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covery that the Pentateuch is not what a | how that amateur proved too much for vain people supposes; he talks about his the rustic and untutored valor of Harry? discovery, he is informed on, goes into Then, the tales from the classics were hiding where his Cameronian father had artistically introduced. The didactic elehidden long ago in peril for a different ment, in Mr. Barlowe, was kept in due creed; is detected by that stern and Ro- subordination, as I do insist it should man parent, is given up to justice and the be, to the romantic interest. A romance lord advocate, is hanged, but first proph- should not be all Barlowe. Some roesies concerning Jean Astruc, M. Renan, mances are. The book had, perhaps has Kuenen, Welhausen, and a golden age in still, a vast and deserved popularity. It which every one shall be quite sure that was a muscular and sinewy romance, and, the Pentateuch is post-exilian. The re- even if it stood alone, would burst asunder viewers in the Edinburgh and the Quar- the superstitious taboo of the Edinburgh terly may condemn this scenario, they and the Quarterly. may taboo it, they may say that romance has no call to deal with religion; but I shall still maintain that my subject is thrilling and legitimate. Perhaps Mr. Louis Stevenson might try his hand at it? The early struggles of Thomas with the Shorter Carritch on Effectual Calling would receive every justice from Mr. Stevenson. The more I look at the idea the more I like it. It is a double-barrelled kind of plot; it would bring down at once the modern serious inquirer and the mere lover of "6 Kidnapped," as with a rightand-left. The young would learn to be early inquirers, and precocious Biblical critics. The old would have some fun for their money. I feel inclined to write "Thomas Aikenhead "myself. And then, if it were popular, as it ought to be, the critics would loom all round, pronouncing a taboo on my Thomas's bright-eyed young researches into the literary supercheries of Esdras. If they were popular, "Hippocleides doesn't care," as that artist remarked when unfavorably criticised.

Were another instance wanted, take “Don Quixote," or take "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Cervantes, according to popular belief, wanted to "reform the world" by laughing Spain's chivalry away. He laughed it away. He reformed his world, as far as that went. He wrote a novel with a purpose. So did Mrs. Henry Beecher Stowe, with what success we all remember, or have heard. A young and flippant critic, like Miss Agnes Repplier, may mock at "Uncle Tom's Cabin," may say that, if it proves anything, it proves the excellencies of negro slavery, which bred such heroes as she no longer finds in Africa's dusky children. But there must be some answer to so unexpected a paradox. Certainly, though a novel with a purpose," Uncle Tom" was a wonderfully readable novel.

The mere possession of a purpose does not, by itself, make a novel a consummate work of art; so far I do not mind going I can even conceive such a thing as a dull and dismal novel with a purpose. But, on I have succeeded in convincing myself, the other hand, its possession of a purpose and, I hope, the reader (if any), that the does not thrust a novel beyond the pale, Didactic Romance, the Novel with a Pur- does not make it taboo, does not entitle us pose, is in a perfectly legitimate genre. to say, "It's pretty; but is it art?" I feel inclined to embrace Mr. Howells, These are the taboos which critics invent figuratively speaking, and to throw up my when they simply happen not to like a bonnet and shout for a more serious and book, when, as we said, there is a preimproving class of novel. Arguments, ex- established discord between their tastes amples, crowd around me. Think of that and the author's taste. Let us try to be epoch-making fiction, "Sandford and Mer- more honorable and sportsmanlike in critton"! A foolish contempt for Mr. Bar- icism. Let us record our impressions. lowe prevails in priggish æsthetic circles."This book bores me." "This book I have never shared it. Tommy, Harry, amuses me." Nothing else is genuine. and their instructor charmed my boyhood, charm me still. There is life, "go," and humor in the book, with delightful pictures of society. There is adventure. Do you remember Harry being flogged because he would not say where the hare had gone? Harry was quite right in his I dislike of harriers. Do you remember the negro and the bull? Do you remember the fight with Master Masham, and

From Blackwood's Magazine. THE JACOBITE LORD AILESBURY. How little a man may look on the vast plain and perspective of history, and how large he bulks, what a space he fills, in his own sight' Pepys is hardly more than

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mentioned in the annals of the Restora- | was in twelve small quarto volumes of a tion, but fortunately we possess the mas- hundred pages each. The original manu. sive volumes in which Pepys gives the script was begun by Lord Ailesbury, "at annals of himself. So, in Macaulay's the earnest request of my dear son, the "History of England,' Thomas, Lord Lord Bruce," about Christmas, 1728. Ailesbury, bas but a passing notice; and Lord Ailesbury was then at Brussels, havnow after two centuries we are able to ing been in exile for thirty years. read Lord Ailesbury's story as he told it was a' for his rightfu' king he left fair for his descendants. It is printed for the England's strand." "The same began Roxburghe Club, "The Memoirs of forty years complete after my royal masThomas, Earl of Ailesbury, written by ter's being walked out of his kingdom.” Himself," and of course there are but few"Walked out is good, and exactly decopies of the book. In the last of his scribes the manner of James's undignified critical writings, Sir Walter Scott dis-retreat. Lord Ailesbury "renounces the cusses the usefulness of book-clubs, such name of a historian, as being ignorant and as the Bannatyne and the Roxburghe. illiterate," and writes "all out of the He decides in their favor. True, they strength of memory." "I write for my print extremely limited editions; but then own satisfaction, and let this pass for a they rescue works which merit preserva- sort of diary and nothing else. ... I make tion, though they can never be popular. up for defects in some measure by bring. One of the Scottish clubs - the Maitland, ing to light what else you would never we think found that there was no sale know, because historians flatter, and most for extra copies of their publications. It often write for bread." "The best title is certain that volumes of the Bannatyne I can give is a DOMESTIC DIARY; for the books, picked up in auctions, or from cat- sincere part, I answer." As Mr. Buckley, alogues, are usually "quite uncut; " their the editor, says, Lord Ailesbury was "a leaves have never even been opened by the thoroughly honest, fearless, and truthful paper-cutter. Thus it is plain that the man," with a passion, now singular, for a limited editions of the book-clubs are not king as a king, but with a mind and temgenerally too small. The Roxburghe, per naturally frank and impartial. He especially, preserves rather than publishes died abroad, in 1741, at the age of ninetyworks. But, in the case of Lord Ailes- three; he was therefore eighty years of bury's memoirs, we may regret that the age when he began his memoirs. His book was not published in the ordinary heart is buried in an urn at Maulden, in way. It is so rich in anecdote, in curious Bedfordshire. By his second wife, the revelations of character, in materials for Comtesse de Sannu, he was the great history, that it could not, as Constable grandfather of Louisa Maximiliana, wife found to be the common case with such of Charles Edward Stuart, and queen of publications, have "spelled ruin." Gen- England, sed non voluntate hominum. eral Marbot's memoirs might almost as Let us now see what history, as reprewell have been printed to the extent of only sented by Macaulay, has to say of Lord one hundred examples. Not unfrequently Ailesbury. He is mentioned as having we have to deplore this scarcity of Rox- written a letter on the death of Charles burghe books. Lord Stanhope's collection II., of which a fragment was printed in of Stuart Papers" is now introuvable; the European Magazine of April, 1795. and Mr. Ewald, in writing the biography Ailesbury calls Burnet an impostor." of Charles Edward, was obliged to borrow" 'Tis not the first time I have constrained the editor's own copy.

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We must first give the history of the manuscript, before examining Lord Ailesbury's confessions. In 1885 the Marquis of Ailesbury, at the request of Lord Powis, then president of the Roxburghe Club, sent copies of his ancestors' papers to the late Rev. Mr. Buckley, who filled, very admirably, the seat of old Dr. Dibdin as secretary. The manuscript thus copied

"Uncut," technically used, means that the binder has not shaved down the margins; it does not mean that the paper-cutter has not been employed. Strangely enough, a bibliophile so eminent as Scott was unaware, as he shows, of this distinction.

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one to call me knave," quoth Sir Andrew
Aguecheek.† "Yet his own narrative,"
Macaulay goes on, "and Burnet's, will
not, to any candid and sensible reader,
appear to contradict each other."
caulay next remarks (iii. 33) that "Ailes-
bury and Dartmouth, though vehement
Jacobites, had as little scruple about tak-
ing the oath of allegiance as they after-
wards had about breaking it." In 1690

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(iii. 586), the historian observes that | for "the historian's daughter was married gangs " of conspirators, who previously to the heir-presumptive of the crown, and distrusted each other, had drawn into a his ambition was to have the crown on the confederacy, when William of Orange was head of his grandchildren." Charles " about to leave the country for a while. of an amorous inclination, chiefly owing "Clarendon, who had refused the oaths, to" the ill choice of his consort. He and Ailesbury, who had dishonestly taken could endure a gentle remonstrance, but them, were among the chief traitors." informed Dr. Hampton, his chaplain, Ailesbury, it may be remarked, had a very "that I am not angry for to be told of my low opinion of "the noble historian,' faults, but I would have it done in a genClarendon. Again, in 1692 (iv. 343), tlemanlike manner." Burnet has misrepAilesbury appears as violent and intoler-resented all this: "I know but too well ant, and as "narrowly escaping the block" what my two good kings and masters told for conspiracy against William. The me relating to him and his character." latest mention of Ailesbury, in connection Lord Ailesbury then gives his reflections with Porter and Sir John Fenwick's affair, on the politics of Charles's later years. will be compared, in the proper place, with Of the Cabal, Lord Ailesbury speaks in Ailesbury's own narrative. bitter terms: "The Duke of Buckingham was flashy and vain, and would rather lose his friend-nay, his king-than his jest. He turned all serious matters into ridi cule, and 'twas he that fetched that French lady over - namely, the Duchess of Portsmouth.

Lord Ailesbury begins his confessions by averring that his education had been neglected. He was neither sent to school nor to college, and after a visit to Paris, was married early. Then "my chief study was to examine myself what I could ever be good for, and what not, which made me resolve to be assiduous at court, where learning was not in any lustre, and young | men are inclined to vanity more or less, and I thought a court the finest way of living possible; but I was, in some course of years after, much of a contrary opinion." He was fond of Charles, "the good king," and Charles of him; "but on his death all my joy in a court was cut off." Lord Ailesbury is strong on the duty of self-examination as to fitness for appointments. In one year he saw a lord high admiral whom seasickness kept off the sea, a stupid and "stuttering" president of the Council, a first commissioner of the treasury who could not "tell ten," and "a secretary of state that could neither read nor write, by way of speaking." He resolved, then, to accept no office for which he was not competent. He next turns to a theory of "Whigism,' "which really sprung by degrees from the discontent of noble families; and gentry, "whose ancestors were sequestered, decimated, and what not, on account of their steadfast loyalties," unrewarded by Charles, and unchronicled by Clarendon. Clarendon always gave the good king bad advice, to favor his foes, and to neglect bis friends. He chose for the king as a wife Catherine of Braganza, "a virtuous princess, but so disagreeable in many respects not fit to mention, who then had attained to twenty-five years, which, for a Portuguese, is equal to one of forty in our climate." Clarendon was anxious that Charles should have no legitimate child,

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As to Lauderdale, Lord Ailesbury avenges the Covenanters on his memory. Like Claverhouse, in "Old Mortality," he recalls Lauderdale's part in the rebellion. Lauderdale "was as disagreeable in his conversation as was his person; his head was towards that of a Saracen, fiery face, and his tongue too big for his mouth, and his pronunciation high Scots- -no Highlander like him; uttering bald jests for wit, and repeating good ones of others, and ever spoiled them in relating them, which delighted the good king much. was continually putting his fingers into the king's snuff-box, which obliged him to order one to be made which he wore with a string on his wrist, and did not open, but the snuff came out by shaking." The trick which the king played on Lauderdale with a double sillabub-glass was too coarse to be repeated here. Lauderdale

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was most pernicious to the king and kingdoms, and to his native country in a most especial manner... At last, by the arbitrary conduct of those that had the management of affairs in that unhappy country, a small and short rebellion broke out, but it was soon quashed, they being totally routed and dispersed at Bothwell Bridge." As for Ashley, he, with Monmouth, had approached Lord Ailesbury's father with treasonable proposals, as early as twelve years before Charles's death.

Lord Ailesbury thinks that, just before Charles died, his affairs were prosperous. "I will have no more Parliaments," he said; "for, God be praised, my affairs are in so good a posture that I have no occa

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natives of the county from which they come; and never safe when 'tis otherwise," as in our happy age of wandering "carpet. baggers." Even in his own day, country gentlemen were ousted by "purse-proud Cockneys."

"This un

sion to ask for supplies. A king of England that is not a slave to five hundred kings, is great enough." "His heart was set to live at ease, and that his subjects might live under their own vine and fig. tree." "I will have by me a hundred thousand guineas in my strong-box," the Lord Ailesbury now roams into Monking used to say; and Lord Ailesbury mouth's affairs, beginning at his intrigue heard that "there was found there at his with Lady Henrietta Wentworth. "The death about sixty thousand pounds." poor duke alleged a pretext, very airy and Concerning this Burnet says, He left absurd, that he was married so very young behind him about ninety thousand guineas, that he did not know what he was adoing, which he had gathered either out of the and that my poor Lady Henrietta Wentprivy purse, or out of the money which worth he regarded as his wife before God; was sent him from France, or by other and she was as visionary as he was. * I methods, and which he had kept so se- respect her memory so, that I am sorry I cretly that no person whatsoever knew cannot justify these unheard-of steps, but anything of it." Lord Ailesbury shows on the contrary." In fact, Lord Ailesbury that the king made no secret of the matter. had once been in love, it seems, with Lady Lord Ailesbury, as he admits, rambles Henrietta, but his father opposed the a good deal. He strays into the Popish marriage, and "the lover sighed, the son Plot, and tells how the Countess of Shaftes- obeyed," as in Gibbon's case. bury "had always in her muff little pocket- fortunate lady I cannot forget," he adds pistols loaden, to defend her from the pathetically. Monmouth was in hiding Papists, being instructed by her lord and for his share in the Whig plot at Lady master; and most timorous ladies fol- Wentworth's, and Lord Ailesbury, when lowed her fashion " -a very dangerous fashion. As for the Popish Plot, "the good king that had a penetrating judgment never believed one word of all their plot, but dissembled it, and some think too much; but when that audacious villain, Oates, would have brought the queen into their plot, that roused the king out of a sort of state lethargy." Lord Ailesbury thinks that the inventors of the plot probably murdered Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey themselves. Of the new Privy Council of 1679, Charles said to Lord Ailesbury, "God's fish! they have put a set of men about me, but they shall know nothing; and this keep to yourself." "Our most solitary sovereign" was thus left among persons nearly as hostile to himself as to his brother, later James II. But he, who "knew men to a hair," said, "Give them but rope enough and they will hang themselves." When the king dissolved at Oxford the Parliament, which was set on excluding James from the succession, Lord Ailesbury saw "the dreadful faces of the members, and heard their loud sighs." As for Charles, while putting off his robes, he touched Lord Ailesbury on the shoulder, saying, "with a most pleasing and cheerful countenance, 'I am now a better man than you were a quarter of an hour since; you had better have one king than five hundred.'" "'Tis my opinion, adds Lord Ailesbury, "that the nation is ever safe when the counties, cities, etc., are represented by men of substance, and

hunting near Toddington, chanced to pursue a stag into her ladyship's park. The stag swam the ponds. "I was accidentally thrown out, and, in a lane beyond the park, I saw a tall man in a country habit, opening a gate for me. I took no notice, but, casting my eye, perceived it was the Duke of Monmouth, who was so indiscreetly mingled with the crowd at the death of the stag very soon after." Lord Ailesbury, to keep his father from seeing the duke, whom he must, in duty, have arrested, detained his parent with a flood of talk, "that he might not look about, insomuch that he told me I had taken a large morning's draught." It is a curious and dramatic scene. The child of Charles, accused of conspiracy against his father, lurking in the house of his mistress's mother, is attracted into the park by the music of the hounds, and there recognized, and is saved by the very man who had wished to marry the lady with whom Monmouth was living in sin-the lady whom the narrator, though so happy in his married life, "can never forget," not after all these many years.

Monmouth easily made his peace with Charles. He was conveyed into the rooms of his old governess, Mrs. Croft, at Whitehall. There he "prostrated himself at the king's feet, and melted his tender heart." He was to prostrate himself at

"While a child he had been married to another child."-Macaulay.

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another king's feet in vain, and to sue for The king always lying in his own bedcham"grace at a graceless face;" yet Lord ber, we had a bed placed each night to be Ailesbury says that James "pardoned, if near him; and when the page of the back one may term it so, to a vice." As the stairs lighted us from the room where we unduke left Charles, after gaining his pardon, dressed, on his retiring we shut up the door he was seen by Colonel Griffin, who ran on the inside with a brass knob, and so went to the king with the news. "The duke to bed. Several circumstances made the was in court, and if guards were sent they filled with Scotch coal that burnt all night, a lodging very uneasy -the great grate being might easily take him." The king an- dozen dogs that came to our bed, and several swered, with a disdainful look, "You are pendulums that struck at the half-quarter, and a fool; James is at Brussels." "After all not going alike; it was a continual chiming. that officiousness he could never bear the The king being constantly used to it, it was sight of him." Charles was grateful to habitual. I, sleeping but indifferently, perLord Ailesbury for having kept Mon-ceived that the king turned himself sometimes, mouth's hiding-place secret. Monmouth not usual for him; he always called in the had signed a confession, and had acknowledged the validity of the evidence against Lord Russel. His partisans, denying that he had ever signed this document, compelled him to try to recover it. He was so importunate that the king, with great warmth, bade Lord Halifax give back the paper, "and bid him go to This is authentic, and of my certain knowledge." It was thus that Monmouth "gave new offence," as Macaulay puts it, to a king who, says Lord Ailesbury, "was never known to be in such a passion." mouth did not go so far as the royal and paternal irritation had indicated. Accompanied by Lady Henrietta, he betook himself to Brussels. Lord Ailesbury, for his conduct in the affair, was made gentleman of the bedchamber.

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morning of himself; I heard his voice, but the liberty to go to his bedside in the morning discovered not any imperfection. We had before anybody came in, and might entertain him with discourse at pleasure, and ask of him anything. Unfortunately a certain modesty possessed me, and besides we had his ear whenever we pleased. So I arose, and turned back the brass knob, and the under ones came in to make the fire, and I retired to dress myself in our room.

chamber, I found there the physicians and Passing by in the next room to the bedchirurgeons that attended to visit his heel. Mr. Robert Howard, a groom of the bedchamber, came to me and asked me how the king had slept, and if quietly? I told him that he had turned sometimes. "Lord!" said he, "that is an ill mark, and contrary to his custom; " and then told me that at rising he could not, or would not, say one word, "We breathed nothing but peace and that he was as pale as ashes, and gone to his happiness," he says, "till Monday, Jan. private closet. On which I came away pres26, 1684. In that week the king had blis- of the back stairs and keeper of his closet, for ently, and sent in Mr. Chiffins, the first page tered his heel, and could not take his usual to beg him to come to his chamber, for a more exercise in St. James's Park or Arlington bitter morning I never felt, and he only in his Garden. On Sunday he was unusually night-gown. Mr. Chiffins telling me he minded well, and made a hearty supper, eating one not what he said, I sent him in again (for no or two goose-eggs, very hard of diges- other had that liberty), on which he came out tion." Burnet says "he ate little all pale and wan, and had not the liberty of his day." He went on to the Duchess of tongue, for the Earl of Craven, colonel of the Portsmouth's, though he was wearying of foot-guards, being there to take the word, he her. There Lord Ailesbury found him showed him the paper where the days of the month were set down with the word; and "in most charming humor." As Lord others spoke to him, but he answered nothing. Ailesbury, on his return, lighted him to It being shaving day, his barber told him all his bedroom door, the candle went out, was ready. He always sat with his knees though there was no draught. The page against the window, and the barber having shook a superstitious head at this omen. fixed the linen on one side, went behind the Charles then withdrew to a private room, chair to do the same on the other, and I, where Lord Ailesbury, Henry Killigrew, standing close to the chair, he fell into my and he were very merry. The king in-arms in the most violent fit of apoplexy. Dr. vited Ailesbury to Winchester, where, he said, "I shall be so happy this week as to have my house covered with lead." "And God knows the Saturday following he was put into his coffin." Here follows Lord Ailesbury's narrative of the king's final illness. Already he had suffered two slight shocks of apoplexy.

King, that had been a chirurgeon, happened to be in the room of his own accord, the rest having retired before. I asked him if he had any lancets, and he replying he had, I ordered him to bleed the king without delay, which he did; and perceiving the blood, I went to fetch the Duke of York, who came so on the instant, that he had one shoe and one slipper. At my return with the duke, the king was in bed,

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