ANECDOTES, HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND MISC LLANEOUS. No. IV. Monteith of Salmonet.-This Scottish gentleman wrote in French, and his works are now little known. In the entertaining Memoirs of the Abbé Marrolles, written by himself, there are some scattered notices. A. D. 1641. "Sometime after, having gone to pay a visit to a lord of the court, I was so happy as to meet M. de Salmonet." [Here Goujet the editor adds in a note, " Robert de Mentet de Salmonet, praised by Desmarets in one of his Latin letters." "He was an excellent person, for whom we are indebted to Scotland. He quite gained my affections by his agreeable and mild appearance, and by the excellent things he dropped in conversation; and we have since often visited each other with much friendship. This valuable man, who writes in our language like a born Frenchman, joins politeness with great learning, but his fortune has always been crossed, and being attached to the Cardinal de Retz, then coadjutor of the see of Paris, he has encountered nothing but misfortunes. Yet never was there a wiser man, or more respectful towards legitimate authority, or more disinterested. He has compossed the History of the Recent Troubles in England, and we also have from his pen a Remonstrance to the King of Great Britain, which may be classed among the most elegant productions in our language." Goujet adds in a note, that the Remonstrance appeared anonymously, Paris, 1652, small folio, pp. 72, and is sanctioned by the approbation of Gondy, the then coadjutor of the archbishop, (Vol. I. p. 244,) that is, the Cardinal de Retz. Again, 1652. "M. de Salmonet, one of the most considerable persons for learning and piety found in the house of the Cardinal de Retz, when imprisoned at Vincennes, was received in my abbey of Baugerais, in Touraine, where I kept him for fifteen months without bearing him company, which my occupations at Paris prevented. But being master of my house during that time, he used it as freely as myself, and received many visits of my relations, and of the chief nobility of the country, who showed him singular regard, without forgetting the fathers of the Chartreux of Liget, distant only two leagues, from whom he derived much consolation." I. 367. Again, speaking of the Cardinal de Retz, Vol. III. p. 346. "He ap proved, by a singular public eulogy, the humble remonstrance of Salmonet to Charles II. King of Great Britain, in the year 1652, when he was only archbishop at Corinth, and coadjutor at Paris.' And in the list of those who presented their works to the Abbé Marolles, p. 360, we find "Robert de Mentet de Salmonet, a Scotishman of great erudition and singular probity, has my thanks for his Histories of Scotland, England, and Montrose, and for his Humble Remonstrance to the King of Great Britain in 1652." Burnet, or Burnath, professor at Montauban.-His System of Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, was published after his death, at Leyden, in 1649, a thick volume of 1058 pages, exclusive of dedication, index, &c. very neatly printed in small octavo: "Gülbert Burnathi, Scotobrit. in Academia Montalbanensi, Philosophiæ Professoris Ethica Dissertationes," &c. Being designed for the instruction of collegians, most of the copies have perished, and the book is of great rarity. It is one of the clearest and best systems ever arranged, and written in a pure concise easy style, no where tinctured with pedantry or fanaticism. Montauban was a Protestant place, famous for the siege by Louis XIII. Burnath, in one or two passages, refutes the opinion of the Papiste. It is not generally known that the most learned and moderate portion of the Protestant clergy in France, during the reign of Louis XIII., was from Scotland. There is an Historia Danorum, extra Daniam, but we want an Historia Scotorum, extra Scotiam. Florence Wilson.-In the French translation of Alciat's Emblems, Lyons, 1549, 8vo, (and also in the edition 1563, 8vo,) there is a curious dedication by the translator Aneau. "To the Most Illustrious Prince James Earl of Arran in Scotland, son of the Most Noble Prince James Duke of Chastel le Heraut, Prince Gover guage. nor of the Kingdom of Scotland." in Latin, he alone shews genius, The beginning is worth translation; fire, and invention in a dead lanthe rest only recommending the book to the Earl as worthy of his juvenile attention, on account of the prints and verses, and as an assistant in his study of the French language. Being informed, Most Illustrious Earl, of the pleasure you take in the French language, though rather estranged from your early youth, only accustomod to your native Scotish tongue, very remote from ours, I have been induced, by my own choice, and afterwards emboldened by the counsel of Mr Florence Wilson, M. Florent Volusen, J'a man, besides his excellent manners and virtues, and the knowledge of the arts and sciences, and all things good and worthy, having also the intelligence and faculty of the classical languages, Greek and Latin, and of the modern Scotish, (his own,) French, Italian, and Spanish, all acquired by visiting those nations; by his advice, then, conspiring with my own choice, I am emboldened to dedicate and present to you this little book of Emblems of the excellent lawyer M. Alciat, living and flourishing at this present time," &c. The work of Wilson, De Animi Tranquillitate, was first published at Lyons, by that learned and excellent printer Gryphius, a German, who settled there in 1528. There are three editions at Edinburgh in the last century; but an editition very rare, and little known, is that of Leyden, 1637, 8vo, which was in the library of the celebrated De Thou. It is very well written, but tedious to read, being in one long perpetual dialogue, in imitation of those of Plato. If divided into six dialogues, (with little introductory descriptions of the scenes around Lyons,) it would be classical. There are two other classical works in Latin, written by Scotish authors, the Argenis of Barclay, published among the classics cum Notis Variorum; and the Poems of Buchanan, which, even in the first editions, by the Etiennes (Stephani) at Paris, bear in the title Poetarum hujus sæculi facile Principis. This supreme praise has been confirmed by De Thou and others, who add the just reason of this high distinction; that while other modern Latin poets only spun cantos, or tagged ends of ancient verses together, he alone was original, he alone thinks Alexander Scot-The large Greek Grammar, Universa Grammatica Græca, per Alexandrum Scot, Scotum, appeared at Lyons, 1605, in a second impression. It is an octavo, of near 1500 pages, and is a vast compilation from all the preceding treatises on the Greek grammar, with many original observations of the author, who must have been a stupendous Greek scholar. The book is at present little known, but is the more remarkable, as our nation is little distinguished in Grecian literature. From page 613 it appears that his preceptor was N. Guilonius. Heretical Parrot.- Beze, in his History of the Reformation in France, 3 vols. 8vo, Geneva, 1580, informs us of a curious circumstance that occurred at Toulouse. A parrot, that had been taught to say Fi de la messe! was arraigned before the Inquisition there, condemned, and publicly burnt by the executioner. What a theme for the author of Vert-vert! Etymology. In the curious Memoires d'Artigny, Tome I. p. 408, may be found a learned satire against the absurdities of etymology, by the celebrated Huet, bishop of Avranches. It is too long to transcribe, but, in the late rage for Celtic etymons, it might have been as serviceable as a dose of hellebore. Mary. This unfortunate princess has found many old women to wash her foul linen. D'Aubigny, the bedchamber chum of Henry IV. and who is often only an echo of the sentiments of that great monarch, says, "The Catholics must be greatly at a loss for martyrs, when they select as one an adulteress and a homicide." Her return to Scotland was hastened by a contemptuous expression she used to Catherine of Medici, QueenRegent of France; "Qu'elle ne seroit jamais autre chose que la fille d'un marchand." She was thought to have thus spoken at the suggestion of her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was sent to the Council of Trent as a kind of exile. In our last set of anecdotes we were engaged with a French traveller, who visited England as secretary to an embassy in 1641. We left him examining the objects in the Tower of London. It is evident that the sword shown to him as that sent by the Pope (Leo X.) to Henry VIII. was one sent by Julius III. to Philip, Prince of Spain, when he married Mary, Queen of England, and Popery was restored, to the great joy of Rome. But, as Philip's name was most unpopular, the crafty guides had substituted that of Henry VIII. "I was about to draw this sword, to see if there were any devices on the blade, when ten or twelve men rushed upon me, with outcries of rage. I was embarrassed when our interpreter explained, that to draw that sword was an undoubted presage of a bloody' war. After many excuses, I was still afraid of remaining a prisoner with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been arrested at the same time with Lord Strafford, for the same designs, the same intrigues, and the same want of conduct in the execution. He was in daily expectation of the same fate, either by the axe or by the rope, for the meanness of his birth exposed him to the latter. I began to feel pain in so fatal a spot, and amidst such capricious guides, when I was struck with the most beautiful pieces of plate ever fabricated, being three vast vases of silver gilt, enriched with a thousand figures, and the marvellous cup of Queen Elizabeth, four feet in height, and a foot and a half wide, relieved with a million of devices, where art and industry have surpassed themselves to finish so perfect a work. In going a way, we saw in a long gallery a hundred and twenty or forty men constantly employed in the royal coinage, no foreign money having course, so that strangers lose much in exchange." Our traveller's next visit is to Westminster Abbey, where he is astonished with the grandeur of the edifice, and the number of the tombs, while at St Denis only royal ones exist. He then proceeds to a bear garden in the suburbs, to see bears and bulls fight against dogs, a practice more laudable than the modern pugilism, *See Number for December 1818, p. 498. which only tends to heighten the ferocity of the populace, as perhaps the instigators may one day feel to their cost, for the stoutest pugilist would run from the fire-arms of an enemy. The English ladies next engage his attention, but in this and a former portion of his travels in Normandy, he assumes a romantic tone, and disguises the names, that he may not hurt living feelings or characters, either by praise or blame." They appear extremely neat, and better dressed than our Parisian dames, changing their dresses almost every day, and their ornaments, for as to their gloves they are so profuse, that at an assembly or play they use new ones every hour." He becomes seriously enamoured with one of the most beau tiful and virtuous ladies of the court, whom he calls Clarinda, and describes his passion as minutely as a modern female romance; but we pass many topics, which might amuse in a pub lication of the whole work, 66 It was about this period that a quarrel arose in full parliament between the Earl of Pembroke, great chamberlain, and Lord Montravel, eldest son of the Earl of Arundel, great marshal of England, about some words on both sides which sounded like the lie, followed by four or five applications of the white wand, which the former inflicted on the shoulders of the latter. This lord had such influence by his intrigues and his connections, as brother-in-law of the Duke of Richmond, as to arrest the Earl as if in the King's name, and to send him to the Tower, where two days after he resigned his charge, worth twenty thousand pistoles ayear, into the hands of the Earl of Essex. This event made much noise at court, this rigorous procedure astonishing the English, who have not learned, like the French, a blind obe→ dience to the will of the prince, or to lose their fortune for such minute faults. No gentleman had before taken serious offence at hasty blows, nor was there any point of honour to fight for such an accident, and only sharp words pass, though swords are commonly worn; for I must inform you, that he who kills his antagonist is infallibly rewarded with a halter, though he were a knight of the garter; and if a stranger were so impru dent as to draw his sword in the street, 1819. Historical Anecdotes. he would risk his life under the ellwands of a thousand apprentices, eager to support the ancient laws. "Yet withal they are so proud as never to yield the way, give the first salute, or the place of honour. Like their wives, they imagine that the peace and traffic of Europe depend on them; that they have in their power all the wealth of Peru; that they are the sole arbiters of peace or war; that without their means and their shipping the neighbouring countries could not subsist; and, fed with such chimeras, they treat other nations with a contempt and a pride wholly insupportable." [The vanity of our secretary seems to have encountered some neglect.] "If the ladies be profuse in dress, the courtiers surpass them in idle expence. They spend incredible sums in mere sport, in dresses and ornaments, to imitate the French, as the most becoming. They exceed all nations in deep gaming, and in the boldness of their wagers, which at the Exchange are excessive on any trifling news of the march of an army, the event of a siege, or a battle, so that they will risk thirty or forty thousand jacobuses on the most feeble grounds. Their ordinary amusements are pauline, bowls, and piquet, but they are not very skilful, and shun those Parisians, who, being too well known in the Marais, and at their wits' ends, come hither to carry on their little war, where they contrive, however, to be repaid for their expences. * "It is quite amusing to see the greatest lords of England, their pipes in their hands, without sword or cloak, enjoying in Piccadilly the pleasures of an idle life, and filling the air with the odour of tobacco, which they do not spare, even at the theatre amidst the ladies, or in the first companies." The manuscript being without chapters or divisions, our author now returns abruptly to politics. "The parliament learning the king's design of a visit to Scotland, went in a body to Whitehall, to remonstrate on the inutility of so distant a journey, while so many great and important affairs remained to be arranged, and such jealousies and fears among the people. They regarded this visit as an idle compliment to a nation Then the fashionable quarter of Paris. 23 which had refused to dismiss its army, "All these reasons, this great zeal, could not move the king's resolution, who shewed, on this occasion, more force and constancy than those petty sovereigns expected. He told them, in a high style, that he had already deferred for three months, at their entreaties, a journey which his conscience told him was necessary, to disperse seditious factions, and that at length he must, as monarch and father of his people, terminate, in a friendly manner, the thousand embarrassments which had changed the very face of the kingdom during three years. "The most skilful politicians of the parliament could not approve this speedy departure at such a conjuncture, well foreseeing that it would not be easy to reconcile three inimical nations with arms in hand, and twentyeight or twenty-nine different sects of religion, by choosing the best, or rather composing a thirtieth, as more For since their revolt firm and sure. from the Catholic church, they have fallen into so strange a libertinism, as to follow and practise, without distinction, all the novelties of all the heresies in Europe. "His Majesty, without losing an hour, departed in post next day for Newcastle, where we shall leave him reviewing his troops, and regaling the chiefs of those of Scotland, winning the lower officers, and the hearts of the soldiers, gaining followers on all sides, and thus assuming a position to re-establish, by some signal action, the glory of his sceptre, the honour of his name, his influence, and reputation; in fine, to depend on none but God and his sword. "Meanwhile, the queen-mother (Mary of Medici) prepared to quit a country where her presence had excited such jealousy among the great and the people, that she would not have been safe, from the insolence of the apprentices, if any disorder had happened in the city, or the smallest change in the state, as she was suspected of privately giving to their majesties violent and sanguinary advice, since mildness and reason had no power over those brutal souls. "They bestowed on her, as in charity, ten thousand jacobuses, as being hospitable to a poor stranger, or rather made for her a bridge of gold, as for an enemy, to drive her more speedily from the country, and to be delivered at once from all the cares and inquietudes caused by her presence." The author here declaims against the ministers and advisers of this unfortunate princess, as being in fact her enemies, as well as of their country. "They persuaded her that Cologne would be a more agreeable residence than the palace of Luxenbourg, which she had built at Paris; that it was more glorious to her majesty to be the mockery of all Germany, than the idol and delight of France; that a gross and heavy climate was good for her health, after all her journies and voyages; and that ten thousand livres a-year, begged of petty princes, formerly happy to be themselves pensioners, were far better than two or three millions from her son, one of the most powerful princes in Europe. These miscreants did not even spare the paltry pensions of fifty or sixty poor officers of her household, who, after having generously followed the person and fortunes of their good mistress, were reduced to despair, by an order to retire. "More than eight days had elapsed since Whitehall had been deserted, Somersethouse abandoned, and London silent as the country, not only from the departure of the court, but on account of the pestilence which had horribly augmented. To shun the danger, the queen had retired to one of her country houses, while the two young princes of Wales and of York were at Richmond. We seized this opportunity to visit the chief fortresses of England, I mean the ships, which are so many moving citadeis, and so numerous, that we counted between London bridge and Rochester eight hundred and fifty, half, ships of war, half, of trade, all equipped and ready for sea. An absolute monarch might convert the whole into a force, capable of shaking the most powerful empire. Ten or twelve thousand sailors are ready, on the first notice, to flock from all the other ports, and a hundred and twenty, or forty thousand infantry, are at once in arms, upon lighting the beacons, which they use, like the Sicilians, to raise the people on the approach of an enemy. "In passing near Greenwich, we saw the beautiful and rich magazines of the Indies, with the ships which go there to trade every three years. We afterwards saw the royal vessel called the Sovereign of the Sea, of an immense size, and then anchored five miles below Rochester, in a deep and open place, where we could contemplate at ease this floating colossium. You will hardly believe even me, when I assure you, that it bears two thousand tons, one hundred and twelve large pieces of brazen ordnance, (canon de fonte verte,) and six hundred seamen, with all sorts of munition and provision for six months. The length is two hundred paces, (pas,) the breadth twenty-four, thickness three and a half, decorated with so many beautiful figures within and without, that two days would be required even to enumerate them. The prow is enriched with a thousand grotesques, of a gilding so perfect, that it seems fresh from the hard of the artist, not to mention the image of the present king on horseback, covered with laurels, passing over the bellies of seven vanquished kings, who seem to implore forgiveness. It is impossible to surpass the magnificence of the poop of this floating palace, which represents in relief the marine deities, and the winds, and the Cardinal Virtues, large as human life, with the arms of France, Scotland, and England. We admired the rooms destined for their majesties, the rich gilding, the cleanliness, and the contrivance of a hundred little cabinets, so that a numerous court could be lodged without much inconvenience." From the deck they enjoyed the rich landscape, and then visited the lantern of the ship, " capable of holding twelve persons, so as to seem to mock all human power, and give laws to an element which admits none.' This idea of the wooden walls of old England will not be found too prolix. J. P. TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CHI NESE. FOR the following specimens of Chinese composition we are indebted to the Quarterly Review for last May. It is suspected that the allegory is misunderstood. This vanity is not in the English style. |