it, the picture would have been worth any money. He would have smeared all the canvass over with some rich, honeyed, dark, bright, unctuous oilcolour; and, in the corner, you would have seen, (obscurely radiant) the figure of Jack; then there would have been the pye, flashing out of the picture in a blaze of golden light, and the green plum held up over it, dropping sweets!-We think we could paint it ourselves! We are unwilling that anything from our friend, C. P., Esquire,* should come in at the fag-end of an article; but, for the sake of enriching this one, we add a few lines from one of the Early French Poets, communicated to C. P., by his friend Victoire, Vicomte de Soligny, whom he met in Paris at the Caffée des Milles Colonnes * Alias Wictoire, Wicomte de Soligny. This Cockney wrote (as few brt Mr. Colburn the bookseller have the misfortune to remember) Letters on England, under this title, which we demolished. We had then occasion to show that this impostor did not even know how French noblemen signed their names; and we might have added, that his title-page proved he did not know a man's name from a woman's-Victor being evidently the word which C. P. Esq, was vainly endeavouring to spell. Victoire, Vicomte de Soligny, sounds to a French ear just as Sally Lord Holland, would to an English one. |