be sold, &c." 1670, 24mo.; formerly in the Roxburghe Library; which, in the choice and precious collection, not merely of printed books, but of manuscripts, where it now rests, shines, indeed but is far from shining velut inter ignes Luna minores. d; The reader will remark that the text of this edition appears considerably adulterated: it differs much from the extract given by Mr. Ellis (Specimens of the English Poets, vol. i. PP. 236-8), which is taken from the Perth edition of 1790, printed under the superintendence of Pinkerton. Barbour's birth has been variously dated, 1316, 1320, 1326, 1330. From the chartulary of Aberdeen, where he had an archdeaconry, we learn that he died aged, towards the close of 1395. See pp. i. ii. and xii. of the life of Barbour, prefixed to the standard edition of "The Bruce," published by Dr. Jamieson, Edinb. 1820, 4to. Motto to vol. iii. chap. xxvii. p. 273. In Leyden's legendary poem of " Lord Soulis," vol. iii. p. 249 of the Minstrelsy of the Border; p. 65 of Leyden's Poetical Remains, Lond. 1819; that chieftain says, "What would you do, young Branxholm, "Now shall thine ain hand wale the tree, In perusing the account of the murder of the good-hearted Louis of Bourbon, at Schonwaldt, as related in the novel, in consequence of the combined attack of his rebellious but dismayed Liegeois, and the followers of the Boar of Ardennes, with the fearful punishment that was exacted for the crime, the reader is forcibly reminded of the following passage in "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk" (Letter XII.) where the writer is speaking of the Place de Louis Quinze : "Here, upon the very spot where I now stand, the most virtuous of the Bourbon race expiated, by a violent death, inflicted by his own subjects, and in view of his own palace, the ambitions and follies of his predecessors. There is an awful solemnity in the reflection, how few of those who contributed to this deed of injustice and atrocity now look upon the light, and behold the progress of retribution." * Wale-choose. 66 Comines does not give quite so favourable a character of the bishop (brother of the two dukes of Bourbon, John II. and Peter II.), being a man addicted wholly to pleasure and good cheer, and scarce distinguishing good from bad of himself." It is one very amiable, though very dangerous, characteristic of the "Author of Waverley," that throughout his works we perceive a wish, generally speaking, to veil and extenuate the weaknesses and faults of those historical personages whom he has occasion to mention. It should be mentioned, that Louis of Bourbon did not lose his life until some time+ after the death of the Bold Duke of Burgundy; nor was William de la Marck personally concerned in the revolt of the Liegeois, which preceded the confinement of Louis XI. at Peronne, and was led by" a knight, called Monsieur William de Ville, alias by the French, le Sauvage." Comines, p. 102. In that disturbance, however, one of the bishop's most confidential domestics was brutally butchered before the face of his master, while the wretches who committed the outrage flung at each other the mangled limbs of their victim. The bishop was led as a prisoner into the city, from which he escaped upon the approach of the king and the duke of Burgundy. His death is thus mentioned in Bulteel's Mezeray, fol. London, 1688, p. 504: "1482, William de la Mark, called the wild boar of Ardenne, incited and assisted by the king, massacred, most inhumanely, Lewis de Bourbon, bishop of Liege, either in an ambuscade, or after he had defeated him in battle, and soon after himself, being taken by the lord de Horne, brother to the * P. 202 of the Memoirs of Philip de Comines, faithfully translated into English from the edition of Denys Godefroy, Lond., 1674, 8vo. † From the narrative of Comines, it would appear that he perished in the year following the death of the duke, who lost his life before Nanci, 6th Jan., 1477. Mezeray, as will be seen, does not mention it until the year 1482: his words. are, "au mesmes temps encore il donna trois mille hommes a Guillaume de la Mark, dit le sanglier d'Ardenne, pour le deffaire de l'Evesque du Liege, trop affectioné, à ce qu'il soupçonnoit, au party Bourguignon. Ce Guillaume, de son chef, gardoit une cruelle inimitiè contre cet Evesque, parce qu'il l'avoit chassé de sa Maison, où peu de temps auparavant il avoit este en grande faveur. Tellement que l'ayant pris par la trahison des Liegeois, comme il estoit sorty du Liege pour le combatre, il le massacra inhumainement de sa propre main, et le fit traîner tout nud dans la grande place de la Ville devant le Temple de S. Lambert. Mais peu de temps aprés, Maximilian l'ayant atrapé, luy fit avec justice trancher la teste." Ed. 1685, tome ii. pp. 744-5. Comines, p. 280, tells us, that he slew the bishop with his own hands in battle, and caused his body to be thrown into the river, where it was found three days afterwards. bishop, successor to Lewis, had his head cut off at Mastrict." From Comines it appears that de la Marck, who is styled" a brave person, and a valiant gentleman, but cruel and malicious," had an idea of placing his own son in the bishopric, with the assistance of the king of France. The anachronism caused by thus antedating the death of the bishop may not be without excuse, as deepening the interest of a fictitious narrative. A more strange oversight is committed in the rifacimento of the king's prayer to the lady of Clery, as given by Brantome, where the author of Quentin Durward (vol. iii. ch. v. p. 128) has retained the passage respecting the death of Charles the duc de Guienne, who was personally interested in the treaty of Peronne, and was not poisoned until three or four years after, viz. in 1471. Mezeray thus tells the story, which is not a little romantic: "He loved a lady, daughter of the Lord Monserau, and widdow of Lewis d'Amboise, and had for confessor a certain Benedictine Monk, Abbot of St. John d'Angely, named John Favre Versois. This wicked monk poyson'd a very fair peach, and gave it to that lady, who, at a collation, put it to steep in wine, presented one-half of it to the Prince, and eat the other herself. She, being tender, died in a short time; the Prince, more robust, sustained for some while the assaults of the venome, but however could not conquer it, and in the end yielded his life to it. “Such as adjust all the phenomena's of the Heavens to the accidents here below might have applied to this same a comet of extraordinary magnitude, which was visible fourscore days together from the month of December. Its head was in the sign of the Ballance, and it had a long tail, turning a little towards the north."P. 494, Bulteel. The duke died on the 12th of May. The king was very anxious to get the perpetrator of the crime out of the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who had been thrown into inexpressible rage on hearing the catastrophe of Charles. "The monk was found dead in prison, the devil, as was said, having broken his neck the night before that day wherein they were to pronounce his sentence. This was what the king desired, that so the proof of the crime might perish with the poysoner." P. 495. In Dr. Dibdin's "Tour," iii. p. 591, there is a very beautiful miniature figure of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at prayers: it is taken from a manuscript breviary on vellum, of the fifteenth century, executed for his use. A more hard-featured and truculent-looking visage is scarcely to be imagined than that prefixed to one of the four portraits intended to adorn the frontispiece of the edition of the "Mémoires de Comines." We presume that the "courtly and martial" Galeotti was himself a memorable example of the vanity of his science, as to the per sonal fortunes of its professors*; it being his fate to break his neck at Lyons in 1476, at his first interview with Louis XI., owing to his dismounting too precipitately from his horse, in order to salute his new patron. Others, among whom is, we believe, Paulus Jovius, relate that he was seized with a fit of apoplexy at Padua. At the close of his own life, Louis placed all hope in his physician, James Coctier, who received 10,000 crowns by the month for the last five months. See Comines, b. vi. xii. and Mezeray, p. 505. He summoned also from Calabria a holy hermit, whom Comines (b. vi. 8.) calls Friar Robert; but, according to Mezeray, his name was "Francis Martotile, founder of the order of Minimes."—" This hermit," says Comines, " at the age of twelve years was put in a hole in a rock, where he continued three-and-forty years and upwards, till the king sent for him by the master of his household, in the company of the prince of Tarante, the king of Naples' son. But the said hermit would not stir without leave from his holiness, and from his king, which was great discretion in so inexperienced a man." The king, says Mezeray, "flattered him, implored him, fell on his knees to him ;" and, according to Comines, "adored him, as if he had been Pope himself." "But this good man, in answer, talked to him of God, and exhorted him to think more of the other life than this."-Mezeray, p. 505. We remember to have seen a story, that Louis, suspecting the death of a lady whom he regarded with affection had been occasioned by the prediction of an astrologer, summoned the supposed delinquent into his presence, intending to take very summary vengeance. The wary sage, set upon his guard by the tenour of the first question put by the monarch: "Tell me, thou that art so learned, what shall be thy fate?"-humbly represented, that he foresaw his death would happen three days before his majesty's. The king, it was added, very carefully avoided putting him to death. The case before the town-bailies of Cupar-Angus, when Luckie Simpson's cow had drunk up Luckie Jamieson's browst of ale, while it stood in the door to cool, is very fully and facetiously detailed in Franck's "Northern Memoirs," of which a reprint was lately published at Edinburgh, under the reported superintendence of Sir Walter Scott. The Jacobite intrigues which wind up the plot of this novel are best understood by a reference to Dr. King's "Anecdotes of his own Times," p. 36, and 196, et seq. Lond. 1819. *Even Apollo was compelled to exclaim "Nec prosunt domino, quæ prosunt omnibus, artes!”—Ovid. Met. i. 524. TALES OF THE CRUSADERS. An error in heraldry, in Ivanhoe, where "a fetterlock and shackle-bolt azure" are blazoned upon a sable shield, has been noticed as having a curious and remarkable parallel in Marmion, where a falcon is said to have "Soared sable in an azure field."-Canto I, stanzas vi. and viii.* It may be added, that the unauthorized word, "wroken," which is found Canto II. stanza xxvii. of the " Bridal of Triermain". "Merlin's magic doom is spoken: Vanoe's death must now be wroken" occurs likewise in Vauda's prophecy in the first of these stories. "How," asked Ulysses, addressing his guardian goddess, "shall I be able to recognise Proteus in the swallow that skims round our houses, whom I have been accustomed to behold as a swan of Phœbus, measuring his movements to a celestial music ?"— "In both alike," she replied," thou canst recognise the godt." Much absurd criticism has been wasted upon these " errors in Heraldry," because every tyro in the "Art of Blason" has been taught, that to place a colour upon a colour, or a metal upon a metal, is false heraldry. But, though such is undoubtedly one of the canons of Heralds, many ancient coats exhibit a deviation from it; and, hence, Sir Walter Scott's supposed mistakes may be justified by undoubted precedents, of which it is sufficient to cite the following. Perhaps the oldest armorial ensigns known are those of Jerusalem, Argent, a cross potent between four crosses potent, or; and to which Cleveland thus alludes: "Metal on metal is false heraldry; And yet the known Godfrey of Bouloign's coat A Roll of Arms, compiled in the early part of the reign of Edward the Second, circa 1310, presents, among others, the subjoined instance of a colour being placed upon a colour: "Sir Richard de Rokesle, de azure a vj lioncels de argent a une fesse de goules:" and the arms of the present Lord de Tabley contain a similar anomaly, they being azure, a fess gules between three fleur de lis, or. But when the Union Banner itself is a violation of the rules of heraldry, such a fault in a mere novelist, even if it really existed, would scarcely justify so many remarks. It is not, however, our intention to defend that writer from the charge of being very imperfectly acquainted with Heraldry, for he scarcely ever alludes to it without committing himself; but the anachronisms with which Sir Walter's novels abound, with respect to manners, costume, and events, would have been a far more useful object of criticism, since they are so calculated to mislead. "The Friend," vol. iii. p. 100. ed. Lond. 1818. |