Henry the fourth of France had but one coach between himself and his queen; whereas no respectable person can now dispense at the least with a travelling chariot, a barouche, a cab, and a dennet. Civilization, which received a temporary check during the revolutionary war, has resumed its march in double-quick time since the Continent has been opened. Champaigne and ices have now become absolute necessaries at tables where a bottle of humble port and a supernumerary pudding were esteemed luxuries, fit only for honouring the more solemn rites of hospitality. I say nothing of heads of hair, and false (I beg pardon—artificial) teeth; without which, at a certain age, there is no appearing. A bald head, at the present day, is as great an indecency as Humphrey Clinker's unmentionables; and a dismantled mouth is an outrage on well-bred society. Then, again, how necessary is a cigar and a meerschaum to a well-appointed man of fashion, and how can a gentleman possibly show at Melton without at least a dozen hunters, and two or three hacks, to ride to cover! Yet no one in his senses would tax these things as luxuries; or would blame his friend for getting into the King's Bench for their indulgence. Even the most austere judges of the land, and the most jealous juries of tradesmen, have borne ample testimony to the reasonableness of this modern extension of the wants of life, by the liberal allowance of necessaries which they have sanctioned in the tailors' bills of litigating minors. This liberality, indeed, follows, as consequence follows cause. Some one has found, or invented, a story of a shipwrecked traveller's hailing the gallows as the sure token of a civilized community. But the jest is by no means a ben trovato; the member of gibbets being inversely as the perfection of social institutions; and if any one object, that England, while it is the best-governed country in Europe—its envy and admiration—is also a hanging community par excellence, I must beg to remind him of the intense interest which an English public feels in the victims of capital punishment, in the Thurtells and the Fauntleroys; as also of the universal conviction prevailing in England, that the gallows is a short and sure cut to everlasting happiness. From all this, if there is any force in logic, we must conclude, that hanging, in this country, is only applied honoris causâ, as an ovation, in consideration of the great and magnanimous daring of the Alexanders and Caesars on a small scale, to whom the law adjudges the "palmam qui meruit ferat." The real and true test of a refined polity is not the gallows; but is to be found rather in such well-imagined insolvent laws, as discharge a maximum of debt with a minimum of assets; and rid a gentleman annually of his duns, with the smallest possible quantity of corporeal inconvenience. When luxuries become necessaries, insolvency is the best safety-valve to discharge the surplus dishonesty of the people, which, if pent up, would explode in dangerous overt acts of crime and violence; and it should be encouraged accordingly.

(To be concluded in our next.)

Notes of a Reader

THE LAST OF THE PLANTAGENETS

The only notice which occurs of "The Last of the Plantagenets" is, says the author of a Romance with the above name, in Peck's "Desiderata Curiosa," where a letter is inserted from Dr. Brett to Dr. Warren, the president of Trinity Hall, in which he says that, calling on Lord Winchilsea in 1720, his lordship pointed out to him this entry in the register of Eastwell—"Anno 1550, Rycharde Plantagenet was buryed the 22nd daye of December;" beyond this, not a word is known of him excepting what tradition affords, which, with some slight variations, for there are two versions of his history, is as follows:—When Sir Thomas Moyle built Eastwell, he observed that his principal bricklayer, whenever he quitted his work, retired with a book, a circumstance which attracted his attention, and on inquiry he found he was reading Latin: he then told Sir Thomas his secret, which was, that he was boarded with a Latin schoolmaster, without knowing who were his relations, until he was fifteen or sixteen; that he was occasionally visited by a gentleman who provided for his expenses; that this person one day took him to a fine house where he was presented to a gentleman handsomely drest, wearing a "star and garter," who gave him money, and conducted him back to school; that some time afterwards the same gentleman came to him, and took him into Leicestershire and to Bosworth Field, when he was carried to king Richard's tent; that the king embraced him, told him he was his son; adding, "Child, to-morrow, I must fight for my crown; and assure yourself, if I lose that, I will lose my life too, but I hope to preserve both, do you stand in such a place (pointing to the spot) where you may see the battle, out of danger, and when I have gained the victory come to me. I will then own you to be mine, and take care of you: but if I should lose the battle, then shift as well as you can, and take care to let nobody know that I am your father, for no mercy will be shown to any one so nearly related to me;" that the king gave him a purse of gold and dismissed him; that he followed those directions, and when he saw the battle was lost and the king slain, he hastened to London, sold his horse and his fine clothes, and the better to conceal himself from all suspicion of being the son of a king, and that he might gain a livelihood, he put himself apprentice to a bricklayer, and generally spent his spare time in reading. Sir Thomas, finding him very old, is said to have offered him the run of his kitchen, which he declined, on the ground of his patron having a large family; but asked his permission to build a small house in one of his fields, and this being granted, he built a cottage, and continued in it till his death.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829

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Notes of a Reader

THE LAST OF THE PLANTAGENETS

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