scale, in 1620; the quadrant, improved by Hadley, in 1731; and the chronometer to reckon the longitude, by Harrison, a Lincolnshire carpenter, in 1774. The rich results of these improvements were evinced in the voyages of Captain Cook and other great navigators; and the royal navy, from the time of Blake to that of Nelson, steadily grew in importance and power, winning and preserving for Great Britain her enormous colonies and dependencies in every quarter of the globe, and being literally the bulwark of the mother-countryher guardian and her right arm.

During the last war, it was a saying, that the French built ships for the English to capture;' and assuredly we had more need to capture one fine French ship than to destroy a dozen. By this we mean, that our own ship-builders were decidedly backward decidedly inferior to the French and Spaniards. Humiliating as it may be, it is nevertheless positively certain, that we owed our naval victories solely to the skill and indomitable valour of our seamen, who conquered in spite of the inferiority of their vessels to those of the enemy. Upwards of a century ago, our naval architects began to construct ships of war on the model of one captured from the Spaniards; and this practice was continued from time to time. The French have always been admirable builders of war-ships, and their Canopus, of eighty-four guns, taken in 1798, served, in 1821, as the model for ships of the same rate built in our dockyards; but it is said by a high authority, that our imitations proved in an essential respect inferior to their Gallic prototype. The sole reason of all this seems to be, that, unlike our neighbours across the Channel, we formerly neglected the study of naval architecture as a science, and never applied to it true mathematical principles. Within the last generation, however, the systems and prejudices of the old-school have been successfully exploded by the master-shipwrights of the royal dockyards, and the improvements introduced by Sir Robert Seppings, Sir William Symonds, Mr Oliver Lang, and others, are very important and satisfactory. All the above gentlemen have sent forth some noble specimens of British men-of-war. The builders of merchant-ships fully keep pace with the spirit of naval progression, and are no longer compelled to build mere tubs of vessels, as they actually were until the stupid and mischievous tonnage-laws were repealed. They can now freely compete with the inventive and far-sighted American ship-builders; and it is difficult to say which country excels. Whatever improvement is now introduced on one side the Atlantic, is sure to be immediately adopted, and perhaps perfected, by the keen rival on the other side. But formerly, how very slowly were the most obvious improvements promulgated and adopted! It was not until the middle of last century that the bottoms of ships were sheathed with copper, although lead-sheathing had been tried and failed long before; and this was again tried with the same result so lately as 1833. The Romans are known to have sheathed their galleys with lead, secured with copper nails. Zinc is a material which will probably be extensively employed ere long, not only to sheath wooden ships, but to build ships. A zinc ship has been built in France, and has returned from South America, the captain speaking highly of its efficiency as a thorough sea-goer.

It appears to be already settled that in future all our ships-of-war will be supplied with screw-propellers; and very probably no more large men-of-war will be constructed of iron, as that material is found incapable of efficiently repelling a cannon-ball. An auxiliary screw, being submerged at the stern of the ship, and capable of being lifted and detached in a couple of minutes, is not very liable to be damaged by shot in battle as is the case with a paddle-wheel-and likewise it leaves the whole broadside clear for a battery of guns. The fleet of screw ships-of-war already possessed

by England is truly magnificent, and the weight of metal they carry is enormous. Floating-castles are they every one, and terrible their destructive powers. We have alluded to the Duke of Wellington; but as that ship is the grandest and mightiest man-of-war ever built by this or by any other country, we must do something more than allude to her; and although the reader has probably read details of her dimensions, &c., in the public prints, we think he will not object to our giving here some few items of the colossal proportions and armament of this monster specimen of England's wooden-walls. She was built at Pembroke Dockyard for a 120 gun-ship, but when approaching completion, the Admiralty resolved to turn her into a screw steam ship-of-war. So she was sawn asunder, and lengthened twenty feet, to give her the requisite length. On the 14th September 1852, she was launched in the presence of a vast assemblage of spectators, having been duly christened the Windsor Castle. But the great Duke dying about the same time, the Sovereign ordered that her name should be changed to Duke of Wellington, as a tribute to his memory. Here are the chief dimensions :-Extreme length, 278 feet 6 inches; length between perpendiculars, 240 feet 6 inches; extreme breadth, 60 feet; height from keel to taffrail, 65 feet; burden, 3759 tons old measurement, or 3153 new measurement. The mere weight of her own hull is reckoned to be nearly 3000 tons; and her weight when thoroughly fitted out and in commission, above 5500 tons; her draught of water is twentyfive feet, which still left the lower ports seven feet clear of the surface-a fact that of itself gives one a vivid idea of the stupendous magnitude of the hull. The engines are of 750 horse-power, and the propeller itself weighs three tons. She can steam at the rate of upwards of eleven miles per hour, independent of her sails. She carries coal for only five days' consumption at full power of the steam, and this coal is stowed to the thickness of twelve feet on each side of her engine-room, so that it is considered impossible for a cannon-ball to penetrate through to her machinery. Time will shew. Her complement of men is 1100. Her armament is something truly tremendous, as will be seen by the subjoined :

What an awful battery is this! Why, a single close broadside from it would send an old seventy-four sheer to the bottom. What would Blake or Van Tromp, or even the later naval heroes, Rodney and Nelson, say to this appalling specimen of a modern war-ship could they revisit the world? The caravel in which Columbus sailed to discover the New World, was not much larger, we should think, than the 'launch' (chief boat) of the Duke of Wellington.

Ay, well we may complacently contrast the frail little vessels of past centuries with our present mighty ships; but is there not a possibility that posterity will think even the Duke of Wellington a mere pigmy of a craft compared with the floating monsters which will then rule the waves? Yet more, may not one single generation suffice to reduce the Duke of Wellington to the class of a second or third rate? We see every sign of such an event. Progress is now so rapid, that no one can foretell what a score of years, nay, what even one year, may bring forth. Every few months we read of a ship being launched which exceeds in size all previous triumphs of naval architecture-only

to be quickly surpassed in turn. Already we hear of ships projected, if not already commenced, of some 10,000 tons burden; and who can place any limit to the size which may hereafter be attained? Let us be wisely humble in our own day and generation, and not boast too loudly of the marvels of our skill, lest our children should by and by laugh at our vanity and folly.

SURREY AND HIS GERALDINE.

WHILE the world is expecting a great poet, listening every now and then for the rush of the approaching billow, mountain high, some are more practically employed in counting, estimating, and classifying the past phenomena. New editions, new commentaries, new memoirs appear without ceasing. The son of William Hazlitt is employed in filling out Johnson's idea of the Lives of the Poets, so as to make the work comprehend all the English verse-makers; and Robert Bell has already published several volumes of The Annotated Edition of the English Poets.*

Mr Hazlitt's voluminous work is of necessity somewhat of the nature of a chronological dictionary of poets, but when completed will be a curious and valuable addition to the library. Mr Bell's is a more ambitious task, and it is so far executed with good taste and judgment. In the volume containing Surrey, we observe unmistakable evidences of an acute and inquiring mind. That the love of this noble poet for Geraldine was real passion, is taken for granted by his commentators; but if so, like most of the passions of our own day, it was quite free from the romantic circumstances which have been so long associated with it. The following sonnet is the foundation on which the whole story is built:

From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race;

Fair Florence was some time their ancient seat.
The western isle whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat.
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast:
Her sire an earl; her dame of prince's blood.
From tender years, in Britain doth she rest,
With kinges child; where she tasteth costly food.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen:
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine;
And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.
Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above;
Happy is he that can obtain her love!

The romance of this passion first saw the light in a book called The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton, written by the well-known Thomas Nash, and published in 1594. Four years after, Drayton takes all for granted, in the Heroical Epistles; Winstanley came next; and then Anthony Wood, who made use of Jack Wilton's revelations almost verbally. This was conclusive with succeeding authors; and with the aid of Cibber, Walpole, and Warton, the story, so ignoble and absurd in its origin, struck deep into the literature of the country. It is thus detailed by Mr Bell :

'In 1536, Surrey sustained a heavy calamity, by the death of his friend and brother-in-law, the Duke of Richmond. The date of this event is important, for, at this date, the fictitious incidents that follow take

Johnson's Lives of the British Poets, completed by William Hazlitt, in 4 vols. Vol. i. Cooke. London : 1854.

their spring. Soon afterwards, as the story runs, Surrey made a tour in Italy, partly to dissipate his grief, but chiefly at the command of his mistress, for the purpose of asserting her charms against all comers, according to the fashion of the chivalry of old. This tour closely resembled the enterprise of a knight-errant in quest of adventures. Wherever he went, he proclaimed the peerless beauty of Geraldine, and challenged the world in its defence. It might have been almost supposed-although the inventor of the romance was inspiration that Surrey was animated by a sense of ignorant that there existed so plausible a source of the traditions of Round-table lineage in the blood of the Fitzgeralds, whose great ancestor, Fitz-Otho, was married to Nesta, daughter of Rys ap Tudor Mawr, Prince of South Wales. On his way to Florence, whither he was bound, according to the same authority, as the birthplace of his mistress, he visited the court of the emperor, where he became acquainted with the famous magician, Cornelius Agrippa, who, being solicited by him, shewed him his mistress languishing on a couch, reading one of his sonnets in a passion of grief for his absence. This pathetic revelation, instead of calling him back to England, only inflamed his imagination, and hastened his journey to Florence. On the way, his knight-errantry was tarnished by a degrading intrigue at Venice, for which he months, until his liberation was procured by the interwas thrown into prison, where he was kept for several position of the English ambassador. It is proper to observe, that the subsequent retailers of the original romance omitted this staining episode, preserving only those passages which exhibited Surrey's gallantry and poetical sensibility in the most favourable light; so that they must have been fully conscious of the suspicious character of the narrative they passed into circulation as an authentic history. Credulity and caution have rarely worked so inconsistently together in accepting the absurd and rejecting the probable. Arrived at Florence, Surrey visited the house, and the very chamber where Geraldine was born, giving way to a burst of ecstasies, which were faithfully chronicled in a sonnet forged for the occasion. He then published a challenge in honour of his mistress's beauty, in defiance of all persons who should dare to call her supremacy into question, whether Christian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or Cannibal. The lady being a Florentine, the pride of the Florentines was, of course, highly flattered by his intrepidity; and the duke, having duly ascertained his rank and pretensions, threw open the lists to the combatants of all countries. Then followed a series of magnificent tilts, in which Surrey, who wore a shield presented to him by the duke before the tournament began, came off victorious, and Geraldine was in due form declared the fairest of women. The duke was so enchanted with his valour and accomplishments, that he offered him the highest preferments if he would remain at his court; but the gallant knight being resolved to celebrate his lady in similar jousts throughout the principal cities of Italy, declined these tempting proposals, and was preparing to prosecute his journey, when letters arrived from the king of England comsummons cut short his adventures, and brought the manding his immediate return. This unexpected romance to an abrupt conclusion.'

Such is the tale, and a fine one it is; but it is only a tale. Our author gives various details of the employments of Surrey, to shew that he could not have been in Italy at the time mentioned in the narrative; and he then adds, oddly enough, after having taken this trouble, that the noble tilter was married, and had a son previously, and that Geraldine was little more than seven years of age when she is said to have been shewn to her lover in the magic glass. Only forty years ago,

Bell.

Parker and Son. London: 1854.

moirs of Surrey; but to make up for this, he himself

paraphrased the sonnet-one of the most prosaic ever written into a prose poem, describing in the most sentimental terms the origin and growth of Surrey's love. Notwithstanding the demolition of the story, the poets were not willing to drop what suited them so well. Barry Cornwall refers to it as an undoubted fact; and Scott, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, wrought up the magical scene in his happiest manner :

But soon, within that mirror huge and high,
Was seen a self-emitted light to gleam;
And forms upon its breast the Earl 'gan spy,
Cloudy and indistinct, as feverish dream;
Till, slow arranging, and defined, they seem
To form a lordly and a lofty room,
Part lighted by a lamp with silver beam,

Placed by a couch of Agra's silken loom,
And part by moonshine pale, and part was hid in gloom.

Fair all the pageant-but how passing fair

The slender form, which lay on couch of Ind!
O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair,

Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined;
All in her night-robe loose, she lay reclined,
And, pensive, read from tablet eburnine
Some strain, that seemed her inmost soul to find:-
That favoured strain was Surrey's raptured line,
That fair and lovely form, the Ladye Geraldine.

Now for the actual facts of the case. It has been pointed out that, in the era of Surrey, it was necessary for a gentleman to have a mistress, real or feigned, to whom his vows should be offered up as to an idol. This was the fashion, and a fashion exalted and refined by the influence of the poetry of Petrarch. Mr Bell supposes, like others, that Surrey's was a real passion; but we must confess we cannot trace any evidence to this effect in the verses themselves. They belong to the sentimental gallantry of the times, not to the individual, and are interspersed with pretty close imitations, and even translations, from the Italian poet, shewing clearly enough the source of the inspiration. Geraldine herself, however, was not an imaginary person. This was not necessary in the days of chivalry, when it was no uncommon thing for a knight to select for his mistress a lady of a rank so high as to render her almost unapproachable.

'Horace Walpole,' says Mr Bell, 'first identified this celebrated woman, and the lineage he traced for her has been confirmed by subsequent investigation. She was the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth earl of Kildare, whose second wife was Margaret, daughter of Thomas Gray, Marquis of Dorset, by whom he had three daughters-Margaret (born deaf and dumb), Elizabeth, and Cicely. The Lady Elizabeth was the Geraldine of Surrey. The Tuscan origin referred to in the sonnet is founded on a tradition, that the Fitzgeralds sprang from the Geraldi of Florence, and came into England from Italy in the reign of King Alfred. This tradition is not sustained by any historical testimony; but Surrey, who, amongst his general accomplishments, appears to have cultivated the study of heraldry-which helped, indeed, to bring him to the block-may have investigated with greater success than his critics the annals of the family. It is not improbable that he had access to documents on the subject at Windsor, where one of the ancestors of the Fitzgeralds, Gerald Fitzwalter Fitz-Otho, had been castellan in the reign of William the Conqueror. This, however, is mere conjecture. The "prince's blood" of Lady Elizabeth's mother flowed from a nearer sourcethrough her father, who was brother, by half-blood, to Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., mother of Henry VIII., and a descendant of the house of Luxembourg.' The father of Geraldine, when lord-lieutenant of Ireland, revolted against the crown, and died in the Tower. The family was scattered for a time, and Henry VIII., taking pity on the Lady Elizabeth, his near relation,

brought her to England, and placed her at Hunsdon, under the care of her second-cousin, the Princess Mary. Here, it is supposed, Surrey first saw her, and selected her for his mistress, whether in passion or poetry. We conclude with Mr Bell's character of the hero himself:— Surrey was formed out of the best elements of the age, and combined more happily, and with a purer lustre than any of his contemporaries, all the attributes of that compound, and to us almost fabulous character, in which the noblest qualities of chivalry were blended with the graces of learning and a cultivated taste. His nature was as fine and gentle as it was strong and energetic. It might be said of him, that he united in his own person the characteristics of Bayard and Petrarch-courage and tenderness, the heroic spirit, and a woman's sweetness of heart.'

WEARYFOOT COMMON.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PLAY BEFORE THE CURTAIN.

'ARE you sure, Sara, your letter for Robert was despatched in proper time?' said the captain, as he entered the breakfast-room simultaneously with his sister the next morning.

'Yes, dear uncle,' replied Sara; 'Molly put it herself into the post-office; but it probably reached his address when he was from home. He came here last night, but at too late an hour for me to see him.'

'Too late for you to see him!' echoed the captainwhy, Sara, what is this? Would you not see poor Bob at any hour of the day or night, if you had not gone to bed?' He looked at her anxiously. She was pale and listless, like one who had not slept.

'I was not very well,' replied Sara, in a low voice. Her aunt glided up to her, and putting her arm round her waist with uncomfortable tenderness, whispered:

'Let it be camomile this morning, love!' Sara smiled faintly, and assured them that she was now better, and all impatience to see something of this wonderful London.

'We will first, dear uncle, go to'- Here there was a knock at the street-door, and she stopped abruptly.

'Go where?' asked the captain.

"To-to'- Sara had forgotten: she was motionless, breathless; and when at length the room-door opened, she sat suddenly down in a chair. The sight of Robert reassured her. She watched his meeting with her aunt and uncle, and saw the flush of joy and yearning affection fade instantaneously into habitual paleness. How changed! Stronger, firmer, more noble-looking than ever, he bore notwithstanding, like an unshaken rock, the tokens of the thunder and the storm. His brow was written over with ineffaceable memories; and his look seemed without hope as well as without fear. When he turned to Sara, who was behind backs, she rose slowly, and not without some maiden reserve, for she felt that her eyes were full. Robert knew at a glance that he had done her injustice; and his throb of joy was mingled with self-reproach for the feeling, which in his desperate circumstances seemed ungene. rous. And so they met again, this young pair, with a pressure of the hand, a long look, silent lips, and full hearts.

In reply to the captain's questions, Robert explained that he was at a dancing-party the evening before, where he had learned accidentally, but not till the night was far advanced, that they were in town. Even then his

them to the gayer streets of the town, where, dismounting, the ladies amused themselves with gazing and shopping, while their escort lounged in the rear.

"There is something I want to ask you, Bob,' said the captain, and now is the best time for it. Margery has been putting all sorts of stuff into Molly's head about you, and your brilliant prospects, and your intimacy with a great family, and so on, and I am anxious to know what it all means. Have you really anything opening out before you such as she writes so mysteriously about? and do you know what it is?'

'Surely,' replied Robert, 'you must be aware that if I knew anything absolutely, you-my earliest friend, to whom I owe even my intellectual being-would be the first to hear of it! But poor Margery is as sanguine as she is loving; and her cousin Driftwood, to whom she is doubtless indebted for the report you allude to, has no means of obtaining correct information. To say that he has no foundation to proceed upon, would be untrue; but I know nothing absolutely myself; I am now almost afraid to hope; and it may be that even before you leave town, I shall have settled down'-and he smiled sadly-'into a position more befitting the heretofore vagrant of the Common than the guest and intimate of Sir Vivian Falcontower.' 'But can nothing be done to aid you?' said the veteran anxiously. You know I am now comparatively rich, and if you were to go to law, perhaps '

'My dear sir, law is out of the question! My claims depend upon favour, not force, and I will never stoop to beg for what is my due.'

won for her the suffrages of the Wearyfoot ball; but looking so terribly composed that one might have imagined she had forgotten that she was going anywhere at all. As for the captain, he had been admonished by his sister that regimentals were not the thing in London, and so he appeared on this occasion in the common mourning attire of an English gentleman when he means to make merry.

Robert, whose experience of the theatre was not extensive, had omitted to take places; and when they were set down by their vehicle in the midst of a crowd of elegantly dressed persons, male and female, so dense and so unceremonious as quite to alarm the country girl, they learned for the first time that it was a commandnight, that the Queen was to be present. They tried the dress-circle first, but entrance there was out of the question; the first circle was equally full; but in the second they were at length fortunate enough to obtain places, although only in the corner box next the stage. The novelty of the scene, the crowd, the rush, the pressure, almost took away Sara's breath; but she pressed on, blindly conscious of safety when under Robert's care, and opened her eyes to observation only when seated in the front of the box between the captain and Elizabeth, and with her protector guarding her jealously behind. The scene before, beneath, above her, presented a picture almost sublime as a whole, but merely exciting and amusing when the mind had time to examine it in detail. The young girl looked at first with alarm at the torrent of human figures filling gradually every corner of the house; then she was struck with the almost comic tranquillity of the company in the boxes, in the midst, as it seemed, of that appalling sound from the gallery into words that threw an air of ridicule upon the whole tumult.

'What! you won't? You are too proud-even to me?'

'Believe me,' said Robert, huskily, 'I should not be too proud to be your servant, if you could not afford a hireling! But as for money, I am really in no want of it. I am always able to support myself singly in reasonable comfort, and if fortune has decreed that I am never to be able to do more-why, then, I will not accept at her hands of a single additional luxury!'

At this moment they were joined by Elizabeth and Sara; and when the veteran saw the flushed cheek and radiant eyes of the young girl, who had probably been purchasing some article of female bravery, he could not help contrasting in his own mind her appearance and her position with those of his protégé. His reverie, and the obvious depression of Robert, affected insensibly the spirits of the ladies, and all four pursued their walk in silence through this attractive quarter of the metropolis.

But if the earlier part of the day had been wanting in the enjoyment one expects from a visit to London, the evening was to make up for it-for the evening was to be spent at the theatre. It was Sara's first night before the curtain, and as the hour approached, she began to be almost as unquiet as if she was to make her début behind it. The thing most trying to her nerves at the outset was the dress scene; and as she came on from behind through the folding-doors of the parlour, and presented herself to Robert for the first time since she was a girl in evening-costume, she was adorned with so many graceful blushes, superadded to the tasteful elegance of her attire, that the young artist forgot all his miseries in admiration. Then followed Elizabeth in the triumphant dress that had

The house was at length full. The boxes-all but one next the stage, which was still vacant-were like a parterre of thickly set flowers-the loveliest in the world; the tumultuous sea of heads in the pit subsided into a deep calm; and even the howling gallery was silent in expectation, when all on a sudden the whole concourse rose simultaneously, the men uncovering their heads, and a terrific shout burst from every corner of the vast building. Sara now observed that a lady and gentleman had come quietly to the front of the before empty box; and as the roar of greeting thundered through the house, the lady-a handsome and elegant but kindly-looking woman-bowed gracefully her acknowledgments. Then the shout died away as suddenly as it had arisen, lost, as it seemed, in the swell of the national hymn which rose from the orchestra and stage; and Sara felt the veteran by her side tremble, and saw the tears roll down his cheeks, as he joined inwardly in the burden-'God save the Queen!" She was herself agitated almost to weeping. She had no time to analyse her feelings, but she recognised in the midst of these a sensation of pride swelling in her breast, and a deep and sisterly sympathy with every individual of that vast multitude.

'Robert,' she said in a broken voice, and turning to him with the frank confiding look and tone of other days, 'is not this wonderful?"

'I am glad you are here, Sara,' he replied in the same tone, 'for this is truly a fine and a suggestive scene.'

'But what does it mean, Robert? Why do I feel as proud as if I were the sister of that noble lady-whom I can scarcely see for the tears that are standing in my eyes?'

"You will comprehend your feelings by and by, when you have time to think, and you will read in them the solution of more than one social and historical mystery. The principle of cohesion in the feudal régime, in clanship, and in free governments, is identically the same: in all, the chief is the head of a system to which the subject as essentially belongs, and the homage of the