novelist should not divide, but unite. We have recently had a very beautiful example of the harmonizing process, and few things, we think, can be more profoundly just and conciliatory than some of the truths put by the author of "My Novel" into the mouths of his practical squires and time-taught philosophers. Well has it been said by a charming writer and wise thinker of our day, "Every great poet (or novelist) is a 'double-natured man.' He is not one-sided: can see the truth which lies at the root of error: can blame evil, without hysterically raving against every doer of it: distinguishes between frailty and villany: judges leniently, because by sympathy he can look on faults as they appear to those who committed them-judges justly, because, so far as he is an artist, he can regard the feeling with which he sympathises from without: in a double way realising it, but not surrendered to it."* Be such for ever the spirit of our English fictions! Vivid, life-like, yet large and humanising: while, on the other hand, a more execrable aim can hardly be than his who calls up the spirits of discontent, insubordination, and revenge, while affecting to recreate the tired mind. But we cannot enter upon this chapter of perversions. From all participation in such may Heaven keep women, and especially the women of England! A POLITICAL CARICATURE, TEMP. CHARLES THE FIRST. IN the political and familiar correspondence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we occasionally find mention made of pasquinades and caricatures, whereby the popular sentiments on the great actors and events of the day were covertly expressed, and perhaps in some cases formed and directed, as they have subsequently been by the masterly productions of a Hogarth or a Gillray, a Cruikshank or a Doyle. It is chiefly, however, in relation to continental politics that these notices occur. There was but little native art in this country, and the terrors of the Star Chamber and other instruments of summary retribution kept that little effectually in check previously to the reign of Charles the First. Almost all the prints of this nature earlier than that period are satires upon popery ;† and many of them were either direct importations from Germany, or were executed by foreign artists.§ In the early part of the seventeenth century these productions are usually elaborately executed upon copper-plate: earlier than that period wood blocks had been mostly employed ||-an art * Rev. F. W. Robertson, Influences of Poetry: Two Lectures delivered at Brighton. Hamilton and Adams. † A print of Sir Giles Mompesson, in three compartments, in allusion to his monopoly for licensing alehouses, and belonging to the year 1621, may be cited as an exception but its spirit was not satirically aggressive, like that of modern caricaturing; but rather penally retributive. It took its revenge after the man was disgraced. This print, which is engraved with remarkable finish, is described by Granger, but inadequately. This is evidently the case with a German print entitled Treves Endt, but which was republished in England Anno 1621, with some English verses headed "The funeral of Netherlands Peace." § We conjecture that this course was taken with "The Travels of Time, loaden with Popish Trumperies, from Great Britaine to Rome," produced apparently in 1624. It has English verses and English inscriptions in the engraving; but the personage styled "Policie" in the latter is by the versifier varied into Politicke, His name is Politicke-Religion's Ape. The German artist is betrayed by his spelling of "light :”—The licht of the Gospel. which attained great perfection, even in this country, in the sixteenth century, but which declined in the seventeenth, until in the reign of Charles the Second it was nearly extinct. We have been led into these remarks upon looking at a caricature preserved among the very valuable Collection of Proclamations and Broadsides belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, which is now undergoing the process of arrangement and description at the able hands of Mr. Lemon of the State Paper Office. It is a copper-plate of skilful execution. To what English artist to assign it we are entirely unprepared to say; but an Englishman he probably was, from the King of "Great Britain" being placed foremost in his design. The inscriptions on the caricature itself, being in Latin, might indeed correspond with its having been produced by a German artist; but the English verses attached to it show that the impression before us was at least one of an edition published in this country. 1. There are nine persons represented, six seated at a table and three standing. On one side the table are the kings of Great Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, being portraits respectively of Charles the First, Christian the Fourth, and Gustavus Adolphus; they face the spectator; and opposite to them are seated a female personifying Rome, a monk, and a friar. The standing figures are, on one side, the Pope and a Cardinal; and by the side of Sweden, on the other, Bethlehem Gabor, the Vaivode of Transylvania, who made himself master of Hungary in the year 1620. The design has been reversed by the engraver, and its story has consequently to be taken from left to right, as is indicated by the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, to which the columns of verses placed below correspond. The first of these (which we copy following the orthography, but for clearness' sake amending the punctuation,) reads thus: Greate Brittaine wth proud Rome at tables playes. In this part of the design Rome is represented in a long gown girt round the waist, and raising her cowl to look on the game. The head of Rome is effeminate, but she wears the tonsure. At her side is a dog in the Hogarthian attitude of defiling her foot. Before her are the "tables," closely resembling the modern backgammon-board. The Pope is stretching out his hand to snatch the pax, which king Charles with one hand endeavours to prevent, 2. whilst he lays the other on the Pope's tiara. In this act he is in turn arrested by the Cardinal, who is termed "Austria" in the verses,* and whose hands are "armed" with gauntlets. To each person is attached a Latin motto: To the Cardinal, Per bellum mihi pax. To the Pope, Cinge gladium. To the King, Da Cæsari. To Rome, Miserere mei Deus. We now proceed to the second pair of gamesters, who are thus described: Denmarke not sitting farr, and seeing what hand * This is very probably intended for Ernest Adalbert von Harrach, archbishop of Prague, made a cardinal in 1626, who is described by Ciaconius as "multa in Germaniæ bellis ab Hæreticis passus, præcipuè in Pragensi obsidione facta a Suecis." A Muncke, who stakes a chalice. Denmarke sets gold Denmarke, being bold, The king's features are carefully copied from his portraits. The monk is a bald-headed old man, with "spec 3. tacles on nose." His Latin motto is Fratres in unum: and the King's, Cor unum via una. Rome thus by Brittayne and by Denmarke pould, To Sweden's hand, who throwes and winnes from Rome By betting against Rome, bearing away So much that Rome noe more dare bett or play. Her crosses, crucifixes, miters, cowles, And all the nets she throwes out to catch soules In this part of the picture Rome is represented as a man naked to the waist, with the motto Nudus in mundum veni. The motto to the king of Sweden is Et fortis et fidus; and that 4. to Bethlehem Gabor, Sic transit gloria Romæ. The fourth column of verses draws the moral from the preceding: These Royall Gamsters thus wth crownes being stor'd, We do not apprehend that the verses allude to any particular series of events, but rather to the general struggle with Popery maintained by the Protestant sovereigns. The period of the execution of this caricature must have been between the accession of Charles the First in 1625 and the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632. The English king resembles his early portraits, before his beard was grown. It may be useful, as opportunities occur, to take note of any early caricatures which, like this, are connected with English history. The industrious J. P. Malcolm, who wrote "A History of the Art of Caricaturing," (1813, 4to.) does not notice any such of a date earlier than the reign of Charles I. excepting one in allusion to the defeat of the Spanish armada and the discovery of the Gunpowder plot. This appears in the print to be the five of Clubs. An odious play, and yet in court oft seene, Sir John Harington's Epigrams, iv, 12. A MIDLAND TOWN IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD. Music and Friends; or, Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante. By William Gardiner, Author of Sacred Melodies, Oratorio of Judah, Music of Nature, &c. &c. 1853. 8vo. FEW provincial "dilettanti" have attained so wide a celebrity as the veteran author of "Music and Friends." Mr. Gardiner may well talk of his "friends," for the chief business of a long life appears to have been the very pleasant one of acquiring them, and his amiable disposition and agreeable talents have ensured him as large a measure of success as is consistent with this ever-fading condition of mortality. He has made as many friendships as could well be crowded into fourscore years. To his "Sacred Melodies," which he published forty years ago, he had (he tells us) four hundred and four subscribers, only twenty-four of whom are now alive. As subscribers to the present work he places upon record the names of one hundred and seventyeight persons, all of whom, with the exception of four or five, "he has the honour to call his personal friends." When now, at the age of eighty-three, he offers his last work to their attention, they will gladly renew the "pleasant recollections" which were contained in his former volumes, and not merely pardon, but cordially welcome, the agreeable garrulity and selfgratulations of old age. Mr. Gardiner is a native of the town of Leicester, in which he has been a resident during the whole of his life; not, however, insensible to the attractions of travel, or to any of the events which have been transacted on the great public stage during his prolonged career. In liberality of sentiment, avidity for information, and readiness Vol. III. to embrace every rational improvement, he has ever been a true citizen of the world. To those who are acquainted with the former volumes of "Music and Friends,"* (which were published in 1838,) it is unnecessary to describe the present to others we need only say that all three form a pleasant miscellany of musical, political, and general anecdote, interspersed, at intervals of every fifteen or twenty pages, with pieces of music of the author's own composition or adaptation.t Having on a previous occasion drawn at some length upon Mr. Gardiner's stock of personal anecdotes, we propose now to bring together some of his descriptive notices of the town of Leicester in his early days. Changes in manners, and the arts of life, steal upon us so insensibly yet so continually, that it is only when we take our stand and look back to an earlier epoch that we can really appreciate the astonishing alterations which even the lapse of half a century effects. Such a retrospect, as regards an important English town, we are enabled to take, from the life-experience of Mr. Gardiner, in whose early youth the "improvements" of Leicester began by the removal of its ancient gates. Its first venturing forth from out its walls he traces, however, to a somewhat earlier cause: When the plague raged here in 1669, the high road from the North, which passed by the Abbey, was turned through Belgrave, and so on to Leicester, outside the walls, to avoid the pestilence. Hence *They were reviewed at length in our vol. XI. 227-239. 66 "The Songs are specimens of old-fashioned poetry,-as Isaac Walton says, choicely good,' to which I have composed appropriate airs." (Preface to vol. iii.) This has been the principal amusement of Mr. Gardiner's life. In his Sacred Melodies the anonymous pieces are his own. He relates that in 1821, at the York Festival, the trio, The Lord will comfort Zion, was performed, and put down in the books as the composition of Haydn, although written by himself. Perhaps (he adds) it has been a false modesty in me not to affix my name; but, to prevent any mistake, and as a general answer to these inquiries, I say that every recitation, symphony, song, and chorus without a name is my composition. In the Music of Nature, Music and Friends, and Sights in Italy, there are more than fifty songs composed by me, besides many of intrinsic merit that I have shortened and improved by cutting out old-fashioned flourishes now obsolete." (p. 379.) arose the suburbs of the Belgrave-gate, Church-gate, and Humberstone-gate. The principal inns near the High Cross were deserted, and the Three Crowns and Three Cranes, in Gallowtree-gate, became the chief resort for travellers. The town, within the walls, was at that time not more than a quarter of a mile square. The four gates were taken down in 1774. Over the East-gate there was an upper story, which made the opening so low, that a loaded waggon could not pass under it. The [street called] Church-gate was the town ditch, full of mire, with a few houses standing on the eastern bank. The houses were all made of wood and plaster, not more than two storeys high.* The varieties of roof and gables lungeing upon one another, gave the old place a picturesque appearance. The chief street was High Crossstreet, where stood the building of the Old Cross, which left scarcely room for a carriage to pass. In the High-street was a mansion built of stone, belonging to the Huntingdon family, called the Lord's House, of which only one turret remains, now cased with brick, and the highest object in the street. A very enlivening feature were the trees scattered through the town. Opposite to the Borough gaol (which was made out of St. Peter's church) were the elm-trees, two gigantic fellows, who stretched their arms completely across the street. In summer time they formed a pleasant shade, where many a pot of stout October regaled the idlers of that day. Next to King Richard's House stood a remarkably tall holly: its smooth silver stem, with bushy top, greatly mounted above the houses. Just below the Confrater's house was a row of massive chestnut trees, hiding some wretched buildings. On this spot stood the white houses, built by our townsman Johnson, who, I believe, visited Italy after he had become a London banker, and introduced the art of stuccoing-probably the first instance of its being used in England. In the Market Place was the Pigeon Tree, under which country-women sat to sell pigeons, a great article of food brought from the open corn-fields that surrounded Leicester in all directions.† Opposite the Post-office there was a grove of trees, under which stood the small thatched inn called the Jolly Miller. Between this and the coal-yard at the back of Rutlandstreet was a horse-pond, where the porters from the Crowns and the Cranes washed their horses. All these rural features have disappeared. As our manufactures and population have increased, the ground has become too valuable to allow these sylvan ornaments to remain. In ordinary times there was little to disturb the daily routine of the plodding townsmen, who transacted their morning business, eat their noontide meal, and basked in the afternoon sunshine, with their pipe and tankard, in unmolested monotony. But on the recurrence of a general election their passions were excited into unmitigated fury. The corporation was Jacobite, the neighbouring gentry chiefly Whigs. A memorable struggle for a county member took place in 1775, in which our author's father, being an active person, and a great friend of constitutional liberty, was entrusted with untold gold to bribe the voters in the cause of Mr. Pochin, the Whig candidate. Scarcely a person could be found who did not enter into the contest with ungovernable warmth, and the females especially, who were, in their electioneering fervour, decked out profusely in parti-coloured silks and ribbons. The contest continued through several weeks, and, powerful as the country gentlemen were on the Liberal side, the Corporation [and Mr. Hungerford] triumphed, and Mr. Pochin lost his election. Another scene of drunkenness and riot was the contest of Parkyns and Montolieu [for the town of Leicester in 1790], which lasted many weeks; and, had not a compromise taken place, numbers would have In his first volume, p. 89, Mr. Gardiner remarks, "I suppose it was about the year 1700 that the vast tracts of clay which lie in the South Fields were discovered, which led to the making of bricks; for we do not find any buildings made of these materials farther back than the date 1708, which appears on the Great Meeting." He goes on to remark that the Blue Boar, in which Richard III. is said to have lodged before his fatal battle of Bosworth, was of framed timber, plastered over, "except the chimney, which was built of brick, of a peculiar make, no doubt imported from Holland." We doubt, however, 1st, whether that house was so old as Richard III., and, 2ndly, whether the chimney was so old as the house. See views of it in our Magazine for July, 1837. +"every farmer had his dovecot, and immense quantities were brought to market every Saturday, and sold under the Pigeon-tree, a tall spreading sycamore that stood near the top of the Market-place," We take this passage from Mr. Gardiner's first volume, p. 92, |
