The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-11-20 00:00:00

or! ri t i ier! as gJ SUPPLEMENT TO 4 bt ntibtrvroT AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTIS of the Reign of Philip the Second" here pub lished, contains a retrospect of the events which preceded his elevation to the throne, and carries the reader forward to that portion of the struggles against religious persecution in the Netherlands, which ends with the execution of Egmont and Hoorne, and of the Baron de Montigny. It re lates the domestic life of Philip, his matrimonial alliances, and his personal history. Among the events enumerated under the second head of the above division, are included his visit to England, and espousals with our own Queen Mary of Eng land, who, miserable woman, was known to our fathers, as she is to ourselves, and will be to our children, as " Bloody Mary." The panorama of events, the extensive array of character and incidents, and the vast theatre on which the different acts of the great historic drama were enacted, environ the narrative with numerous difficulties which, taken up by a man of inferior, or even mediocre mind, would have been encumbered by difficulties and obscured by the multiplicity of perplexing details. In the hands of Mr. Prescott these have scarcely been felt as inconveniences. Foreseeing the obstacles by which his path must be beset, he in a great degree obviates them by adopting a system of historic grouping, in which the various cycles of events move round a common centre, and are animated by, or are easily referable to, a common principle. By the adoption of this method, which he has ably carried out, Mr. Prescott has been successful in clearly tracing the course of events at once momentous in their consequences and complicated in their evolution. The grand historic drama is opened by a skil fully-set scene, in which the imagination of the reader is filled and his attention secured, while it impresses upon his mind an episode which lent a large proportion of the many hues by which the stupendous picture is afterwards tinted, and from which it borrowed many of its brightest lights, and not a few of its deepest and most sombre shadows. That scene is laid in the great hall of the royal palace at Brussels, the time, the 25th of October, 1555. The chief actor, Charlesl V., in outward and in mental mourning for the loss of his mother, stripped of every courtly ornament, except the collar of the toison d'or (the golden fleece) which hung from his neck, leaning on the shoulder of the young William of Orange, is in the act of bidding farewell to his subjects, and formally abdicating his dominion in favour of his son Philip the Second. From this impressive tableatithe reader is car ried, by a well managed retrospect, through the early career of Philip. In this the young Spaniard is exhibited growing up in pride and self-posses sion ; serious and thoughtful beyond his years. As a mere boy, he has been called on to take part in councils of state, and has been carefully initiated into the mysteries by which kingdoms are managed ; little more than a boy, he has been admonished by his father of the precise amount of counsel he could receive from each of the indi viduals by whom he is surrounded, and taught "to depend on no one' but himself." Such train ing and admonitory lessons were peculiarly neces sary to one destined to wield the sceptre over so vast and complicated a territory as he was early i afaeQ t " 1 " . OF MATERNAL LOVE. ( +tea m . h er t,v 'el, — HI Youth to sober manhood yields I: l, 4 tecl a :", and joys, that once did life endear, Itt,l_ i lllsc h eeti ott one remembrance shields, Ivt - ,,7lth„ l . e 's unheeding flight in vain would sear: 91 vtetc;"•' tho' cold, the heart may prove, Oa'° Ponder o'er a mother's love. , 111 e 1 74 11 , 4 , 4 4 ,ore of he r w hose eager hand - Y infant f eet eac h wav ering tread , `trirt e n r eproving looks could well command, Di r . Mi ti foibles hung abashed my head , 14 , t o ' ;nen after follies plagued me sore, dt • Tare Mille and bade me sin no more. `!p la de ( 1' 4 14 . Solitud e , the gathered tear, % 0 4 bier I°l ls journey d own her pallid cheek •, 4 e , t tOw s 4 the World knew not; nor could it cheer h er - Dar e4t 4 , h e would no t— cou ld no t—d are d no t s p ea k , Da re 8 stock had fallen—one by one, tio, t 114, sister, brother—all had gone ! dr e A er d r at and dark, her deep unbosomed woe, ~t ie of L ° . ° Dir l S spirit, and her wildered brain ; kindred rent at every blow ! Ot t ~.‘.leath take all--and may not one remain ? re'4ll' brother —left her hope to save !- 1 10 1 "g, in eastern exile, iftoiund his grave. ing hour, )0;1e, u ncheered, in my reP 4 0 Ilea memory works her do I yearn for some suseandand my play-da gentlemystic spell, lit that ogordiefs could soothe POwer, i\‘444tlinweaned childh Y so well ; %AU ht g my infant lips the hedward prayer. • A l St, ae> , 00l b ‘ btll o efforts ever pro ne t o h ee d, t ea My hard-learned lesson, o'er and o'er, Oo m ell ear t while her struggling heart would bleed, he r ', to t h -e d. Pathetic verse, or storied lore. , h eat Door, forgiving, always kind, oeld o'er her mind. oc,k I. rule, unfailing, • goitt:!y:etii4°:rie.ndship for a less with wintry 6 na summer, flee with wintry day; Ivo,* fr4:4eMblers ! they too quickly prove 1,,4 the their power, how subject to decay. IVe5. de that seeks for ought on earth 4% 1 " 4 hers, BO pure, who gave them birth C0~(44 of %Rh father, brother, sister, friend, It t nlittp, trchld they be, and faithful to the last, Vestt,.. ll ,_ t with love in which doth blend Au -glove the of Heaven ; whose power so vast, e : moiler, guilty though he be Y en his self-wrought misery. H.P.P. 44, c ci? REVIEWS. . ,I) 4 °i : Me Reign of Philzp . the Second, King Tiy s e4 t L* By William H. Prescott. London : ter 3'- 1 tet l i SO th 48 of history has found a fitting minis ‘tl ts - ` 1 4 4 6 e person of Mr. Prescott, whose able rat hti ß T l '" to historic literature are of a charahc itb: tr,, -44 1 and elevate the pretensions of te sttly :.11atlantic republic to a place in the it 4,44 ; 1 e in the Temple of Fame. The writings kt t l:k t7,l l tilor are extensively and so favourably . I ,, l tt e ;: of tile British public, that the announce t;4‘tiolCTY new work by him at once excites 4,°ae ,:td awakens pleasurable expectation . . 4„'" lia:4,olse title stands at the head of this ke;,tia ll - °een pre-eminently fortunate in . the IVY the to it in the literary circles, N t11 41. 4 Of e re ,ding public of this country. The - 4tera w wi lich it treats, and many of the l ie int ense constitute its dramatis persona, t• e4l 4se European interest, the and are bosom pescu- NI to lated t -• • of atitr o stir emotion in Mie n. The portion of the " History 5' 1 , ;0 , 4 ff" 04.1 anttartc called on to rule. At the period when he as sumed the diadem his father had laid aside, Europe had no monarch equal in extent of sway. He mounted the throne as King of Spain, with Castile, Aragon, and Granada reduced from inde pendent states to submissive provinces. He was King of Naples and Sicily, and Duke of Milan ; Lord of Franche-compte and the Low Countries ; and, by virtue of his marriage with Mary, was titular King of England. His foreign posses sions were valuable and widely extended, in cluding, in Africa, the Cape de Verde and Canary Islands, Tunis, and Oran ; in Asia, the Philippine and Spice Islands ; and his American territories consisted of Mexico, Peru, and a large portion of the West Indies. To govern these he had been trained with great care, and was early exercised in the arts. of government. He was possessed of an extensive,brave, and veteran army; and his navy was supreme except in those narrow seas, where it was disputed by the as yet only infant navy of England ; his exchequer was enriched by contri butions from the mines of Potosi and Zacatecas, to an extent sufficient to more than restore it from the exhaustion it had sustained through the ambitious prodigality of Charles V. At seven teen he married the Infanta Mary of Portugal, a girl five months younger than himself, and in less than two years was the widowed father of a son, the greatly dramatised Don Carlos. Sall, among the events of his career which pre ceded the abdication of his father the Emperor, the historian follows Philip in his progress to England, where, through the politic intervention of his sire, he had been affianced to our " Mary," who, in her union with him, and in the chief in cidents of her life and reign, was probably an object not less demanding pity than deserving condemnation. The progress of the Spanish Prince to celebrate his nuptials with the Queen of England was an event of great state; the route from London to Winchester, where the ceremony was performed, was an almost unbroken display of heraldic display and festal pomp, and to the splendours of the pageant Mr. Prescott does ample justice, delineating it with artistic taste and grouping. The ceremonial was somewhat embar rassed by the following OMINOUS INCIDENT. Some embarrassment occurred as to the person who should give the queen away,—a part of the ceremony not provided for. After a brief conference, it was removed by the Marquis of Winchester and the Earls of Pembroke and Derby, who took it on themselves to give her away in the name of the whole realm; at which the multitude raised a shout that made the old walls of the cathedral ring again. The marriage service was then concluded by the Bishop of Winchester. Philip and Mary resumed their seats, and mass was performed, when the bridegroom, rising, gave his consort the " kiss of peace," according to the custom of the time. The whole ceremony occupied nearly four hours. At the close of it, Philip, taking Mary by the hand, led her from the church. The royal couple were followed by the long train of prelates and nobles, and were preceded by the Earls of Pembroke and Derby, each bearing aloft a naked sword, the symbol of sovereignty. The effect of the spectacle was heightened by the various costumes of the two nations,—the richly tinted and picturesque dresses of the Spaniards, and the solid magnificence of the English and Flemings, mingling together in gay confusion. The glittering procession moved slowly on, to the blithe sounds of festal music, while the air was rent with the loyal acclamations of the populace, delighted, as usual, with the splendour of the pageant. That the marriage thus inauspiciously in-