by his wife Margaret, the daughter of the Emperor Frederick the Second, he became enamoured of one of her ladies in waiting, Cunigunda of Eisenberg, and had a son by her. This Cunigunda sought the life of Margaret, and bribed the court fool, who used to come daily with two asses laden with wood and water, to the castle of Wartburg, to twist the neck of the Margravine in the night, so that people might suppose she had been strangled by the devil. The fool agreed to do so, and was accordingly concealed in the bed-room of his victim; to whom, however, he disclosed the whole plot, entreating her forgiveness. This was readily granted, and her chamberlain being consulted, advised her as the only means of safety, to leave the castle instantly, which she accordingly did, by letting herself down from the window of her apartment. Before her departure, she took leave of her children, kissed them, and in her anguish so bit her eldest son in the back, that he was ever afterwards called Frederick the Bitten. She then fled, accompanied by one female attendant, and the faithful jester, to Hirschfield, and was conveyed from thence, by the contrivance of the abbot, to Frankfort on the Maine, where she died broken-hearted in 1270.

Such instances of attachment on the part of these retainers are far more valuable in our eyes, than all the jests and quips which history and tradition have recorded of them, and yet these are neither few nor insignificant.

We have already shown, that Kunz von der Rosen was neither knave nor fool. The faithful German was not however the only fool en titre d'office who could say with the clown in Twelfth Night, "Cucullus non facit Monachum, that is to say, I wear not motley in my brain." The worthy who mingled with his motley the

livery of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, might well claim companionship with him. The duke was eternally talking of Hannibal. His fool, who no doubt had been thoroughly bored by this never-ending theme, revenged himself, by calling out to the duke, as they fled from the victorious Swiss at Granson-" Monseigneur, nous voilà bien Annibalés." The name of this satirist of the bells and bauble was worth recording, although, like the celebrated Hamilton, he should have been of " single speech" notoriety. But many a good thing is afloat in the world, without a father to own it; while, on the other hand, the wit of the day, whosoever he be, is generally converted into a foundling hospital for stray-jokes, which are by common consent fathered upon his well-known reputation. It is not half a century since, that every new book of old jests was named after some celebrated wag, and all the jokes in it, though as grey-headed as my grand-dad, were ascribed to some well-known contemporary wit-Garrick's Jests, Quin's Jests, and Mrs. Pinkerton's Jests, we have ourselves seen.

But, to cease from this digression, Triboulet, the jester of Francis I, is another instance of the happy combination of wag and wit, a reputation which his observation on the subject of the French monarch's expedition into Italy is alone sufficient to justify. Triboulet was present at the preliminary council of war, at which the best means of invading Italy were discussed. When the council was about to break up, Triboulet exclaimed, "You all think, no doubt, that you have given his majesty a great deal of good advice, and yet you have forgotten the most important part of the busi

"What is that?" was the general inquiry.

"Why," said Triboulet, "you have never considered how we are to get back again. Do we mean to stop in Italy?"

The fatal result of the campaign proved that the jester's council was well-timed. Nor is this the only instance with which history presents us, where the opinion of a fool has proved worthy of the attention of the learned members of a council, as the following anecdote will show :

:

The Duke of Mantua was once called upon to decide a question of precedency, between the Doctors of Law and the Doctors of Medicine, at Pavia. He accordingly summoned a council learned in such matters, who, after deliberating for a considerable time, left the point still unsettled. At length, the Duke's jester, who was present, said that he could easily decide the case.

"Let us hear your wise decision?" said the duke.

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Why," said the fool; "you may decide by precedent. When a rogue is to be hanged, he always goes before the executioner."

From these anecdotes, and another which is preserved, of a fool being present at the controversy between Luther and Eccius at the castle at Leipsic, the importance attached by royalty to this class of retainers, and the high degree of favour which they enjoyed is rendered apparent. Had all who donned the motley been alike witty, this fondness for their society, in times when the resources of literature were open to few, would not be matter of surprise; and we could readily imagine cities contending for the honour of supplying their monarchs with nimble-witted fools. But when we see the stuff of which the majority of these "perverters of words" were made, we think the privilege which was accorded to the

good city of Troyes, of furnishing the French king with his fools, a compliment of a very doubtful nature. That such a strange privilege existed, is however a fact. In the archives of that city, there is still preserved a letter from Charles the Fifth to the burgomaster and magistrates, announcing the death of his fool, and desiring that according to old established custom, they should supply him with another. Nor is this the only public document in existence, connected with the curious subject of the present paper. In Rushworth's Historical Collections, the reader may treat himself to the perusal of the instrument, by which the king in council banished Archee from the court, and deprived him of his office of royal jester.

Archee's successor, Muckle John, appears to have been the last individual who was duly invested with the dignity of court fool in this country. It is true that Killigrew has been recognised by many as filling that character at the court of Charles the Second; but it is clear, that although he performed the duties of that situation, and plied his wits for the entertainment of the merry monarch, he did so merely as George Selwyn attended executions, " en amateur."

In fact the monarch and his courtiers vied with each other in playing the fool; had they stopped there, and not combined knavery with their folly, it had been well for the country and for themselves. But let that pass; the new fashion of playing the fool banished the old one of keeping a fool; and what the taste of the licentious court of Charles commenced, the march of intellect (pardon the novelty of the phrase) has since confirmed, and but for the labours of the antiquary, all memory of these privileged buffoons would have passed away.

W. J. T.

THE MUSICAL DRAMA.

MEYERBEER, AND ROBERT LE DIABLE.

BY G. H. CAUNTER.

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.-TEMPEST.

THERE is no branch of art which has undergone so rapid and sudden an improvement as the musical drama within the last twenty years. The perfection to which the mechanism of musical instruments has been brought-the strength and quality of tone-the distinctive character and effect of the different musical sounds, now so accurately understood-and the power of expression on every instrument,-have imparted to instrumental performance whether in solo playing or concerted pieces, an intellectuality which, thirty years since, was not even contemplated as possible, and have led to combinations in which the master-spirits of the age are able to give full scope to the sublimest and most powerful conceptions.

Haydn was the first who imagined anything like a complete orchestra,—that is to say, a regular and necessary proportion of stringed and wind instruments, so combined as to produce those masses of effect, those powers of contrast, that force and vividness of colouring, which alone belong to concerted music. Haydn may, therefore, be considered the founder of instrumentation; and by his genius was that impetus given-slow at first, and gradually increasing until, within the last few years, it acquired extraordinary velocity,-which has at length