war." Several members cried out, "the last war but one!" He took no notice, and soon after, repeating the mistake, he was interrupted by a general cry of "the last war but one! the last war but one!". "I mean, sir," said Mr. Pitt, turning to the Speaker and raising his sonorous voice, "I mean, sir, the last war that Britons would wish to remember ;"-whereupon the cry was instantaneously changed into an universal cheering, long and loud. CHANGES OF FORTUNE. 66 When the late Lord Erskine was Lord Chancellor, he invited the gentleman who told me the following anecdote, to breakfast with him. While they were conversing, a servant brought in a letter, which Lord Erskine read with considerable emotion. After a pause, he said it was from one of the French princes, without naming which, and added, that it was to solicit his assistance on the occasion of some embarrassment. He then remarked upon the very extraordinary change which a few years had brought about in their respective fortunes. "The first time I saw the writer of this letter," he continued, was at Versailles. I was then a poor ensign on my way to join my regiment, which was lying in Minorca. As I was travelling to Paris in a public vehicle, one of the passengers, who held some inferior situation in the palace, offered to procure me an opportunity of seeing the court, and there I beheld this prince figuring in the most brilliant manner as one of the most distinguished men in Europe. I was then in the lowest rank in one profession, and am now at the head of another of a totally different nature, and he, in exile and in poverty, is supplicating my aid." As I am upon the subject of the reverses of princes, I will present my readers, to many of whom I have no doubt it will be new and interesting, with an extract from Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,' in which he gives an account, as he had it from the king himself, of Charles the Second's escape after the battle of Worcester, in which he was defeated by Cromwell. This battle was fought at the end of September, and it was after it that Charles concealed himself in the oak, and not, as is commonly supposed, on the twenty-ninth of May, which is the anniversary of his restoration. The king's relish for the homeliest fare, his extreme suffering, and his humble guide's encouragement to him to persevere, are curious, and possess an interest beyond fiction. When the night covered them, (that is, a body of Scottish cavalry,) the king found means to withdraw himself with one or two of his own servants, whom he likewise discharged, when it began to be light; and after he had made them cut off his hair, he betook himself alone into an adjacent wood, and relied only upon Him for his preservation, who alone could, and did, miraculously deliver him. . . . . After the king had cast himself into the wood, he observed another man who had gotten upon an oak near the place where the king had rested himself, and had slept soundly. The man upon the tree had first seen the king, and knew him, and came down to him, and was known to the king, being a gentleman of the neighbouring county of Staffordshire, who had served his late majesty during the war, and had now been one of the few who resorted to the king after his coming to Worcester. His name was Careless, a Catholic, who had had a command of foot, about the degree of a captain, under the Lord Loughborough. He persuaded the king, since it could not be safe for him to go out of the wood, and that as soon as it should be fully light, the wood itself would probably be visited by those of the country who would be searching to find those whom they might make prisoners, that he would get up into that tree, where he had been. The king thought it good counsel; and with the other's help climbed into the tree, and then helped his companion to ascend after him; where they sat all that day, and securely saw many who came purposely into the wood to look after them, and heard all their discourses, how they would use the king himself, if they could take him. The day being spent in the tree, it was not in the king's power to forget that he had lived two days with eating very little, and two nights with as little sleep; so that when the night came, he was willing to make some provision for both, and he resolved, with the advice and assistance of his companion, to leave the blessed tree; and when the night was dark, they walked through the wood into those enclosures which were the farthest from any highway, and making a shift to get over hedges and ditches, after walking at least eight or nine miles, which were the more grievous to the king by the weight of his boots, (for he could not put them off, when he cut off his hair, for want of shoes,) before morning they came to a poor cottage, the owner whereof, being a Roman Catholic, was known to Careless. He was called up, and as soon as he knew one of them, he easily concluded in what condition they both were; and presently carried them into a little barn full of hay, which was a better lodging than he had for himself. But when they were there, and had conferred with their host of the news and temper of the country, it was agreed that the danger would be the greater if they stayed together; and therefore that Careless should presently be gone, and should. within two days send an honest man to the king to guide him to some other place of security, and in the mean time his majesty should stay upon the hay-mow. The poor man had nothing for him to eat, but promised him good butter-milk; and so he was once more left alone, his companions, how weary soever, departing from him before day, the poor man of the house knowing no more than that he was a friend of the captain's, and one of those who had escaped from Worcester. The king slept very well in his lodgings till the time that his host brought him a piece of bread, and a great pot of butter-milk, which he thought the best food he had ever eaten. The poor man spoke very intelligently to him of the country, and of the people who were well or ill affected to the king, and of the great fear and terror that possessed the hearts of those who were best affected. He told him that he himself lived by his daily labour, and that what he had brought him was the fare he and his wife had, and that he feared if he should endeavour to procure better, it might draw suspicion upon him, and people might be apt to think he had somebody with him that was not of his own family. However, if he would have him get some meat, he would do it; but if he could bear the hard diet, he should have enough of the milk, and some of the butter that was made with it. The king was satisfied with his reason, and would not run the hazard of a change of diet he only desired the man that he might have his company as often and as much as he could give it him, there being the same reason against the poor man's discontinuing his labour as the alteration of his fare. "After he had rested upon this hay-mow, and fed upon this diet two days and two nights, in the evening before the third night, another fellow, a little above the condition of his host, came to the house, sent from Careless to conduct the king to another house, more out of any road near which any part of the army was like to march. It was about twelve miles that he was to go, and was to use the same caution he had done the first night, not to go in any common road, which his guide knew well how to avoid. Here he new-dressed himself, changing clothes with his landlord. He had a great mind to have kept his own shirt, but he considered that men are not sooner discovered by any mark in disguise, than by having fine linen in ill clothes, and so he parted with his shirt too, and took the same his poor host had then on. Though he had foreseen that he must leave his boots, and his landlord had taken the best care to provide an old pair of shoes, yet they were not easy to him when he first put them on, and in a short time after grew very grievous to him. X In this equipage he set out from his first lodging in the beginning of the night, under the conduct of his guide, who guided him the nearest way, crossing over hedges and ditches, that they might be in least danger of meeting passengers. This was so grievous a march, and he was so tired, that he was even ready to despair, and to prefer being taken and suffered to rest, before purchasing his safety at that price. His shoes had, after a few miles, hurt him so much that he had thrown them away, and walked the rest of the way in his ill stockings, which were quickly worn out, and his feet, with the thorns in getting over hedges, and with the stones in other places, were so hurt and wounded, that he many times cast himself upon the ground with a desperate and obstinate resolution to rest there till the morning, that he might shift with less torment, what hazard soever he ran. But his stout guide still prevailed with him to make a new attempt, sometimes promising that the way should be better, and sometimes assuring him that he had but little farther to go; and in this distress and perplexity, before the morning, they arrived at the house designed, which though it was better than that which he had left, his lodging was still in the barn, upon straw instead of hay, a place being made as easy in it as the expectation of a guest could dispose it. Here he had such meat and porridge as such people use to have, with which, but especially with the butter and cheese, he thought himself well feasted, and took the best care he could to be supplied with other, but little better, shoes and stockings, and after his feet were enough recovered that he could go, he was conducted from thence to another poor house, within such a distance as put him not to much trouble; for having not yet in his thought which way or by what means to make his escape, all that was designed was only, by shifting from one house to another, to avoid discovery. And being now in that quarter which was more inhabited by the Roman Catholics than most other parts in England, he was led from one to another of that persuasion, and concealed with great fidelity. But he then observed that he was never carried to any gentleman's house, though that country was full of them, but only to poor houses of poor men, which only yielded him rest with very unpleasant sustenance; whether there was more danger in those better houses in regard of the resort and the many servants, or whether the owners of great estates were the owners likewise of more fears and apprehensions." At last the king, as is well known, was taken to the house of Mr. Lane, a Protestant gentleman of remarkably high character, and trusted by both persuasions. From thence he rode before Mrs. Lane to Bristol, in the disguise of a neighbour's son, and finally escaped to France, after having been recognised by many persons, and betrayed by none. MISCELLANEOUS. How superior is a poor man with a rich spirit, to a rich man with a poor spirit! To borrow the expression of St. Paul, he is "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." While the other presents the melancholy reverse; he is as possessing all things, and yet having nothing. The first hopes everything and fears nothing; the last hopes nothing and fears everything. There is no absolute poverty without poverty of spirit. The sunshine of the mind gives only the bright side. He who lives under its influence, is courted by all men, and may, if he will, enjoy their goods without their troubles. The world is, as it were, held in trust for him; and, in freedom from care, he is alone entitled to be called a gentleman. He is the most independent of all men, because fortune has the least power over him. He is the only man that is free and unfettered; he may do what he pleases, and nothing is expected from him. He escapes importunity and flattery, and feels a perpetual consciousness that he is not sought for but for himself. Suspicion of motives never chills his confidence, nor withers his enjoyment. He has an enriching power within himself, which makes his outward wants easily supplied with industry and prudence, without the necessity of anxious toil. A little is his enough, and beyond is an encumbrance. This is the christian doctrine, and the doctrine of reason, which ever go together. The principle is the same, whether a man have a family or not; good training is a better patrimony than wealth, as I have already expressed in a short article in my first number, entitled "Life." To promote richness of spirit as a national characteristic, it is necessary to have spirited governments both local and general, and in each community a large common purse-the very reverse of the present tone, and of the wretched doctrines of the economists. The greatest quantity and the greatest diffusion of enjoyment, with the least care, are to be found under a system of private comfort and public magnificence. I shall enlarge upon this important and ill-understood topic on a future occasion. Illustrative of much of the above is the following speech of Hamlet to Horatio : Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man |