Grim ure of spirits mixed with gunpowder in when the word reached his ears. the second. The foe advanced too rap- with powder and bedaubed with blood as idly to allow them to weigh anchor, so he was, the admiral much resembled an they slipped their cables and stood out Indian in his war-paint. And not less through a fleet of canoes to meet him. fiercely savage was the course he adopted. Before, however, the Maurice could gather "Surrender! who talks of surrender?" much headway, the Spanish admiral was questioned he, starting up. Then without upon them. He received and returned awaiting a reply, he swung his match into broadside, and then the vessels closed a flame, and rushing to the powder magwith a crash. They were lashed together azine, he swore, with a voice that outin a twinkling, and a dense mass of Span- roared the din of the battle, to blow them iards, many of them clad in mail, dashing all "to deepest hell" the moment they reon board the Maurice, quickly cleared the laxed their exertions. "Amen!" yelled deck. This achievement would have "the consoler of the sick," who was workclosed the action in modern times, but not ing a gun right lustily. Van Noort was so 300 years ago. The towers carried fore emphatically a man of his word, so his and aft by the vessels of that period, much crew resumed the fight with double fury. as they impeded their sailing, were exceed- Seeing the determination of their antagoingly useful as defences. Many a sea-fight nists, the Spaniards in turn lost heart. then took place in which, thanks to these Crowding back to the galleon, they cast towers, the assailants were eventually re- loose the fastenings, which they had been pulsed after having been masters of the so eager to twine three hours before. But deck for hours.* Van Noort's battle, one of their anchors caught the foretherefore, did not really begin until it had shrouds of the Maurice, and the vessels reached the point whereat the fights in maintained their deadly proximity a little which Nelson and Cochrane won their longer. This, however, was not an imfame were wont to cease. The Hollanders pediment that could long restrain the retreated- some to the poop, others to panic-stricken crowd. Some of the the forecastle, and the remainder below. shrouds were cut, others gave way, and And from these strongholds they kept up the antagonists drifted asunder, both in a destructive fire on the enemy. But the wretched plight; but the Spaniards in by Spanish vice-admiral was rapidly approach- far the worse condition, having been terriing to sustain his chief, and had he been bly mauled by cannon-shot near the waterallowed to range alongside unchecked, it line. Hardly, then, had she forged clear would have gone hard with the Maurice. of the Dutchman, than she lurched heavily At this juncture the gallant little Concord to leeward, lifted her stern high in the air, rounded a neighbouring point and dashed and dived bow foremost to the bottom, straight at the second Don. The latter where she lay with her mastheads above turned aside to meet the puny challenger, water. "Then," says the narrator of the with whom he was soon engaged in mortal voyage, "did we see the surviving Spanstrife. Being farther from the shore, this iards, to the number of 200 or more, seekpair fell into a current and drifted quickly ing to prolong their lives by swimming away, involved in a cloud of smoke. The and shouting misericordia." The Dutch, fray still raged between the principals. however, had no leisure to attend to them While one party of the Spaniards main- just at once, for their own vessel was dantained the deck of the Maurice, another bat- gerously on fire between decks. The contered her with cannons, and to both the flagration was extinguished at length by Dutch replied with right good-will. Their dint of great exertion, whereupon the chiefest contest, however, lay with the Hollanders fell on their knees, to thank boarders, whom they pelted, and who the God of Battles for their victory. The pelted them in turn, with an infinite variety" consoler of the sick," stripped to the of deadly missiles, and not a few disgusting waist, and terrible as a priest of Odin at The assailants being uncovered, fell the Yule sacrifices, breathed a short fierce fast. But the disparity of numbers began to prayer that harmonized well with the tell at length on the weaker party, some of reeking carnage round him, and then the whom even spoke of surrender. Van Noort victors rose to deal with the swimming was applying the match to a cunningly-pre- foe. One half of these had already folpared fire-work, which promised to work lowed their ship to the bottom; others much destruction among the Spaniards, had been rescued by native boats; and the rest met with no mercy. Tacking hither a party thus expelled from a Spanish carrack after and thither through them, the Maurice having held the deck for no less than twelve hours. ran many of the swimmers down, while ones. Sir William Monson relates, that he was one of 66 her crew "struck the heads of the rest, nounced themselves spice-merchants. The and thus drove them under water," - - an admiral's experience had taught him to atrocious deed, but unfortunately a com- distrust these people, but he had no obmon one in sea-fights "beyond the line!" jection to do a little profitable business The Dutch had seven killed and twenty- with them. After prowling about for six wounded in this desperate encounter, some hours the visitors departed, promisso that there now remained in the Maurice ing to reappear shortly with such a supply but twenty-two sound men. As for the of pepper as should satisfy the Dutch. little Concord, they saw her in the dis- They returned on the 1st of February, tance close under the lee of the other bringing with them a fourth, who spoke Spaniard with the Dutch flag struck. She "good Flemish"- but no pepper. Van was evidently a prize. Bnt the Maurice Noort's suspicions were now thoroughly was in no condition to attempt a rescue, roused, so he seized his visitors and so turning her head towards Borneo, she clapped them in irons. Then hurrying sped away before the wind, and soou ran his preparations he got his ship afloat and the pair out of sight. Van Noort after- his cargo on board in three days more. wards heard that the crew of the yacht On the 4th he sailed from Java through had been carried into Manilla and every the Straits of Bali, which he entered in man of them hanged as pirates. The the tail of a cyclone. Next morning he Fuegians were avenged. sighted a great ship," which had eviSteered by a Chinese pilot, they skirted dently suffered severely from the storm. the long island of Palawan, repairing their Her masts were reduced to stumps, her damaged rigging as they went. They upper works were shattered, and she was made a good deal of water, for their hull drifting helplessly with the tide. The had been shattered by numerous gales, Portuguese in the Maurice recognized the but, most of all, by the Spanish bullets. wreck at once, and declared it to be that It was necessary that they should speedily of "the great Malacca galleon." "But reach a port wherein to refit. Christ- this is not her course," observed Van mas found them off Labuan, not so cele- Noort; how, then, came she hither?" brated then as now. As usual, the day "She was armed for an expedition to Amwas made a festival, but the mirth was boyna, where the natives are now in renot very uproarious; the recent fight and volt," explained the merchant. its results hung too heavily on their haps," replied Van Noort; but I shrewdspirits. Next morning they anchored in ly suspect that yonder carrack was inthe port of Borneo. Here they found a tended to deliver the pepper which you, good specimen of the semi-barbarous des- my friends, had prepared for me." potisms that are still far too numerous on the shores of the eastern seas. The authorities were corrupt, treacherous, and cruel, and the people altogether demoralized. The Dutch were not long in discovering that they must not think of careening in Borneo. Every one of the nine days they remained there revealed some cunning plot or other for their destruction, They were compelled, therefore, to put to sea much sooner than they Van Noort's voyage is one of many that liked on the 5th of January, 1601, steer- illustrate the evils, in the shape of rapine ing for Java. Knowing nothing of these and massacre, which sprang from the seas, they were quickly bewildered among Papal grants to Spain and Portugal. But its countless islands, and beat about for these grants were not unproductive of eleven days without being able to extri- good. Had they not been made, the cate themselves. At last, on the 16th, tropic seas would have remained free to they caught sight of a native bark, and all. And in consequence navigation and sailed in pursuit. Overtaking it, they the kindred sciences whose developcompelled its master to pilot them to ment, be it observed, has rendered the Java, where they arrived on the 28th. modern world so utterly unlike the anVan Noort now careened, keeping up a cient would have stood comparatively brisk trade the while with the Javanese, still. Ships of the old vicious forms and thus turning most of his plunder into would have continued to creep along the pepper. Two days after his arrival he coasts; seamen to content them with the was visited by three Portuguese, who an- miserable appliances of their fathers; as "Per Here the voyage ceases to interest. The Maurice sped across the Indian Ocean and doubled the Cape of Good Hope early in April. The last week of that month she spent at St. Helena. Then traversing the torrid zone and the European Seas without accident, she reached Rotterdam on the 14th of August, 1601, after an absence of nearly three years. events 66 is revealed in tronomers to be mere fortunetellers; and "the name Margaret occurs in the blank mathematicians little more than contriv-leaf of the cover." Nott thought highly ers of automata and calculators of clock- of the manuscript, and pointed out that it work. But the Peninsular monopoly of corrected some omissions in Tottel's edithe older and easier routes changed all ton, and gave many poems not preserved this. It compelled the other nations into elsewhere, though some of them were in newer and more perilous tracks. These general circulation, such as Blame not tracks in their turn required better ships my lute," and My pen take pain." and seamanship, and infinitely superior Now, what Nott failed to discover-the science, which were all produced with as- owner of the manuscript tonishing rapidity; and with them great the inscription of the name Margaret, Columbus and America being which he had noticed on the blank leaf the immediate result of the Bull which of the cover," only he overlooked three gave Portugal the seas and lands south of letters which follow it, and which give the Cape Nun; and Magellan and the Pacific lady's surname. The writing is very faint the offsprings of the line drawn to the and the leaf is torn, but what is still legiwest of the Azores by Pope Alexander VI. ble of the name is "Margaret How .. and this is proved by comparison of the handwriting to be the autograph signature of Margaret, wife of Lord Thomas Howard in 1536, and of Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox in 1544, the daughter of Henry the Eighth's sister, Queen Margaret of Scotland, Countess of Douglas, and the mother of Lord Darnley. But, missing the identification of this signature, he overlooked also another interesting fact, viz., that the volume contains several sets of verses composed by Lady Margaret herself, and in her own handwriting, chiefly addressed to her first and shortlived husband, Lord Thomas Howard, son of Thomas second Duke of Norfolk, and half-uncle to the Earl of Surrey; and moreover that on some of the pages are also verses by this unhappy nobleman to Lady Margaret probably written by his own hand. The full interest of the volume will appear from a minute description of its contents. From The Athenæum. WYATT'S POEMS. British Museum. IN the years 1815, 1816, Dr. Nott published his edition of the poems of the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt, and stated that he used for the text of the latter two manuscripts, one belonging to Dr. Harington, of Bath, which he called Wyatt's own MS., and the other the property of the Duke of Devonshire, and which he described as "a small folio of 225 pages. It contains Wyatt's pieces almost exclusively. Written for the most part in one handwriting." This latter MS. is now No. 17492 of the additional MSS. in the British Museum. In further description of the volume, Nott pointed out that" at the bottom of each piece (of Wyatt's) is added, generally speaking, From leaf 2 to 25 are poems of Sir either finis qd. Wyatt' or a single W.,' Thomas Wyatt and others; as one by or the initials T. W.'"; and that " Scat- Anthony Lee, who married Wyatt's sister, tered throughout are a few other pieces one by Richard Hatfield, and one by in the handwriting of different people." Mary Shelton, daughter of Sir John ShelOf these, one he ascribed to Surrey, and ton, of Norfolk, the mistress, as Nott states, the other names he noticed were Anthony of Surrey's intimate, Thomas Clere. From Lee, “in all probability the person who leaf 26 to 30 are sets of verses by Lord married Wyatt's sister," Richard Hatfield, Thomas Howard, apparently in his own and Harry Stuart, as also the initials "T. hand-writing, on ruled lines. From leaf H.," A. F.," and "E. K.," or Sir Edmund 306 to 396 are other poems printed as Sir Knyvet. But he added, "who made the Thomas Wyatt's, but in a different hand collection, or who was the original owner from that of the first series. From leaf of the MS., there is nothing that enables us 40 to 44 are poems in Lady Margaret's to say for certain." He conjectured the handwriting, but one of which is printed as owner might have been Lady Mary How- Sir Thomas Wyatt's. The copy in the MS. ard, who married in 1533 Henry Fitzroy, varies considerably from that in print. Duke of Richmond, or Margaret, sister of Leaves 446 to 476 have four pieces, two of Wyatt, and wife of Anthony Lee; for he which are subscribed with the initials "T. had noticed at page 143 of the MS. the in- H." Leaves 476 to 54 have more poems scription "Madame Margaret et Madame by Wyatt, in the first hand. On leaf 55 de Richemont," and had observed that is a poem by Surrey, in the handwriting 66 of Mary Shelton. On leaf 57 are two stanzas signed" Hary Stuart," written in the beautiful hand of Lord Darnley, and addressed to a lady. From leaf 58 to 68 are twenty-three sonnets, three only of which occur amongst Wyatt's printed poems. Seven of them are in Lady Margaret's handwriting, and of these one is in pencil; one is in Mary Shelton's, one in Lord Thomas Howard's, hand. Two of them are by "E. Knyvet," and one by Lanseles." After several blank leaves, Wyatt's poems are again continued from leaf 69 to 876, and are followed by pieces of Lady Margaret and Lord Thomas Howard to leaf 93, the last entry. This latter series of Wyatt's poems includes pieces which he is believed to have written during his retirement at the close of his life. It appears, therefore, that the volume mainly contains poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, but not entered continuously, nor by one hand; and that insertions have been added in different parts of it, principally by Lord Thomas Howard, and his wife, Lady Margaret, in their own handwriting, partly by Mary Shelton, Sir Edmund Knyvet, and a few others, including Harry Stuart, afterwards Lord Darnley. On the fly-leaf at the beginning, on which is inscribed the name Margaret How[ard], are also to be found the names "Henr and" Mary Shelton." The binding is contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the earlier entries in the book, and.on the covers are the ciphers "M. F." and "S. E," stamped in gold, perhaps at a later period. The verses of Lord Thomas Howard are addressed to his newly-married wife, lamenting their forcible separation and his confinement. It is plain, therefore, that they were written during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, in the year 1536 on account of his secret marriage with Lady Margaret Douglas, and where he died in the same year. In one of his sonnets he says Alas, me thynke the[y] do me wronge I thynke the[y] wolde that I sh olde swere Yowr company for to forsake; But ons ther ys no worldly fere That cawse me such an othe to make. In another Now may I morne as one off late, Dryuen by force from my delyte; And can not se my louely mate, To whom for euer my hart ys plyte. To this succeeds a sonnet in a despairing strain, and in which he contemplates his approaching death; and he writes at the head of it And now my pen, alas! wyth whych I wryte Quaketh for drede off that I muste endyte. The sonnets entered in Lady Margaret's handwriting are not apparently of her composing. One is among Wyatt's printed poems. Some verses, however, written by her at the end of the volume, are evidently her own. She represents herself as having assembled around her, seemingly in the Tower, her father and others of her friends, and announces to them her resolution to put an end to her life, in order to be restored to And thynk nat to ynterrupte me, Wherfor, swet father y you pray My hope is yow for to obtaine, To my hape and hope condescend, session of his widow. Thirty years later, her son, by her second husband, contributed to the collection. The presence of Mary Shelton's name on the fly-leaf, as well as of her handwriting in three or four of the sonnets, one of which Nott claims as by Wyatt, is not so easy to account for. It may be that the volume was her property before it came to the hands of Lord Thomas Howard; perhaps given to her by Surrey's friend and her lover Thomas Clere. It is enough that by establishing the ownership of Lord Thomas Howard and Lady Margaret, we obtain an early limit of date for the composition of certain of the poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt; for the series at the beginning of the volume, though not those at the end, were certainly written before Lord Thomas added his verses in the year 1536. We also get specimens of versification by Lord Thomas Howard, his wife, Lady Margaret, and her son, Henry Stewart, afterwards Lord Darnley. Whether Dr. Nott was justified in ascribing to Wyatt all the poems which he collected from this manuscript will be determined by a future editor of the poet's works. But he fell into a mistake when he read a half-effaced subscription to the sonnet beginning "My fearful hope" as Finis qd Wyatt," and that to the response to it as "Finis qd Surreye," and printed them as Surreys. The subscriptions are Finis qd Nobodye," and "Finis qd Sumbodye," and the poems are more likely to Against a sonnet on leaf 6b, commenc-be Wyatt's than Surrey's. I cannot trace ing Suffryng in sorrow," Lady Margaret Wyatt's own handwriting in any part of has written in the margin "Forget thys the book; but it is worthy of remark that, and Yt ys worthy," while against several according to Dr. Nott, he also was a other pieces, by Wyatt she has written prisoner in the Tower in or about the year simply and thys," or, as in one instance, 1536. against the verses beginnning " And wylt thow leve me thus?" the words "and thys chefly," as if in reference to her bereavement by the death of Lord Thomas Howard. Against a sonnet on leaf 81, beginning "Now all of change must be my song," she has written "Lerne but to syng yt." It is evident, therefore, that she was at one time the owner of the volume; but from the circumstance that the verses of Lord Thomas Howard are, as they seem to be, written with his own hand it may be conjectured that it had previously belonged to him, and was intended to be a collection of the poems of Wyatt primarily. On being thrown into prison in 1536 for his presumptuous marriage with Lady Margaret Douglas, he wrote in it the passionate verses dictated by his unhappy fortune. At his death, it would come into the pos SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE MONT CENIS AT the sitting of the French Academy of Sciences on the 18th inst., M. Elie de Beaumont read an elaborate paper on the scientific instruction which may be derived from a close examination of the collection which is to be exhibited in the School of Mines in Paris of specimens of the strata obtained from the Mont Cenis Tunnel. This collection, which consisted originally of only 127 specimens, has received 69 new specimens, which brings the total number to 196 altogether. The total vertical thickness of the strata explored was more than 7,000 metres. |