22nd September

Born: Dr. Richard Busby, celebrated head-master of Westminster School, 1606, button, Lincolnshire; Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, statesman, and author of Letters to his Son, 1694, London; John Home, author of Douglas, 1722, Leith; Peter Simon Pallas, traveller, 1741, Berlin; Theodore Edward Hook, novelist, 1788, London.

Died: Mardonius, Persian commander, slain at Plataea, 479 B.C.; Virgil, epic poet, 19 B.C., Brundusium; John Biddle, 'father of English Unitarianism,' 1662, Moorfields, London; Francois Bernier, eastern traveller, 1688, Paris; Pope Clement XIV, 1774; Princess Augusta of England, 1840; Mrs. Sherwood, author of numerous works for children, 1851, Twickenham.

Feast Day: St. Maurice and his companions, martyrs, 286; St. Emmeran, bishop of Poitiers, and patron of Ratisbon, martyr, 653.

VIRGIL THE NECROMANCER

It is difficult to explain how the fame of the poet Virgil, in its passage through the opening period of the middle ages, became so extraordinarily enveloped in fable. Virgil, as we know, was born at Mantua, but he is said, among other places, to have studied at Naples; and it was with that city that, in the middle ages, the name of the poet was most intimately connected, and there, as early certainly as the twelfth century, numerous stories were told of his wonderful exploits. These, too, were believed by men of the highest rank in theology and science.

Our great scholar, Alexander Neckam, has collected some of them in his work, De Naturis Rerum, which was published in the latter part of that century; and when, at the beginning of the century following, another of our scholars, Gervase of Tilbury, visited Naples, he listened to similar stories which were told to him by his host, the Archdeacon Pinatellus. Virgil was said to have founded the city of Naples upon eggs, as a magical charm for its protection, and this was the legendary derivation of the name of one of its principal castles, the Castel del' Uovo. On one of the gateways of Naples he set up two brazen statues, one with a merry, the other with a sad and deformed countenance, so enchanted, that if any one entered the town by the side of the gateway on which the merry statue stood, he was certain to prosper in all his affairs; while entering by the other side, produced a contrary effect. On another gate he set up a brazen fly, which remained there eight years, during which period no flies could enter the city; he relieved Naples in a some-what similar manner from a plague of infectious leeches; he built baths, which cured all disorders; he surrounded his house and gardens with a stream of air, which served for a wall; he constructed a bridge of brass, which took him wherever he pleased. At length, in the fifteenth century, many of these marvellous stories were collected together, and formed into what was called a life of Virgil, which appears to have been first printed in France, but of which an English version was printed in England early in the sixteenth century. It is a curious production, full of very wild adventures, and curiously illustrates the state of intelligence in the middle ages.

After some very fabulous general history, the story tells us that Virgil was the son of a Campanian knight, who had married the daughter of a senator of Rome, and who was powerful and a great enemy to the emperor. Virgil's birth was painful, and was announced by an earthquake in Rome, and they gave him his name from the verb vigilo, to watch, 'for by cause that he was a great space of tyme watched so with men.' He was sent to school when a child, to Tolenten (probably meant for Toledo, where people were supposed to go to learn magic in the middle ages), and soon afterwards his father died, and his powerful kinsman dispossessed the widow and her child of their estates, while the emperor refused to give them redress. It was at this time that the event occurred by which Virgil became possessed of his supernatural powers, for, unlike other magicians, he obtained them without subjecting himself to any disagreeable terms.

Of the 'cunning' of Virgilins there can be no doubt after this example-at all events, he had evidently more wit than his antagonist. Some time after this, his mother became old and deaf, and she sent for her son home from the school, that he might take steps to recover his inheritance, and to take his rightful place as a senator of Rome; and her messenger proceeded to Tolenten, and:

The result was a reconciliation, and the restoration of Virgilius, who now became one of the principal men in the emperor's council, and he began to turn his eyes upon the fair ladies of Rome. The first of these to whom he made advances played him false, for, seeking only to mock him, she invited him to visit her one night in her chamber in a high tower, promising to let down a basket attached to a rope,a nd thus to draw him up. Virgilius came, was drawn half-way up the tower, and then the lady fastened the rope, and left him hanging there to be a spectacle to the populace all the next day. How Virgilius revenged himself is well known to all readers of the old popular literature, and can hardly be related here. Soon after this he took a wife and built himself a magnificent palace, which also possessed many wonders. The emperor now began to be troubled with rebellions in different parts of his empire, and he asked the counsel of Virgilius, who thereupon made in the Capitol a marvellous group of statues, one representing Rome, the others each allotted to a country or province, and each of these turned its back on the statue of Rome and rung a bell, when the province it represented was on the point of rebellion. Thus the emperor was informed of the revolt before it had time to get head, and the group in the Capitol received the name of Salvatio Romae-the safeguard of Rome. It was at length destroyed by an ingenious contrivance of the men of Carthage. The manner in which this was effected will perhaps be best told in the quaint language of' the original:

Virgilius also gratified the emperor by a contrivance to clear the streets of Rome of night-runners and evil-doers, and by making a wonderful lamp, which stood on a great pillar, and gave light at night to every street in Rome. He also built himself a wonderful orchard attached to his palace, and this brings us to another phase in his adventures.

In a new amour, Virgilius was more successful than on a former occasion. Having heard of the extraordinary beauty of the Soldan's daughter, he resolved to possess himself of her. For this purpose, he 'by his connynge,' built a bridge through the air, and over this passed to the Soldan's court, and gained the lady's love. After some perilous adventures, which we will pass over, he brought the princess home with him, and kept her in his wonderful orchard, for he 'was sore enamoured of that lady.'

After a time, he became desirous of finding a husband for the princess, and

Such is the legendary origin of the town of Naples! It was no sooner completed, than Virgilius gave it as a dower to the Soldan's daughter, and married her to a certain lord of Spain. But the new town was so fair, that the emperor 'had a great fantasy' to it, and he secretly assembled a great army to take it by force. Virgilius, however, protected Naples against all his designs, and he fortified it, and, leaving all his other houses, he made it his sole residence. Above all, he loved scholars, and endowed there a large school, so richly, that every scholar, while he remained at school, had land allotted to him sufficient for his keep. Thus, under his care, it Leonine the greatest school of necromancy and magic in the world.

Virgilius was again reconciled to the emperor, and performed other marvellous things for his service. At length old age approached, but he was provided even against this. He had built for himself, outside Rome, a strong castle or palace, with only one entrance, which, was protected by images of men with iron flails, which, by his necromancy, he kept in continual motion, so that none but himself could approach the entrance without certain death. Here he came sometimes alone, to secure himself from the emperor's importunities. One day Virgilius took his most trusty servant with him into this palace, and when they were alone, he said to him:

When Virgilius had disappeared from court seven days, the emperor became impatient, and sent for his confidential servant, whose answers were evasive, and made the emperor more resolute to solve the mystery. He therefore compelled the servant, by fear of death, to take him to the castle, and stop the flails, so that he might enter. And he and his courtiers wandered over Virgilius's palace, until he cane to the cellar in which he found the remains of the great necromancer salted in a barrel. In his first anger, he slew the faithful servant, by which Virgilius's instructions were lost and could no longer ho carried out.

Such is the legend of the necromancer Virgil, which, there can be no doubt, was the character given by the middle ages to the Roman poet. It is one of the most curious examples of the strange growth of medieval legend, and at the same time shows us the peculiar estimate which people in the darker ages formed of science and learning. At the same time, when we refer this to the darker ages, we must not forget that, in ages considered to be much more enlightened, the Romish Church took advantage of these superstitions and prejudices to persecute science and its followers.

THE PRINCESS AUGUSTA

This royal lady, second daughter of George III, combined great sweetness of nature with a propriety of behaviour which is not always accompanied by amiable qualities. There is an anecdote of her Royal Highness well worthy of permanent preservation.

MRS. SHERWOOD

The children of the present day enjoy immense advantages over their fathers and grandfathers as regards the supply of instructive and entertaining works suited to their tastes and capacities. Foremost among the pioneers of the improved order of things, stand the names of Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Sherwood. Aiming both at the same object, these two distinguished writers pursue, nevertheless, a very dissimilar path. Whilst the former occupies herself with the moral, and more especially the reasoning, faculty of human nature, to the almost entire exclusion of the religious element, the latter adopts invariably the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, or what are commonly termed evangelical views, as the only sound basis on which any system of lasting improvement can be founded.

The maiden name of Mrs. Sherwood was Butt, and she traced her descent from an ancestor who was said to have come over with William the Conqueror. Her family was certainly one of very old-standing in the midland counties. Her grandfather, Dr. Butt, resided in Lichfield, at a time when it was the centre of a brilliant literary coterie, including Miss Seward, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Dr. Darwin, and Mr. Day, besides being visited occasionally by Dr. Johnson and David Garrick from London. His son, George Butt, entered holy orders, and was presented to the rectory of Stanford, in Worcestershire, where his daughter, Mary Martha, the future authoress, was born in 1775. In her autobiography she has given a charming description of this place, where her girlhood's days were spent, and the remembrance of which we see vividly reproduced in her delightful pictures of English country-life in the Fairchild Fancily.

Though a sincere affection seems to have subsisted between her and her parents, yet the discipline at Stanford Rectory was, according to her own account, of rather the strictest sort. She was never allowed to sit in the presence of her parents, to come near the fire, or take part in any conversation, and, according to the preposterous discipline of those days, had an iron collar round her neck, to which a backboard was strapped, and thus accoutred, would have to stand the greater part of the day in the stocks, in which position, moreover, she was obliged to learn and repeat her lessons. Yet she says she was a happy child, and such a picture of fresh rosy health that her father used to call her Hygeia. She informs us that at a very early age she began to write stories and plays, but she had the misfortune, shared in by other geniuses, of being originally regarded as a dull child. Little of incident marks her life till after her father's death, which took place when she was about twenty years of age.

She then married her cousin, Captain Sherwood, of the 53rd Regiment, and accompanied him to India. Here, with the cooperation of Henry Martyn and Mr. Corrie, she exerted herself in the founding of schools for the Indian children, besides taking under her more especial care the children of the European soldiers, a labour of love in which she seems to have been eminently successful. Her husband entered cordially with her into all her pious and benevolent exertions. Many of her juvenile works, including the well-known Henry and his Bearer, which enjoyed such a diffusion as to be translated even into the Chinese and Cingalese languages, were composed in India.

Captain and Mrs. Sherwood, returning to England after a residence of many years, took up their abode in the neighbourhood of Worcester, and continued there till a short time before Captain Sherwood's death, when they removed to Twickenham, near London. In this place Mrs. Sherwood closed her long and useful life, amid the affectionate ministrations of her daughters, on 22nd September 1851. To the last she retained her cheerfulness, and up to within a year or two of her death, her vigour both of body and mind were almost unimpaired.

One distinguishing characteristic of Mrs. Sherwood's works is the freshness with which English rural manners and scenes are portrayed. Her descriptions are redolent throughout of violets and wild-roses, green shady lanes, and pleasant walks through woods and fields. Her children, too, are really children-not philosophers in jackets and pinafores, as the young people of Miss Edgeworth are apt to appear to us. Mrs. Sherwood must be admitted to possess the descriptive and dramatic, if not the imaginative faculty in a very high degree. Her style is the purest and simplest of English, and. the true Christian lady, as well as genial-hearted woman, display themselves unmistakably from beginning to end.

AN EPISODE FROM ZUTPHEN

The small army which Elizabeth sent in 1585 to aid the Protestant Netherlanders against their Spanish masters, contained other heroes besides Sir Philip Sidney. Of one of these-the Lord Willoughby-we find an interesting anecdote in the modern work, entitled Five Generations of a Loyal House; an anecdote, moreover, connected with that skirmish or battle of Zutphen in which Sidney received his mortal wound.

MAJOR BERNARDI

On. the 22nd of September, 1736, there died in the prison or Newgate, at the advanced ago of eighty-two, and after a lengthened confinement of forty years, John Bernardi, whose name, as Mr. Macaulay observes, has derived a melancholy celebrity from a punishment, so strangely prolonged, that it at length shocked a generation which could not remember his crime.

Bernardi was an Englishman, though, as his name implies, of Italian extraction; his father and grandfather having been agents for the republic of Genoa at the court of England. In early life, he had served in the Dutch army under the Prince of Orange, and subsequently in that of James II, during the war of the revolution; in the latter he attained the rank of major, and fought at the battle of the Boyne, and siege of Limerick. In 1696, on the discovery of the plot to assassinate William III, Bernardi was arrested on suspicion of being one of the conspirators, and committed to Newgate.

Eight persons were tried, condemned, and executed for their participation in the assassination-plot, as it was termed; but there not being sufficient evidence to ensure a conviction of Bernardi and five other suspected conspirators, the government, to avoid bringing them to a premature trial, and to afford time to procure condemnatory evidence, suspended the Habeas Corpus Act for nine months. At the expiration of that period, Bernardi and his fellow-prisoners applied to be either tried or admitted to bail, according to law; the judges adjourned the consideration of the case for a fortnight, thus affording time for the government to obtain an act of parliament, authorising the imprisonment of the unfortunate men for one year. At the expiration of the year, another act was passed authorising their confinement for another year; and at the end of the second year, a third act was passed authorising their confinement during his majesty's pleasure, parliament, evidently aware of the injustice of its proceedings, evasively throwing the responsibility upon the shoulders of King William.

There were no hopes now for the prisoners till the death of the king in 1702. When that event took place, they again demanded to be tried or admitted to hail; the answer was another act of parliament to confine them during the pleasure of Queen Anne. It happened to be the pleasure of this royal lady to release one of the prisoners, named Counter; so, at her death, there were but five to claim their right of trial or bail; but another act of parliament confined them during the pleasure of George I.

When George II succeeded to the throne, death having mercifully released two of the captives, named Meldrum and Chambers, there were only Bernardi and two fellow-sufferers to claim their legal rights. The counsel who moved their case in the court of King's Bench, stated that his clients had then been imprisoned without trial for thirty-one years; that they had been committed to Newgate, by a secretary of state's warrant, on suspicion of having been concerned in a conspiracy to assassinate King William; that they had never been brought before a magistrate; that there had not been the oath of even one witness sworn against them. It will scarcely be believed that the attorney-general, Sir Philip Yorke, afterwards Lord Hardwicke, opposed the miserable men's claim by a paltry technical quibble. He objected to the motion as irregular, the original commitment not having been produced, or proof given that the claimants were committed to Newgate in 1696. The judges overruled the objection, and there were hopes of justice being done at last; but another act of parliament condemned the unhappy men to imprisonment during the pleasure of George II.

The prisoners petitioned parliament, the king and the queen, recounting their sufferings, age, and infirmities, further observing that several, who had been taken in arms against the government in 1714, had been pardoned and liberated, while they, who had never been charged with any crime, were still rotting in a noisome dungeon. The petitions were in vain; death, more compassionate than crowned heads, released two more of the prisoners, Cassels and Blackburne, leaving Bernardi the solitary survivor; and it was not till 1736 that he died in Newgate, after a cruel and unjust, if not exactly illegal, confinement of forty years. He had one solace, however, in his long imprisonment. It appears that he married in 1712, and a writer of the day tells us that his wife,

Ten children were the result of this marriage in Newgate, and of them we are told that:

A somewhat similar instance of suffering and injustice was perpetrated by the revolution government in Scotland. In 1690, an English gentleman, named Neville Payne, was arrested on suspicion of being implicated in the conspiracy to restore James II, commonly known as Montgomery's Plot. The Scotch privy-council, not, however, without instructions from London, put Payne to the torture, but though considered to be 'a cowardly fellow,' he did not make any disclosures. Severer means were employed to extract confession and the names of accomplices, the torture being applied to both thumbs and one leg, as severely as compatible with the preservation of life, but without success. Although there was nothing against the man, save mere suspicion, he was confined, with more or less severity, in various prisons in Scotland, for more than ten years, till at last the privy-council, apparently puzzled as to what they would do with the 'vain, talking fellow,' liberated him without bail or other security. From the Domestic Annals of Scotland, we learn that Payne was an inventor and projector of improvements in ship-building and river navigation; and in all probability he was the same Nevill Payne, who figures in the dramatic history of England, as the author of three clever plays.

GEORGE III, AN AUTHOR

The 22nd of September 1761 was the day of that often-described ceremony, the coronation of George III. It is scarcely at all known that this monarch was the author of at least one article, printed in a periodical publication. In the seventh volume of Young's Annals of Agriculture, there is a paper, giving an account of a farm, held by a Mr. Ducket, at Petersham, in. Surrey, and bearing the signature of Ralph Robinson. This paper, it is asserted on indubitable evidence, was written by George III.

Mr. Ducket was one of the first to apply machinery to agriculture, and as he was an able mechanician, as well as farmer, the paper was one of no small interest. Mr. Ducket's farm, which had thus the honour of a royal description, is now, or was lately, held by Dr. Ellis, the hydropathist.

During a part of his life, George III made careful notes on the various persons and circumstances that came more immediately under his observation; illustrating his notes with very apposite quotations from Shakspeare, and other authors. One of these note-books for 1778 happened to fall under the inspection of Mr. Willis, the well-known bookseller, who has recorded two instances of apt quotation by the king; both rather different from what might be expected. In allusion to Franklin, he quotes the following words from Julius Caesar:

Dr. Johnson does not fare so well in the king's estimation. In allusion to his name, the monarch thus quotes from Love's Labour's Lost:

'He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms; such insociable and point-device companions; such rackers of orthography.'

George III. was accustomed to pay the minutest attention to details, and regulated everything in his own household and family. This habit is illustrated in a remarkable manner by the following arrangements, made by him for a journey to Portsmouth, and a note directing a change in his first plan, carefully copied from the original in his own handwriting. The king made few journeys, but this was on a memorable occasion, being to review the fleet, and present Lord Howe with a sword of honour, on his arrival at Portsmouth, after the glorious battle of the 1st of June.

During the time the king stayed at Portsmouth, he resided in the house of Sir Charles Saxton, commissioner of the dock-yard.

Since I have seen -- this evening, it is settled that Princess Royal will not go to Portsmouth, consequently not Miss Mackenthun, and the two next princesses will take but one servant between them, consequently Mrs. Clevely, Mrs. Sands, Mrs. Willis, and Miss Albert will go in the post-coach, and one post-chaise will be wanting at every stage on Monday.'