which on his approach was inftantly beftowed, and the island annexed for ever to our crown. Hume gives the wifeft reafon poffible why this acquifition was of fo little advantage: Few people, fays he, could be perfuaded to go "live on this new neighbour nation; fo that men born there and "never finally fubdued, retained animofity towards thofe conquerors "who only just kept them down, and not deftroyed them; over whelming by fuperiority of numbers, as was the true method in "those barbarous times, fo as to put it completely out of their power "ever to rife again." The times were even yet very barbarous. Witness the story of Lech Lavar, a large flat stone, which had ferved as the top of a cromlech in druidical days, and to which a woman wildly apparell'd made a loud and fudden appeal for juftice, as King Henry pafs'd near St. David's in his return from Ireland. Her fearful cries and mad gefticulations affected our liege's fpirits very ftrongly, adds Giraldus Cambrenfis, who tells the tale. But fuch ftones were not peculiar to Wales. Borlafe, in his account of Cornwall, tells a story of a hooting karn, fo called even in his time, from the prophetick founds it was fuppofed to utter, when, as our fweet poet Thomson fays, Sighs the fad genius of the coming storm, And cave prefageful fend a hollow moan, The learned Keyfler, fetting forth the fuperftitious notions of our feptentrionists much later than this period, fays with what folemnity * Giraldus Cambrenfis, who is furely as proud of his family as any Welshman can be, fays that Henry II. was jealous of him, and ftopt his preferment because he was of a line fo long traced and fo princely. His tale of the bishop's difour diverting his mafter with ftoriès of facred hiftory, which after all were never to be found when fought for in the Bible, is exquifitely pretty and good for illuftration. The fervant turned out a devil after all: fuch tricks are always devilish.. they they approached black and conical ftones,* abodes and oracles of demons, as they deemed them. We read in the Holmeria Saga of Norway, how Indridus, their chieftain, lay in wait for his enemy Thorftenus; and feeing him come out to confult the ftone deity, he couch'd close behind it, and heard thefe words pronounced to his foe before the morning cock crew. Tu huc Morti vicinis pedibus Animofus Indridus Odium tibi rependet. Heedlefs of thy approaching fate, Thy murderous hate, With many a mortal wound. "Tis needlefs to fay how Indridus, ftarting up, flew to the combat, and fulfilled the prophecy. Poland was a little and but a little more enlightened. When Miceflaus reigned, the barons fpiritual and temporal, butchered his peafant fubjects for their fport, and the king laughed at it. A woman was fuborned to beg a boon of him-when granted, fhe told him, that her fervants were so negligent and cruel, they fuffered all her fheep to be devoured by wolves. The fervants ftood up and faid it was her fault; her fon kept hounds, and they killed sheep with impunity. Miceflaus, like David of old, gave fentence against himfelf, condemning the woman and her fon; but when his worthy confeffor applied the dreadful ftory to the ftate of fociety in Poland, its brutal Prince ordered him fome punishment, from whence a popular commotion faved him and Miceflaus, depofed afterwards * Thefe ftones were then fuppofed to have fallen down from heaven: and Sir Jofeph Banks, even at this day, fays there are exifting proofs that ftones do fall. See Mr. King's ingenious publication for conjectures how and where they are gencrated. for ordering an ecclefiaftick's perfon into cuftody, left Cafimir the Humble to reign in his ftead, who reinftated his predeceffor in all things but the throne. So fared it in the north of Europe: and its fecond crufade, under the Emperor Conrade, in the fouth, was an unfuccessful one. Two hundred thousand Christians perished in the field, diffention and difcafe filled their whole camp; while Saladine, a virtuous and martial prince, helped by that treachery which prevailed among his enemies, gained a great victory at Tiberiade, retook Jerusalem, after fome weak refiftance, fubdued Antioch, and contrived fo asto annihilate cach trace of all the boafted conquefts which fo many nations had united to acquire. Emanuel, Emperor of the Eaft, had proved falfe to our common caufe, fupplied the army with bad provifion, and poisoned their water, having adopted his father's mean policy after inheriting his throne. That throne now again empty, was foon filled by young Alexis, twelve years of age only, but already married to Agnes, the French King's daughter, not yet eleven. He had an excellent preceptor, and tender furviving parent, but his father's first cousin, Andronicus, actuated by mad ambition, strangled the queen mother, poifoned the tutor, hashed poor little Alexis in pieces, murdered an innocent fifter of that most innocent child, and feizing the virgin widow young Agnes, forcibly married her. This tyranny lafted. not long:—Ifaac Angelo rebelled; Andronicus caught his brothers and put them to cruel tortures; Ifaac fled to fanctuary, whence the nobles took and crowned him emperor, putting Andronicus to death. Henry the lion, meantime, husband to our Matilda, fon to Frederick, and affociated with him in the government, merited his title to the western empire by acts of the most distinguished valour; and from fome ruins of old Lunenburgh, where the moon had been worshipped in pagan days, he built a new town, but did not change its name, though Bardewic, a fortrefs there, might have afforded one. It was he who, fecing a young Italian in his court bribing the pages, for no good purpose, as he deemed, cut Urban cut off his nofe, and fent him home fo mutilated to the pope. III. prepared to revenge the infult, but hearing at Ferrara of Saladin's fucceffes, he was feized with a fudden fhuddering, and died of grief. Our Henry in this pontiff lost an indulgent friend, who had shown him many marks of partiality, and had prefented him a crown of peacocks' feathers, interwoven with gold, permitting him to beftow it, with the newly conquered ifland, on which foever of his fons he loved best. The King, reflecting how the other two had openly and in arms fought his life upon the continent, turned his thoughts towards John, and found, upon examining his pretenfions, that young prince's name first on a long lift of barons confederated against his perfon and govern-ment at home. The cup was full, and this addition made it run over. In 1190 therefore, died at Saumur Henry II. of England-his corpfe attended by one natural fon, properly fo called, the offspring of fair Rofamond. Richard, afterwards furnamed Coeur de Lion, ftruck with the news, ran to Fontevrault in all speed, to fee his father; and fome blood at that inftant issuing from the dead body's mouth and noftrils, a thought ftruck the youth that he had furely been his father's murderer, and that to expiate such an offence, he must immediately fet forward for the Holy Land. Gregory VIII. employed his fhort pontificate in fharpening all princes' refolutions for that purpose, and Philip Auguftus Deodatus, of France, after having driven Jews, Mimes, and many other defcriptions of men whom he deemed heirs to everlafting perdition, away from his kingdom, where he endeavoured at a thorough reformation of manners, took the facred banner himself, and fell upon. the Turks with fuccefsful courage. Venice was however the greatest gainer by these burfts of fury, which defolated Afia and exhaufted Europe. The commodities they imported and exported were exempt from duties; their city was the place of general rendezvous for the crufaders, who appointed them vast poffeffions in the conquered country, and made the old Morea all their It is obfervable, that while I am writing no trace of what they. own. gained feems left in their now ruined and degraded city, unless the pillars yet ftand upon La Riva de' Schiavoni, which were brought from Greece in the twelfth century, when the third fell in the fea. They were called Marco and Teodoro, and I believe chriftened with no small formality. Bonaparte has fent the bronze horfes to Paris which once drew Apollo's car, and which efcaped the deftruction of many curious ftatues by the Latins, who in their turns acted a gothick part, plundering Conftantinople as Rome had been plundered fo many centuries before. But all the Italian ftates were, in the days here fubmitted to our Retrospect, enriched by thefe expeditions, and improved by them lettered Pifa tafted the fweets of commerce, Florence felt the reanimating warmth of fcience, and Viterbo was built, or at leaft beautified by the popes; whilst Genoa, who fecmed to live only on the pleasure of plaguing the Venetians, enjoyed that happiness in full perfection during those contests which impaired the Greek empire, and paved the way for its final capture by the Turks. Berne, in Switzerland, was founded by Bertoldo, and Flensburgh and Riga raised their heads in the north, where the two fons of Boleflaus, Primiflaus and Ladiflaus, difputed the fovereignty of Bohemia, after Cafimere the good bishop of Prague's demife. After fome struggles the first of thefe competitors was loft to Europe, and concluded dead upon the fields of Palestine; where baffled politicians, beaten warriors, and unfuccefsful lovers in those days all ran, either to repair or lofe the meof their misfortunes, and many years elapfed before this prince was found. His brother Ladislaus however, feeling in advanced age the natural bent towards fraternal fondnefs, defired carneftly to sec once more that figure which he had loved in childhood as companion of his fports, and feared in youth as candidate for his kingdom. He caused diligent search to be made, and having, in confequence of his daily encreafing anxiety, been difturbed by nightly dreams, in which this figure prefented itfelf perpetually to his fancy, inquifition was ftrict at home, and requefts preferred to every court abroad, for the mory purpose |