1821.] Earl of Leicester.-Errors in "Kenilworth." Whil'st her true servants, led with small affaires, Unto a faire at Abbington did ride, This dismall hap unto my wife betide: Whether you call it chance or destinie, Too true it is she did untimely die." His Lordship is made to lament her fate, but owns that "My hopes to have married with a fa mous Queene, Drave pity back, and kept my tears unseene." P. 18. Aubrey's account is the best, but has been so frequently reprinted of late, that it would be useless to fill your pages with it. The error in the time of the story is the worst of all. Lady Leicester, as Mr. Chalmers tells us, died on September 8, 1560: in 1565, Dudley was proposed as a husband for Mary, Queen of Scotland, which, it is well known, took no effect. His son, by his second wife (the Lady Sheffield) was born in 1574, and he deserted her in 1576-the visit to Kenilworth took place in 1575 (at an expense of 60,0001.) fifteen years after the death of Anne Robsart. These errors, I am aware, will be considered as mighty by the mere Antiquary, and as trifling by the mere Novelist; but we may fairly affirm, that they evince the same carelessness with the rest of this author's works, as to fact and time. A few particulars which I have gleaned of Cumnor itself may be here introduced the manor was subsequently in the possession of a family named PECOCK, of whom, Richard Pecock, esq. compounded for his estate in the Civil Wars, at 1401. By the following relation, it appears that Cumnor was molested in those times, as it might be without any wonder, from its vicinity to the garrisons at Oxford and Abingdon. "Thursday, Feb. 26, (1644-5.) "To present you with as honest men, as those of Evesham *; and honeste you will not deeme them to be, when you heare they came from Abingdon, to a place called Cumner, in no smaller a number than 500: where their Chieftanes view the Church, goe up into the Steeple, and overlook the Country, as if they meant to garrison there, but finding it not answerable to their hopes and desires, *Evesham was surprised by Sir William Waller's horse in June, 1643. 389 they descend, but are loath to depart without leaving a marke of their iniquitie and impiety behind them: some they employ to take downe the Weathercock (that might have been left alone to turne round), others to take down a Crosse from off an Isle of the Church (and this you must not blame them for, they are enemies to the Crosse), others to plunder the countrymen's houses of bread, beare, and bacon, and whatsoever else was fit for the sustentation of man." Mercurius Academicus, p. 100. Mr. Owen, into whose possession was also Lord of Godstowe Manor. Mr. URBAN, May 5. "O the anachronisms of the Au Tthor of Waverley (p. 14) may be added, one in the First Volume Padoucas is a settlement of the province and government of Louisiana 390 Padouca Indians. in North America, on the shore and at the source of the river of its name, where there are also different villages of Indians of this name. This once powerful Indian nation, of which our author speaks, has, apparently, entirely disappeared; every inquiry made after them has proved ineffectual. In the year 1724, they resided in several villages on the beads of the Kansas river, and could, at that time, bring upwards of 2000 men into the field.-(See Mons. Dupralz' History of Louisiana, p. 71; and the Map attached to that work.) The information that we have received is, that being oppressed by the nations residing on the Missouri, they removed to the upper part of the River Plate, where they afterwards had but little intercourse with the Whites. They seem to have given name to the North branch of the river, which is called Padoucas Fork. The most probable conjecture is, that being still further reduced, they have divided into small wandering bands, which assumed the names of the sub. divisions of the Padoucas nation; and are known to us at present under the appellation of Welepahatoes, Kiawas, Kanenavish, Katteka, Dotame, &c. who still inhabit the country to which the Padoucas are said to have removed. The aforesaid river runs Southeast, then East, and enters the grand River Missouri. Dotame is a wandering nation of Indians of North America, inhabit. ing an open country, and who raise a great number of horses and mules. They are a friendly, well-disposed people, and might, from the position of their country, be easily induced to visit an establishment on the Missouri, about the mouth of Chyenne river. They have not, as yet, visited the Missouri. Kanzas. The limits of the country these Indians claim is not known. The country in which they reside, and from thence to the Missouri, is a delightful one, and generally well watered, and covered with excellent timber. They bunt to the upper part of Kanzas and Arkanzas rivers. Their trade may be expected to increase with proper management. At present they are a dissolute, lawless banditti; frequently plander their traders, and commit depredations on ersons ascending and descending the Change of Customs. [May, Missouri rivers: population is rather increasing. These people, as well as the great and little Ossages, are sta tionary at their villages, from about the 15th of March to the 15th of May; and again from the 15th of August to the 15th of October: the rest of the year is appropriated to hunting. They cultivate corn, &c. Kanzas is a river of the same province and government as the former settlements. It runs East, and enters the Missouri. Mr. URBAN, THO Paisley, April 12. HOSE even of patrician rank among our ancestors, were contented with accommodations at which an ordinary tradesman of the In the present day would spurn. Northern division of our Island many proofs exist of the correctness of this assertion. Arnot, the historian of Edinburgh, inserts in his Appendix, No. XIII. various letters written in 1783, by Mr. Creech, then chief bibliopole of our Northern me tropolis, with a view to the exhi bition of that remarkable change, which, during the preceding 20 years, had taken place in the modes of life, manners, and customs of the city. From the first of these letters I quote as follows, in illustration of the position with which my own letter commences : "The Lord Justice Clerk Tinwald's house was lately possessed by a French TeacherLord President Craigie's house is at present possessed by a Rouping-wife or Saleswoman of old furniture-and Lord Drummore's house was lately left by a chairman for want of accommodation." A note to this pas sage adds, "the house of the Duke of Douglas at the Union, is now pos sessed by a wheel-wright." Not long ago, a walk in the vicinity of the town in which I reside, furnished me with an additional and very remarkable instance of the universality of the change alluded to. Scarcely half a mile South-east of the populous manufacturing town of Paisley; a little beyond that remarkable ledge of rock, which, occurring in the bed of the river White Cart, is supposed to have given the town its original British appellation; and almost close upon the Southern bank of the Ardrossan Canal; I observed a solid and antique looking fabric, 1.821.] Blackhall, near Paisley, described. not large, but wearing the appear ance of something between a house and a castle. I went up to it, and found that it was, in fact, one of those semi-castellated dwellings in which, till a comparatively recent period, even barons of the secondary class in Scotland dwelt; and observing, from the manner in which the farmer who now occupies it replied to my interrogatories, that my entrance into the interior would not be considered an intrusion, I requested permission to go through the building, and to make memoranda, with a view to future description. Permission was at once granted, and the farmer himself accompanied me both round and through it. The whole exterior of the fabrick breathes an air of rugged uncourtly strength. On the South, a projecting stair-case turret disfigures what is, nevertheless, the principal front. West of it opens the main door; the arch is a plain semi-circular one. One plain square window occurs between the door and the Western extremity of the front. The second story exbibits three similar windows West of the stair case turret, and one East of it. The upper story displays an equal number of windows, disposed also in the same way; but these windows rise higher than the superior line of the front wall, and are surmounted by pediments more or less decorated. The middle window, indeed, of the three West of the turret, is a good deal ornamented. The cavetto moulding decorates its freestone casing, and the pediment is adorned by a corded moulding placed between the cornice and the tympanum. On the upper part of the North front, one window, finished with a pediment, is seen ; and near the ground, on the same front, a small, and trefoil-headed, but merely loop-hole window. With these exceptions, only a few small windows, square in form, but most irregular in size and position, admitted light into the interior of the building. I say admilled, for now to save window duty, some even of these are blocked up, most effectually, with stone and lime; so that the whole exterior, except on the South, looks as forlorn and desolate as can well be imagined. From the threshold of the door, already mentioned, we step, on entering the house, into a strongly vaulted passage, which runs East 391 ward towards the staircase. Across about 18 feet by 10 or 12. On its upper 392 Blackhall.Oliver Goldsmith's Family. upper rooms; the larger of which, lighted by two windows on the South, and one on the North, is unfloored; and being unceiled too, discloses the bare rafters of the peaked roof. Such, Mr. Urban, is the mansion of Blackhall, long the baronial residence of a family descended from the Stuarts, a family, the present representative of which, Sir Michael Shaw Stuart, Bart. of Blackhall and Ardgowan, has, on the latter estate, a seat, that in extent, elegance, and accommodation, as well as in its appendages, might be a worthy residence for any nobleman. From the North windows of Blackhall, a charming prospect may be enjoyed, the chief features of which are, the town of Paisley, with its sister spires and venerable Abbey Church; and a tract of richly cultivated land, the numerous gentle eminences of which are often beautifully, though partially wooded. Between these and Blackhall, winds the river White Cart, which at a very short distance flows beneath the expansive arch of an aqueduct bridge, along which the Ardrossan Canal is carried. The Garden belonging to Blackball was on the East; but, with the rich groves that once waved around the seat, has long disappeared. The Well, too, was cut off by the excavation of the Canal. At the East end, however, of the farm of Blackhall, is a slightly mineralized water, called Jeaine's Well. Hundreds of Paisletans visit it, and quaff its waters; which are, report says, impregnated chiefly with lime. They are used for ordinary household purposes. In summer they are cold as ice: in winter the surface of the well smokes, as if the water were boiling. Yours, &c. THE REINFRAOCHENSIS. Mr. URBAN, May 4. THE Anecdote of Goldsmith's "Mistakes of a Night," in the house of Sir Ralph Fetherston of Ardagh, co. Longford, (see p. 325.) rests upon the authority of the Poet's niece, Mrs. Catharine Hudson, daughter of the Rev. Henry Goldsmith of Lissoy, who detailed it, and many other interesting particulars, to the Author of the Life of Goldsmith," prefaced to the Edition of his Works in four Volumes, published by Ottridge and Son, &c. in London, 1812, [May, See page 6 and 7 of the first Volume of that Work. We have no evidence that Goldsmith had heard of the jest ascribed to the facetious Mr. Grummet of Lincolnshire. The "Mistakes of a Night; or, She Stoops to Conquer," made its first appearance at Covent Gar den on the 15th of March, 1773. The late Sir Thomas Fetherston, Baronet, assured Mr. Graham a few years ago, that the Anecdote respecting Goldsmith's Mistake at his Grandfather's house, was authentic, and it is more likely that the plot of the Comedy should have been suggested by an adventure of his own, than by any other of which the author might have heard. There are many male descendants of the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, the Poet's brother, in existence; among them may be reckoned Oliver Goldsmith Hudson, Esq. of St. John's, in the county of Roscommon, the son of William Hudson, M. D. who was the son of Dean Hudson, who married Henry Goldsmith's daughter.Mr. Hudson is a gentleman of high respectability, and considerable property. He possesses the original picture of his great uncle, which was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and from which the print in the frontispiece of Ottridge's edition has been taken. Mr. Hudson's sister was married to the late Mr. Denniston of Rossgull in the county of Donegal, by whom she had six sons, now living, It is much to be apprehended that the project for erecting a monu ment in Ireland to the memory of Goldsmith, will fall to the ground, if not taken up by a Committee of some rank and influence in Dublin. Mr. Hogan and Mr. Graham were so situated as to feel incompetent to the task of soliciting Subscriptions, and declined to do so. Thus the matter rests at present. As for the honour of Ireland, it is to be hoped, that a project so creditable to its literary taste will not be abandoned. It is but a short time since monuments were erected in Scotland, in honour of the memory of Burns and Alan Ramsay. J. GRAHAN. |