The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

so as the furnace heated for his foe was hot.
In an evil hour his associate Leigh Hunt opened
to him the pages of the Examiner, and he suc-
cumbed to the temptation of wielding the pen—
a power most perilous to artists. Subsequently
he corresponded with the Times, and attributed
to "three letters" all of the success of the
Reform Bill, as the fly on &sop's axle placed
the dust to his credit. His ardent tempera-
ment threw him early into the company
of patriots, spouters, and boon companions.
Hints occur early of an " infernal woman," a
siren, by whom his road to ruin was accele-
rated; yet, in the lucid intervals of his spas-
modic career, he worked hard, and had a
sincere appreciation of Nature, in all her in-
exhaustible varieties, and worshipped her as
the true mistress of the beautiful. His pre-
dilections for the grand anti heroic led him
also to be among the first to recognise the
value of the Elgin marbles, which, sneered
at by the Academicians and the Payne Knights
of the day, were stowed away in " a back pent-
house in Park-lane " until his judgment was
ratified by Canova. Those he had studied,
when wet, cold, and starving on a crust, for
from ten to fifteen hours at a stretch.
In lt4lo the pecuniary support from his
father ceased, and then began a system of
borrowing and makeshifts, from which he
never got extricated. This portion of the auto-
biography is no less prominent than painful :
pages and pages occur filled with mean devices
for raising the wind, and with new schemes
for paying old debts. Once caught in the
meshes of money-lenders and attorneys, he was
worn and wasted—marrowbone and all. He
was so often taken in execution and impri-
soned in the King's Bench, that it became a
" blessed house of refuge." He never, in
spite of all his fine professions, made any
real, high-minded effort to cut down his
expenses to his means, and endeavour to
be prudent anti just before he was generous
and indulgent ; may, this creature of passions
and impulses, when over head anti ears in
debt, fell deeper in love, anti married, with-
out a shilling in his pocket, a widow with
a ready-made family, and marvellous sub-
sequent fecundity. The honeymoon scarcely
waned ere the prison was his home, and the
Court of Insolvency his sheet-anchor ; and, if
the cell and the court recurred constantly, at
least his love for his amiable and long-suffer-
ing wife continued to the end—gladdening, as
a ray of sunshine, the ruined fabric of his
worldly hopes and ambitions. This tender
sentiment, which, like a rich lode, ran through
his corsair granite nature, was coupled with a
deep but wayward religiousness—tbr the term
religion would be misapplied in reference to
his mode of conducting relations with the Deity ;
—this arrogant self-assertive creature held
"constant converse" with his Creator in prayer,
and by double entry in his journal ledgers,
in which he kept a running debtor and creditor
account of favours asked for and received.
This despiser of human authorities was neither
orthodox or a churchman, or ever failed to
miss church whenever it suited him, feeling
that he derived greater benefit in his studio
than dozing at a dull sermon in a pew. When
shut up in his closet, his particular petitions,
no less frequent than familiar, referred more
to his personal physical necessities, art
triumphs, anti mundane vanities of vanity,
than to future aunt spiritual blessings. He
treated the Deity as his tutelar and special
guardian, and trusted in some interruptive
action by which the great scheme of Providence
was to be disturbed to meet his petty emer-
gencies. The Deity was summoned at all
hours and occasions, ex issachind, just as an able-
bodied mendicant applies for daily bread to a
relieving officer. Thus he closes his medita-
tions of 15:1.1 with thanks for " subsistence
truly miraculous." fed as it were with quails
anti manna, a diet he expected to find con-
tinued if needful. So when the kind but
eccentric Lord Egremont came, with am-
brosial cash, in the very nick of ruin, he prays
God "to make so generous a nobleman his
lasting friend." Numerous are his thanks-
givings for " rapid extrication from prison,"
' and hearty are those when "he reflects that,
" without a farthing in his pocket, he has a
" good house, food, a dear wife, a sweet family,
" and good orsdir His gratitude savoured

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somewhat of a lively anticipation of the
future. To advance high art in England was
a main item in his supplications; and, conse-
quently, those " merciful assistanees in pecu-
niary exigencies during my last picture" were
most acceptable. Anon he prays that" his Laza-
rus' may reach the National Gallery, to be placed
in competition with the Sebastian del Piombo,"
and that his " first fresco painting may be
blessed" as the locomotives are in France by the
priests when a new line of rail is opened. But
when ho begins a Calvary, and " prays God that
it may be the grandest Crucifixion over painted,"
we close the book with the conviction, how
closely irreverence and blasphemy tread on the
heels of natural and artificial superstition.
Limited space compels us to suspend for the pre-
' sent these notices on this singular man of
prayer and his supplications, part of which
the gods granted, and part dispersed in thin air.
It would have been better, perhaps, if all had
been rejected, for in the end he wearied out the
heavens, as he had tired the three united king-
doms, anti his first fondest and most fervent
petition was vouchsafed, the furtherance of the
art decoration of public buildings at the public
cost. When the destruction of the Houses of
Parliament by fire led to the open competition
of cartoons of historical subjects on a grand
scale, Haydun, older even then in years, ha-
rassed and broken in mind and body, de-
scended into the arena to wrestle with younger
opponents, and failed. His wounded vanity
mortified under the blow, and from that mo-
ment he drooped, and, unable longer to buffet
with diminishing powers against increasing
difficulties, which came now like flights of ill-
()likened birds,until his house roof was blackened,
ho sought refuge in suicide Thus, to use the
simile of Byron, the shaft that pierced the eagle
wits winged by a leather plucked from his own
breast, and the realisation of the prayers of his
life caused his death by self-slaughter, against
which the Everlasting had fixed his canon.

The Story of Corfe Coale. By the Bight
Honourable George Blinked, M.P. London :
Murray.
IT is curious how in childhood the relation of
striking incidents seizes the youthful mind.
All our readers, probably, will recollect how
Elfrida and Corfe Castle are associated with
their earliest recollections of English history.
In the sound of their very names there is a
cadence that arrests the ear; and in aftertimes,
when we read in Clarendon of the gallant
defence of Corfu Castle by the heroine Lady
Bankes, the old name marked by us in youth
gives pleasure to the grown mind.
We have read the volume before us with
great interest; and the fact that it exhibits
none of the hackneyed craft of authorship im-
parts to the style a freshness that is one of
the highest merits in the eyes of a critic.
Mr. Banker writes with the refined homeli•
ness of an English gentleman, avoiding claptrap.
and preWrring the sensible to the sentimental.
Amid the flashy publications of the day, his
plain, manly style comes on us with the pleas-
ing effect of wholesome English fare after a
months diet on foreign kiekshaws. It is only
right to give our readers a specimen of the
calui vigour of the narrative power of Mr.
Bankes. In alluding to the attainder of
Strafford he says :
The question being then put fur passing the bill against
the earl, it was carried in the affirmative-2M against Mi.
The majority was large, but little more than one half of thu
members of the house were present, and it way be Ke-
nneled that nearly the whole of the members who did not ap-
pear were.unfavounible to the measure—for this unrighteous
vote received at the time the vehement applause of the
people. This is a period which may bear comparison with
that of the reign of terror in the French revolution, when
the cry for blood influenced the votes of a humbling Par-
liament, and brought a man nnetinvicted by say law to the • .
From the time when the bill attain INIIIIOI4 Wei peo.
posed, serious dissensions appeared in she ploy wideis bat
hitherto cordially, acted together in the Cosiness: a melt
number only had the courage to vote aCt *. A.
for the fury of the people had now stirred up by
preachers in the pulpits throughout the aseesepolia.
The fiftpnirw who gave this vote beams, irrefure par
scribed men, their lives thremeased, std sink pumas eat,
da: they dared to appear Is pubis.
/Na
pden did not approve of fhb node els=
Denzil Holies would take as dim is it.
protas against id, mad so did wary lawyer of say raw
WIA WII IA tie; hoots osceptiag St. Jo* who tbsow hes

II

I

I

him all law as well as decency, when he declared that
Strafford must be bunted like a beast of prey.
It was with respect to a large number of those who were
present in that division a must cowardly vote ; the excited
people drove many into that majority, and the fear of Straf-
ford, even when in bonds, induced others who were loud
in their railings against arbitrary tyranny to become tyrants
themselves in order to destroy him.
The cruel force put upon the King was not the least
candalous part of this transaction ; Charles said with
truth that Strafford was less to be pitied than he was ; and
the King's participation in the crime may the more easily
be forgiven when it is recollected that, for the share he tuck
in it, he had never had his own forgiveness.

We expected to find more of the early his-
tory of Corfe Castle in this volume ; but the
archaeologists and topographers, and the le-
gion of manufacturers of books similar to
" Britton's Beauties of England and Wales,"
have occupied that part of the subject long
since. From his thmily papers (and the
author has " a parliamentary name of two
centuries," as we recollect to have seen stated
elsewhere) Mr. Bunker has taken sonic valu-
able original documents—too lengthy for our
extracts ; but -- characterise them in saying

; we
that they enable him to confute some of the
haphazard assertions of " plain John" in his
references to Lord Chief Justice Bankes, in
what the author of " The Story of Cork
Castle" mils, with justice, " that very amuidny
" publication, ' The Lives of the Lord Chan-
" cellors"—a book that has always seemed
to us like a " Bioginhia Britimnica" inter-
leaved with Joe Miller. In narrating the
story of his ancestors in the Civil War, the
author heaves a generous sigh for the dispos-
sessed proprietors of his own day ; and his
connection of the name of Lord Strafford
with Sir Robert Peers pet measure of the
" Encumbered Estates Court" is very cu-
rious :

A measure very lately adopted by the Imperial Perlin-
milt for the relief of Ireland, called " The Encumbered
Estates Act," was one of Strafford'a plans. Nothing could
he more arbitrary in principle, more opposite to every re-
eogniaed rule of established law—nothing more unfit for
atoption, unless the plea of necessity were admitted as
decisive in its favour ; and, if success attends this measure,
Stnifford's memory may stand relieved from at least. a
portion of the obloquy which has been heaped upon hint.
The history of the heroine Lady Bankes and
her gallant defence of Corfe Castle are familiar
to every reader of English history. The ac-
count of her bravery in the " Mercurius
Rusticus" is given hero at length but we
wish to extract from what has not already
appeared in print. The visit of the Princess
Charlotte to Corfu Castle is thus described :
The last carriage which is known to have passed over
this bridge was the carriage of the Princess Charlotte of
Wales, in the month of October, 1514 : and this was per-
haps the first which had !Homed since the day when
the widowed lady, the defender of these walls, was driven
from them in MI6. At other times the bridge has always
had a barrier across it, preventing the entry of wheeled
carriages. An impreasien that danger may is- incurred
here wiU very justly arise upon the survey of a causeway
so elevated, narrow, and without parapets.
The writer of these pages had the honour of being pre-
sent when her Royal Highness reached the castle : she had
already quitted her carriage, but, as he knew the walk
through its walls was a long one, he requested permission
to direct that the carriage should follow, and this being
graciously acceded to, the barrier was thrown down, and
the spirited horses brought the carriage safely over the
bridge and as far up the hill as the steep nature of its ac-
clivity would permit. There was no portion of this exten-
sive ruin that the princess omitted to visit, en that the car-
rier was a welcome accommodation fur her n•turn; and,
as it passed the narrow bridge at the gateway, it was im-
possible for those who eneompamed the caniage, ready to
act in case of any alarm, to avoid perceiving the infinite
diversion of the Princess at the mend countenances of the
ladies, her attendants, who, to do them justice, had op-
posed to the very utmost of their power the introduction
of the carriage within the walls of the castle.
The Princess was still diverted with this incident when
she sat down to partake of the humble but ample protn•
Pion of a country inn, the Ship, which still holds a well-
earned pre-eminenee in the borough.
The '29th of October is the day on which the fair an-
nually takes place at Corfe Castle—a circumstance not
known to her Royal Highness or to her attendants whets
that day was chosen for the excursion ; this proved to he
a new source of amusement for the Princess. as from the
window of the little inn she saw the lively traffic of the gay
throng, taking part herself in the festival by extensive pur-
chases of fairings from the little booths which stoed thickly
Arranged between the most of the castle and the inn.
The perfection of English climate is found in a fine
October day: such wanting which welcomed the royal visit,
and of those yet alive who were present on this occasion
there is not one who will forget the lasting charm im-
ported by the grae return of kind acknowledgment for
the estreered acclamations of loyal hearts and the tenders
brasitk median.