JUNE.

The shepherds, now, from every walk and steep,Where grateful feed attracts the dainty sheep,Collect their flocks, and plunge them in the streamsAnd cleanse their fleeces in the noontide beams.This care perform’d, arrives another careTo catch them, one by one, their wool to shear:Then come the tying, clipping, tarring, bleating;The shearers’ final shout, and dance, and eating.From hence the old engravers sometimes madeThis lovely month a shearer, at his trade:And hence, the symbol to the season true,A living hand so traces June to you.

The “Mirror of the Months,” the pleasantest of “the year-books,” except “The Months” of Mr. Leigh Hunt, tells us that with June,—“Summer is come—come, but not to stay; at least, not at the commencement of this month: and how should it, unless we expect that the seasons will be kind enough to conform to the devices of man, and suffer themselves to be called by what name and at what periodhepleases? He must die and leave them a legacy (instead of they him) before there will be any show of justice in this. Till then the beginning of June will continue to be the latter end of May, by rights; as it was according to theold style. And, among a thousand changes, in what one has the old style been improved upon by the new? Assuredly not in that of substituting theutilefor thedulce, in any eyes but those of almanac-makers. Let all lovers of spring, therefore, be fully persuaded that, for the first fortnight in June, they are living in May. We are to bear in mind that all shall thus be gaining instead of losing, by the impertinence of any breath, but that of heaven, attempting to force spring into summer, even in name alone.”

It seems fitting thus to introduce the following passages, and invite the reader to proceed with the author, and take a bird’s eye view of the season.

Spring may now be considered as employed in completing her toilet, and, for the first weeks of this month, putting on those last finishing touches which an accomplished beauty never trusts to any hand but her own. In the woods and groves also, she is still clothing some of her noblest and proudest attendants with their new annual attire. The oak until now has been nearly bare; and, of whatever age, has been looking old all the winter and spring, on account of its crumpled branches and wrinkled rind. Now, of whatever age, it looks young, in virtue of its new green, lighter than all the rest of the grove. Now, also, the stately walnut (standing singly or in pairs in the fore-court of ancient manor-houses, or in the home corner of the pretty park-like paddock at the back of some modern Italian villa, whose white dome it saw rise beneath it the other day, and mistakes for a mushroom,) puts forth its smooth leaves slowly, as “sage grave men” do their thoughts; and which over-caution reconciles one to the beating it receives in the autumn, as the best means of at once compassing its present fruit, and making it bear more; as its said prototypes in animated nature are obliged to have their brains cudgelled, before any good can be got from them.

These appearances appertain exclusively to the spring. Let us now (however reluctantly) take a final leave of that lovely and love-making season, and at once step forward into the glowing presence of summer—contenting ourselves, however, to touch the hem of her rich garments, and not attempting to look into her heart, till she lays that open to us herself next month: for whatever schoolboys calendar-makers may say to the contrary, Midsummer never happens in England till July.

To saunter, at mid June, beneath the shade of some old forest, situated in the neighbourhood of a great town, so that paths are worn through it, and you can make your way with ease in any direction, gives one the idea of being transferred, by some strange magic, from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the sea! (I say it gives one this idea; for I cannot answer for more, in matters of so arbitrary a nature as the association of ideas.) Over head, and round about, you hear the sighing, the whispering, or the roaring (as the wind pleases) of a thousand billows; and looking upwards, you see the light of heaven transmitted faintly, as if through a mass of green waters. Hither and thither, as you move along, strange forms flit swiftly about you, which may, for any thing you can see or hear to the contrary, be exclusive natives of the new world in which your fancy chooses to find itself: they may befishes, if that pleases; for they are as mute as such, and glide through the liquid element as swiftly. Now and then, indeed, one of larger growth, and less lubricated movements, lumbers up from beside your path, and cluttering noisily away to a little distance, may chance to scare for a moment your submarine reverie. Your palate too may perhaps here step in, and try to persuade you that the cause of interruption was not a fish but a pheasant. But in fact, if your fancy is one of those which are disposed to “listen to reason,” it will not be able to lead you into spots of the above kind without your gun in your hand,—one report of which will put all fancies to flight in a moment, as well as every thing else that has wings. To return,therefore, to our walk,—what do all these strange objects look like, that stand silently about us in the dim twilight, some spiring straight up, and tapering as they ascend, till they lose themselves in the green waters above—some shattered and splintered, leaning against each other for support, or lying heavily on the floor on which we walk—some half buried in that floor, as if they had lain dead there for ages, and become incorporate with it? what do all these seem, but wrecks and fragments of some mighty vessel, that has sunk down here from above, and lain weltering and wasting away, till these are all that is left of it! Even the floor itself on which we stand, and the vegetation it puts forth, are unlike those of any other portion of the earth’s surface, and may well recall, by their strange appearance in the half light, the fancies that have come upon us when we have read or dreamt of those gifted beings, who, like Ladurlad in Kehama, could walk on the floor of the sea, without waiting, as the visiters at watering-places are obliged to do, for the tide to go out.

Stepping forth into the open fields, what a bright pageant of summer beauty is spread out before us!—Everywhere about our feet flocks of wild-flowers

“Do paint the meadow with delight.”

We must not stay to pluck and particularize them; for most of them have already had their greeting—let us pass along beside this flourishing hedge-row. The first novelty of the season that greets us here is perhaps the sweetest, the freshest, and fairest of all, and the only one that could supply an adequate substitute for the hawthorn bloom which it has superseded. Need the eglantine be named? the “sweet-leaved eglantine;” the “rain-scented eglantine;” eglantine—to which the sun himself pays homage, by “counting his dewy rosary” on it every morning; eglantine—which Chaucer, and even Shakspeare—but hold—whatsoever the poets themselves may insinuate to the contrary, to read poetry in the presence of nature is a kind of impiety: it is like reading the commentators on Shakspeare, and skipping the text; for you cannot attend to both: to say nothing of nature’s book being avade mecumthat can make “every man his own poet” for the time being; and there is, after all, no poetry like that which we create for ourselves.

Begging pardon of the eglantine for having permitted any thing—even her own likeness in the poet’s looking-glass—to turn our attention from her real self,—look with what infinite grace she scatters her sweet coronals here and there among her bending branches; or hangs them, half-concealed, among the heavy blossoms of the woodbine that lifts itself so boldly above her, after having first clung toherfor support; or permits them to peep out here and there close to the ground, and almost hidden by the rank weeds below; or holds out a whole archway of them, swaying backward and forward in the breeze, as if praying of the passer’s hand to pluck them. Let who will praise the hawthorn—now it is no more! The wild rose is the queen of forest flowers, if it be only because she is as unlike a queen as the absence of every thing courtly can make her.

The woodbine deserves to be held next in favour during this month; though more on account of itsintellectualthan its personal beauty. All the air is faint with its rich sweetness; and the delicate breath of its lovely rival is lost in the luscious odours which it exhales.

These are the onlyscentedwild flowers that we shall now meet with in any profusion; for though the violet may still be found by looking for, its breath has lost much of its spring power. But, if we are content with mere beauty, this month is perhaps more profuse of it than any other, even in that department of nature which we are now examining—namely, the fields and woods.

The woods and groves, and the single forest trees that rise here and there from out the bounding hedge-rows, are now in full foliage; all, however, presenting a somewhat sombre, because monotonous, hue, wanting all the tender newness of the spring, and all the rich variety of the autumn. And this is the more observable, because the numerous plots of cultivated land, divided from each other by the hedge-rows, and looking, at this distance, like beds in a garden divided by box, are nearly all still invested with the same green mantle; for the wheat, the oats, the barley, and even the early rye, though now in full flower, have not yet become tinged with their harvest hues. They are all alike green; and the only change that can be seen in their appearance is that caused by the different lights into which each is thrown, as the windpasses over them. The patches of purple or of white clover that intervene here and there, and are now in flower, offer striking exceptions to the above, and at the same time load the air with their sweetness. Nothing ran be more rich and beautiful in its effect on a distant prospect at this season, than a great patch of purple clover lying apparently motionless on a sunny upland, encompassed by a whole sea of green corn, waving and shifting about it at every breath that blows.

The hitherto full concert of the singing birds is now beginning to falter, and fall short. We shall do well to make the most of it now; for in two or three weeks it will almost entirely cease till the autumn. I mean that it will cease as a full concert; for we shall have single songsters all through the summer at intervals; and those some of the sweetest and best. The best of all, indeed, the nightingale, we have now lost. So that the youths and maidens who now go in pairs to the wood-side, on warm nights, to listen for its song, (hoping they maynothear it,) are well content to hear each other’s voice instead.

We have still, however, some of the finest of the second class of songsters left; for the nightingale, like Catalani, is a class by itself. The mere chorus-singers of the grove are also beginning to be silent; so that thejubilatethat has been chanting for the last month is now over. But the Stephenses, the Trees, the Patons, and the Poveys, are still with us, under the forms of the woodlark, the skylark, the blackcap, and the goldfinch. And the first-named of these, now that it no longer fears the rivalry of the unrivalled, not seldom, on warm nights, sings at intervals all night long, poised at one spot high up in the soft moonlit air.

We have still another pleasant little singer, the field cricket, whose clear shrill voice the warm weather has now matured to its full strength, and who must not be forgotten, though he has but one song to offer us all his life long, and that one consisting but of one note; for it is a note of joy, andwillnot be heard without engendering its like. You may hear him in wayside banks, where the sun falls hot, shrilling out his loud cry into the still air all day long, as he sits at the mouth of his cell; and if you chance to be passing by the same spot at midnight, you may hear it thentoo.[193]

Yet by him who holds this “Mirror,” we must not be “charmed” from our repose, but take the advice of a poet, the contemporary and friend of Cowper.

Let us not borrow from the hours of rest,For we must steal from morning to repay.And who would lose the animated smileOf dawning day, for the austere frown of night?I grant her well accoutred in her suitOf dripping sable, powder’d thick with stars,And much applaud her as she passes byWith a replenish’d horn on either brow!But more I love to see awaking dayRise with a fluster’d cheek; a careful maid,Who fears she has outslept the custom’d hour,And leaves her chamber blushing. Hence to rest;I will not prattle longer to detain youUnder the dewy canopy of night.Hurdis.

Hurdis.

[193]Mirror of the Months.

Ovid assigns the first of June to “Carna,”the goddess of the hinge; who also presided over the vital parts of man, especially the liver and the heart. Massey, commenting on his taste, cannot divine the connection between such a power and the patronage ofhinges. “False notions,” he says, “in every mode of religion, lead men naturally into confusion.”

Carna, the goddess of the hinge, demandsThe first of June; upon her power dependsTo open what is shut, what’s shut unbar;And whence this power she has, my muse declareFor length of time has made the thing obscure,Fame only tells us that she has that power.Helernus’ grove near to the Tiber lies,Where still the priests repair to sacrifice;From hence a nymph, whose name was Granè, sprung,Whom many, unsuccessful, courted long;To range the spacious fields, and kill the deer,With darts and mangling spears, was all her care;She had no quiver, yet so bright she seemed,She was by many Phœbus’ sister deemed.Ovid.

Ovid.

The poet then relates that Janos made this Granè (or Carna)goddess of the hinge;

And then a white thorn stick he to her gave,By which she ever after power should have,To drive by night all om’nous birds away,That scream, and o’er our houses hov’ring stray.

Mean Temperature 57·05.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Newark, Notts, May 17, 1826.

Sir,—It appears to me that there have been in “old times,” which we suppose “good times,” rogues in grain. To prove it, I herewith transmit the copy of an advertisement, from the “Cambridge Journal” of 1759. Wishing you an increasing sale to your interestingEvery-Day Book, I remain, &c.

Benjamin Johnson.

Advertisement.

WHEREAS IWilliam Margaretsthe younger, was, at the last Assizes for the County of Cambridge, convicted upon an indictment, for an attempt to raise the price of Corn in Ely-market, upon the 24th day of September, 1757, by offering the sum of Six Shillings a Bushel for Wheat, for which no more than Five Shillings and Ninepence was demanded; And whereas, on the earnest solicitation and request of myself and friends, the prosecutor has been prevailed upon to forbear any further prosecution against me, on my submitting to make the following satisfaction, viz. upon my paying the sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of Ely; and the further sum of £50 to the poor inhabitants of the town of Cambridge, to be distributed by the Minister and Church-wardens of the several parishes in the said town; and the full costs of the prosecution; and upon my reading this acknowledgment of my offence publicly, and with a loud voice, in the presence of a Magistrate, Constable, or other peace officer of the said town of Ely, at the Market-place there, between the hours of twelve and one o’clock, on a public market-day, and likewise subscribing and publishing the same in three of the Evening Papers, printed at London, and in the Cambridge Journal, on four different days; and I have accordingly paid the two sums of £50, and Costs; and do hereby confess myself to have been guilty of the said offence, and testify my sincere and hearty sorrow in having committed a crime, which, in its consequences, tended so much to increase the distress of the poor, in the late calamitous scarcity: And I do hereby most humbly acknowledge the lenity of the prosecutor, and beg pardon of the public in general, and of the town of Ely in particular. This paper was read by me at the public Market-place at Ely, in the presence of Thomas Aungier, Gentleman, chief constable, on the 2d Day of June, 1759, being a public Market-day there; and is now, as a further proof of the just sense I have of the heinousness of my crime, subscribed and published by me

William Margarets.

Witness,James Day,Under Sheriff of Cambridgeshire.

On the 2d of June, 1734, John Rousey, of the isle of Distrey, in Scotland, died at one hundred and thirty-eight years of age. The son who inherited his estate, was born to him while in his hundredthyear.[194]A similar instance of fatherhood, at this advanced period of life, is recorded of the “old, old, very old man, Thomas Parr.”

Mean Temperature 57·85.

[194]Gentleman’s Magazine.

On this day, in the year 1789, died Paul Egede, a Danish missionary, who, with his father Hans, visited Greenland, for the conversion of the natives to christianity, in 1721. Hans was the author of a celebrated work, published in 1729, on the topography and natural history of that country. Paul conducted a new edition of his father’s book, and published a journal of his own residence in Greenland, from 1721 to 1788. He died at the age ofeighty-one.[195]

Captain Bart, grandson of the renowned Jean Bart, during his stay at Malta, where he had put in from a cruise in the Mediterranean, met with a Carmelite, who had been into Persia as a missionary. This person told him he had availed himself of an opportunity which offered to gratify his curiosity, by visiting the ruins of the ancient and celebrated Persepolis. Chance discovered to him a marble, on which were inscribed some Arabic characters. As he was acquainted with this language, he translated the inscription into Latin. The following is the translation:

The key is to be obtained thus; the first word of the last line must be taken and joined to the first word of the first line; then the second word of the last line to the second word of the first line, and so on to the end. Afterwards, we must begin again by taking the first word of the next line, and the following moral precepts will be the result:

1. Non dicas quodcumque scis, nam qui dicit quodcumque scit sæpe audit quod non expedit.

Do not tell whatever thou knowest, for he who tells whatever he knows, often hears more than is agreeable.

2. Non facias quodcumque potes, nam qui facit, quodcumque potest sæpe facit quod non credit.

Do not do whatever thou canst, for he who does whatever he can, often does more than he imagines.

3. Non credas quodcumque audis, nam qui credit quodcumque audit sæpe quod non fieri potest.

Do not believe whatever thou hearest, for he who believes whatever he hears, will often believe what is impossible.

4. Non expendas quodcumque habes, nam qui expendit quodcumque habet sæpe petit quod non habet.

Do not spend whatever thou hast, for he who spends whatever he has, will often be compelled to ask for what he has not.

5. Non judices quodcumque vides, nam qui judicat quodcumque videt sæpe judicat quod non est.

Do not judge on whatever thou seest, for he who judges on whatever he sees, will often form an erroneousjudgment.[196]

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.

Kennington, May 23, 1826.

Sir,—Annexed is an original unprinted letter, from the lady Arabella Seymour, whose misfortunes were of a peculiar kind, and from peculiar causes; those causes are to be traced to that tyrannic dread that weak sovereigns always have of any persons approaching their equals, either in mind, or by family ties. The following notices have been gleaned from the most authentic sources, viz. Lodge’s “Illustrations of British History,” “The Biographia Britannica,” &c. The letter is in the Cotton collection of Manuscripts, in the British Museum,Vespasian. F.III.

salutation

Though you be almost a stranger to me but onely by sight, yet the good opinion I generally heave to be held of your worth, together wtthe great interest you have in my Lo. of Northamptons favour, makes me thus farre presume of your willingnesse to do a poore afflicted gentlewoman that good office (if in no other respect yet because I am a Christian) as to further me wtyour best indeuors to his Lo. that it will please him to helpe me out of this great distresse and misery, and regaine me his Mats.fauor which is my chiefest desire. Whearin his Lo. may do a deede acceptable to God and honorable to himselfe, and I shall be infinitely bound to his Lo. and beholden to you, who now till I receiue some comfort from his Maty.rest

the most sorrowfullcreatore liuing

signature

Arabella Stuart, whose name is hardly mentioned in history, except with regard to sir Walter Raleigh’s ridiculous conspiracy, whereby she was to have been placed on a throne, to which she had neither inclination nor pretensions, and by means unknown to herself, was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, (uncle to king James I., and great grandson of king Henry VII.,) by Elizabeth, daughter of sir William Cavendish of Hardwick. She was born about the year 1578, and brought up in privacy, under the care of her grandmother, the old countess of Lennox, who, for many years, resided in England. Her double relation to royalty was obnoxious to the jealousy of queen Elizabeth, and the timidity of king James I., who equally dreaded her having legitimate issue, and restrained her from allying herself in a suitable manner. Elizabeth prevented her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir to the titles and estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her for listening to some overtures from the son of the earl of Northumberland. James, by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of marriage, unwarily encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders, among whom, says Mr. Lodge, was the fantastical William Fowler, secretary to Anne of Denmark. Thus circumscribed, she renewed a connection with William Seymour, grandson to the earl of Hertford, which, being discovered in 1609, both parties were summoned to appear before the privy council, where theyreceived a severe reprimand. This mode of proceeding produced the very consequence which the king meant to avoid; for the lady, sensible that her reputation had been wounded by the inquiry, was in a manner forced into a marriage, which becoming publicly known, she was committed to close custody, in the house of sir Thomas Parry, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, at Vauxhall, and her husband, Mr. Seymour, sent to the Tower. In this state of separation, however, they concerted means for an escape, which both effected on the same day,June 3, 1611. Seymour got safely to Flanders; but his poor wife was retaken in Calais roads, and brought back to the former prison of her husband, the Tower, where the sense of these undeserved oppressions operating severely on her high spirit, she became a lunatic, and languished in that wretched state, augmented by the horrors of a prison, till her death, which occurred on the 27th of September, 1615. Thus ends the eventful story of poor Arabella, a woman, (if we may credit her portrait, prefixed to Lodge’s third volume of “Illustrations of British History,”) of commanding and elegant appearance, and undoubtedly of a firm and vigorous mind; and it is well observed by that author, that “had the life of Arabella Stuart been marked by the same criminal extravagancies, as well as distinguished by similar misfortunes and persecutions, her character would have stood at least as forward on the page of history as that of her royal aunt, Mary of Scotland.” The above letter was, probably, written from the Tower, though, I am sorry to say, there is neither direction nor superscription, and, therefore, to whom can be only matter of surmise.

I am, Sir, &c.A.

From an article in the “Curiosities of Literature,” illustrations may be derived to the article of our correspondentA.“The whole life of this lady seems to consist of secret history, which, probably, we cannot now recover:—her name scarcely ever occurs without raising that sort of interest which accompanies mysterious events.” She is reputed to have been learned, and of a poetical genius; yet of her poetry there are no specimens, and her erudition rests on Evelyn’s bare mention of her name in his list of learned women.

On the death of queen Elizabeth, the pope conceived the notion of restoring the papacy in England, by uniting the lady Arabella to an Italian cardinal, of illegitimate descent from our Edward IV. His holiness presumed if he qualified the cardinal for marriage, by depriving him from the priesthood, the junction of Arabella’s relationship to Henry VII., with the churchman’s “natural” pretensions, might secure the crown! Her attachment to the catholic religion is doubtful. Perhaps her disposition was rightly estimated by father Parsons: he imagined “her religion to be as tender, green, and flexible, as is her age and sex; and to be wrought hereafter, and settled according to future events and times.” The pope’s plot failed. Winwood says, “the lady Arabella hath not been found inclinable to popery.” He wrote after the “future events,” contemplated by Parsons, had “wrought.”

Another project for making the lady Arabella queen was after the enthronement of James. The conspirators requested her by letter to address herself to the king of Spain; she laughed at the letter and sent it to James, who, as regarded her, did not think of it more seriously, and so failed a second plot, wherein the name of the illustrious Raleigh was implicated.

In the year 1604, there appears to have been a third design to make her queen, though not of this country. The earl of Pembroke writes to the earl of Shrewsbury—“A great ambassador is coming from the king of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my lady Arabella in marriage for his master. So may your princess of the blood grow a great queen.” If this was the object of the embassy, nothing came of it.

Before the death of queen Elizabeth, the marriage of the lady Arabella with her kinsman lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created duke of Lennox, and designed for his heir, was proposed by James himself, but Elizabeth “forbad the bans” by imprisoning the proposed bride, who was suspected to have favoured a son of the earl of Northumberland, against whom Elizabeth again interposed. She had other offers. “To the lady Arabella, crowns and husbands were like a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening onher sight, impalpable and vanishing at the moment of approach.”

The distresses of this unhappy creature were heightened by her dependence on the crown. She was the cousin of James, and it was his narrow policy to constrain her from a match suitable to her rank, or perhaps to keep her single for life. Her supplies were unequal: at one time she had a grant of the duty on oats; at length he assigned her a pension of 1600l.: but whenever he suspected a natural desire in her heart she was out of favour. No woman was ever more solicited to the conjugal state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. “Every noble youth who sighed for distinction, ambitioned the notice of the lady Arabella.”

Her renewal of an early attachment to Mr. William Seymour, second son of lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the earl of Hertford, forms a story which “for its misery, its pathos, and its terror, even romantic fiction has not executed.” It was detected, and the lady Arabella and Seymour were summoned before the privy council, where Seymour was “censured for seeking to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was running in his own veins.” In his answer, “he conceived that this noble lady might, without offence, make the choice of any subject within this kingdom.” He says, “I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship’s chamber, in the court, on Candlemass day last, at what time I imparted my desire unto her, which was entertained; but with this caution on either part, that both of us resolved not to proceed to any final conclusion without his majesty’s most gracious favour first obtained: and this was our first meeting.” The lovers gravely promised to suppress their affections, with what sincerity is not known, for they married secretly; and in July the lady Arabella was arrested, and confined at the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Seymour committed to the Tower, “for contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the king’s leave.”

Arabella wrote a letter to the king, which was “often read without offence, nay, it was even commended by his highness, with the applause of prince and council.” She adverted to her wrongs, and required justice with a noble fortitude, though in respectful terms. She says, “I do most heartily lament my hard fortune, that I should offend your majesty the least, especially in that whereby I have long desired to merit of your majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my sovereign: and thoughyour majesty’s neglect of me, my good liking to this gentleman that is my husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract before I acquainted your majesty, I humbly beseech your majesty to consider how impossible it was for me to imagine it could be offensive to your majesty, havingfew days before given me your royal consent to bestow myself on any subject of your majesty’s(which likewise your majesty had done long since). Besides, never having been either prohibited any, or spoken to for any, in this land, by your majestythese seven yearsthat I have lived in your majesty’s house, I could not conceive that your majesty regarded my marriage at all; whereas if your majesty had vouchsafed to tell me your mind, and accept the free-will offering of my obedience, I would not have offended your majesty, of whose gracious goodness I presume so much, thatif it were now as convenient in a worldly respect, as malice may make it seem, to separate us, whom God hath joined, your majesty would not do evil that good might come thereof, nor make me, that have the honour to be so near your majesty in blood, the first precedent that ever was, though our princes may have left some as little imitable, for so good and gracious a king as your majesty, as David’s dealing with Uriah.”

She moved the queen, through lady Jane Drummond, to interest James in her favour. A letter from lady Jane communicates his majesty’s coarse and conceited reply, and she concludes by frankly telling the captive wife, “the wisdom of this state, with the example how some of your quality in the like case has been used, makes me fear that ye shall not find so easy end to your troubles as ye expect or I wish.”

To lady Drummond’s prophetic intimation, Arabella answers by sending the queen a pair of gloves “in remembrance of the poor prisoner that wrought them, in hopes her royal hands will vouchsafe to wear them:” and she adds, that her case “could be compared to no other she ever heard of,resembling no other.” She contrived to correspond with Seymour, but their letters were discovered, and the king resolved to change her place of confinement.

James appointed the bishop of Durhamto be his jailor on the occasion. “Lady Arabella was so subdued at this distant separation, that she gave way to all the wildness of despair; she fell suddenly ill, and could not travel but in a litter, and with a physician. In her way to Durham, she was so greatly disquieted in the first few miles of her uneasy and troublesome journey, that they would proceed no further than to Highgate. The physician returned to town to report her state, and declared that she was assuredly very weak, her pulse dull and melancholy, and very irregular; her countenance very heavy, pale, and wan; and though free from fever, he declared her in no case fit for travel. The king observed, ‘It is enough to make any sound man sick to be carried in a bed in that manner she is; much more for herwhose impatient and unquiet spirit heapeth upon herself far greater indisposition of body than otherwise she would have.’ His resolution however was, that ‘she should proceed to Durham,if he were king!’ ‘We answered,’ replied the doctor, ‘that we made no doubt of her obedience.’—‘Obedience is that required,’ replied the king, ‘which being performed, I will do more for her than she expected.’” Yet he consented to her remaining a month at Highgate. As the day of her departure approached, she appeared resigned. “But Arabella had not, within, that tranquillity with which she had lulled her keepers. She and Seymour had concerted a flight, as bold in its plot, and as beautifully wild, as any recorded in romantic story. The day preceding her departure, Arabella found it not difficult to persuade a female attendant to consent that she would suffer her to pay a last visit to her husband, and to wait for her return at an appointed hour. More solicitous for the happiness of lovers than for the repose of kings, this attendant, in utter simplicity, or with generous sympathy, assisted the lady Arabella in dressing her in one of the most elaborate disguisings. ‘She drew a pair of large French-fashioned hose or trowsers over her petticoats; put on a man’s doublet or coat; a peruke, such as men wore, whose long locks covered her own ringlets; a black hat, a black cloak, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side,’ Thus accoutred, the lady Arabella stole out with a gentleman about three o’clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a mile and a half, when they stopped at a poor inn, where one of her confederates was waiting with horses, yet she was so sick and faint, that the ostler, who held her stirrup, observed, that ‘the gentleman could hardly hold out to London.’ She recruited her spirits by riding; the blood mantled in her face, and at six o’clock our sick lover reached Blackwall, where a boat and servants were waiting. The watermen were at first ordered to Woolwich; there they were desired to push on to Gravesend, then to Tilbury, where, complaining of fatigue, they landed to refresh; but, tempted by their freight, they reached Lee. At the break of morn they discovered a French vessel riding there to receive the lady; but as Seymour had not yet arrived, Arabella was desirous to lie at anchor for her lord, conscious that he would not fail to his appointment. If he indeed had been prevented in his escape, she herself cared not to preserve the freedom she now possessed; but her attendants, aware of the danger of being overtaken by a king’s ship, overruled her wishes, and hoisted sail, which occasioned so fatal a termination to this romantic adventure. Seymour indeed had escaped from the Tower; he had left his servant watching at his door to warn all visiters not to disturb his master, who lay ill with a raging toothache, while Seymour in disguise stole away alone, following a cart which had just brought wood to his apartment. He passed the warders; he reached the wharf, and found his confidential man waiting with a boat, and he arrived at Lee. The time pressed; the waves were rising; Arabella was not there; but in the distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board, to his grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not the French vessel charged with his Arabella; in despair and confusion he found another ship from Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course, and landed him in Flanders.”

On the lady Arabella’s escape, “couriers were despatched swifter than the winds wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in the seaports. They sent to the Tower to warn the lieutenant to be doubly vigilant over Seymour, who, to his surprise, discovered that his prisoner had ceased to be so for several hours. James at first was for issuing a proclamation in a style so angry and vindictive, that it required the moderation of Cecil to preserve the dignity while he concealed the terror of his majesty. By the admiral’sdetail of his impetuous movements, he seemed in pursuit of an enemy’s fleet; for the courier is urged, and the postmasters are roused by a superscription, which warned them of the eventful despatch, ‘Haste, haste, post haste! Haste for your life, your life!’ To these words, in a letter from the earl of Essex to the lord high admiral at Plymouth, were added the expressive symbol ofa gallows prepared with a halter, thusgallows.” There is no doubt, as is well expressed, that “the union and flight of these two doves, from their cotes, shook with consternation the grey owls of the cabinet:” even “prince Henry partook of this cabinet panic.”

Meanwhile “we have left the lady Arabella alone and mournful on the seas, not praying for favourable gales to convey her away, but still imploring her attendants to linger for her Seymour; still straining her sight to the point of the horizon for some speck which might give a hope of the approach of the boat freighted with all her love. Alas! never more was Arabella to cast a single look on her lover and her husband! She was overtaken by a pink in the king’s service, in Calais roads; and now she declared that she cared not to be brought back again to her imprisonment should Seymour escape, whose safety was dearest to her!”

Where London’s Tow’re its turrets showSo stately by the Thames’s side,Fair Arabella, child of woe!For many a day had sat and sighed.And as shee heard the waves arise,And as shee heard the bleake windes roare,As fast did heave her heartfelte sighes,And still so fast her teares didpoure![197]

Where London’s Tow’re its turrets showSo stately by the Thames’s side,Fair Arabella, child of woe!For many a day had sat and sighed.

And as shee heard the waves arise,And as shee heard the bleake windes roare,As fast did heave her heartfelte sighes,And still so fast her teares didpoure![197]

During a confinement of four years the lady Arabella “sunk beneath the hopelessness of her situation, and a secret resolution in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, and to wear away the faster, if she could, the feeble remains of life.” The particulars of her “dreadful imprisonment” are unknown, but her letters show her affliction, and that she often thought on suicide, and as often was prevented by religious fortitude. “I could not,” she says, “be so unchristian as to be the cause of my own death.”

She affectingly paints her situation in one of her addresses to James. “In all humility, the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever lived, prostrates itselfe at the feet of the most merciful king that ever was, desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being more afflicted for any thing than for the losse of that which hath binne this long time the onely comfort it had in the world, and which, if it weare to do again, I would not adventure the losse of for any other worldly comfort;mercyit is I desire, and that forGod’s sake!”

She “finally lost her reason,” and died in prison distracted. “Such is the history of the lady Arabella. A writer of romance might render her one of those interesting personages whose griefs have been deepened by their royalty, and whose adventures, touched with the warm hues of love and distraction, closed at the bars of her prison-grate—a sad example of a female victim to the state!

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