The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-26 00:00:00

Earrature.

POETRY.

THE OLD SEAMAN•

(From the Keepsake for 1545.)
You ask me why mine eyes are bent
So darkly on the sea,
While others watch the azure hills
That lengthen on the lee?
The azure hills—they soothe the sight
That falls along the foam;
And those may hail their nearin; height,
Who there have hope or home.
Eut I a loveless path have trod—
A beaconLss career;
My hope bath long been all with God,
And all my home is—here.
The deep by day, the heaven by night,
. .

Roll onward,-swift and dark •
Nor leave my soul the dove's delight,

Of olive-b-ranch or ark.
For more than gale, or golf, or sand,
Pv.; proved that there may be
Worse treachery on the steadfast land

Than variable sea.
A danger worse than bay or beach,
A falsehood more unkind—
The treachery of a governed speech,
And an ungoverned mind.
The treachery of the deadly mart,
X\ here human souls are snd ;
The treachery o; the hollow heart,
That crumbles as we hold.

Those holy hies and quiet lakes—
Ah ! wherefore should I find
This weary fever-fit, that shakes
Their image in my mind.

The memory of a streamlet's din
Through meadows daisy-drest—
Another might be glad therein,
But yet 1 cannot rest.

I cannot rest unless it be
Beneath the churchyard yew ;
But God, I thinl:, hath yet for me
More earthly work to do.

And, therefore, with a quiet will,
I breathe the Ocean air,
And bless the voice that calls me still,
To wander and to bear.

Let others seek their native sod,
Who there have hearts to cheer ;
My soul hath long been given to God,
And all my home is—here.

NOTICES.

Saint James's, or the C,,urt of Queen Anne. By Wm.
Harrison Ainsworth, Esq. 3 vols. London : John
Mortimer, Adelaide-street, Trafalgar-square.
Of the works of this eminent novelist we infinitely pre-
fer those in which the writer brings his vast stores of
antiquarian research to illustrate pa:ticular localities fa-
mous in the history of our country. These works may
be said to constitute an entirely new style of romance,
peculiar to Mr. Ainsworth, in which the relation of some
contemporary history, or fiction blended with history, is
made the means of conveying, in a more agreeable form
than that of mere antiquarian dissertation, facts connected
with and a description of buildings end places interesting
to his readers, which otherwise would remain a sealed book
to the majority of them, and be accessible to future ages
only through the musty records of the state paper office,
or some similar uninviting source of information, if they
did not entirely disappear as the perishing objects, which
alone bind them to memory, arc swept from ken by the
hand of time and decay, or the march of modern improve-
ment. Amongst this class may be ranked "The Tower
of London," probably the best descriptive work of its
kind in any language, and one which must have re-
quired from the writer the most minute and careful per-
sonal investigation of the locality described. " Old Saint
Paul's" is another of the same class, but of more thrilling
interest, arising, perhaps, mainly from the more striking
period to which it carries us back, viz., that of the plague
and the great fire in London. " Guy Fawkes" partakes
also of this peculiar feature of Mr. Ainsworth's recent
works ; but it carries us over a greater field, and is espe-
cially interesting to us as rescuing from oblivion a number
of the most interesting personages and localities of ancient
Lancashire. We may add to these his striking romance
of " Windsor Castle."
The novel before us has apparently been a portion of a
design to open up the history and antiquities of another
of our royal palaces—Saint James's. In this, however, if
indeed it was seriously attempted, he does not appear to
have been as successfulin finding material of interest as
in some of his former works. But if Saint James's has
furnished little ground for the display of antiquarian lore,
it has supplied tile scene for a history of the court in-
trigues and court life of one of the most distinguished
reigns in British history, which the pen of the novelist
has hitherto scarcely visited at all. The literary annals of
that age of illustrious writers—the memoirs of the orna-
ments and, alas ! the disgrace of that reign—of Addison,
Steele, St. John, Prior, and the rest—have been again
and again recorded ; the characters of its statesmen—of
Oxford and Bolingbroke, Marlborough and Godolphin,
with the ambitious favourite and tyrant of royalty, his
duchess, are upon the page of history. But the character
and habits of the Sovereign herself, and her amiable—
although trifUng—cmsort, Prince George of Denmark,
are little known. They have been cast into the shade by
the brilliancy of the military achievements and of the
literature of the period in which they flourished.
The period of Anne's reign at welch Mr. Ainsworth
introduces us to her court, is the year 1702, when the
Duke of Marlborough was at the zenith of his fame, as a
soldier and a statesman, (characters which some envious
detracters of the greatest man in modern days have told
us are not compatible with each ether,) and when his
haughty duchess bad succeeded in establishing air almost
dominion over, and at the same time arousing the impla-
cable resentment of, her Sovereign, and a determination
on her part of throwing off the yoke imposed upon her.
The introduction to the palace of a young lady of the
bedchamber, Abigail Hill, a relative of the duchess arid of
her artful rival, Mr. Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford,
is made the means of precipitating that event which ulti-
mately led, as the reader of history knows, of driving in
exile from his native land, whose name with his own he
had immortalized in Europe, the greatest general of his
age. The various intrigues by which this end was at
length attained are vividly described, and the characters
-mingling in them, the state of parties, and the loose mo-
rals of the time, which contributed to their success, form
a picture, or rather a series of pictures, well worthy of
study. 'With these, the historical details of his story, the
doings and characters of several inferior actors are skil-
fully wrought up. We have the trial of the celebrated
Dr. Sacheverell, and the high church riots which were the
result. The French adventurer, the Marquis de Guis-
card, with his valet, Bimbelot, and his bravo, Sauvageon,
afford us happy specimens of the kind of instruments with
which the court of Louis intrigued for the restoration of
the exiled Chevalier de St. George, then holding his court
at Saint Gerrnains. The story of the loves of Mrs.
Plumpton and Mrs. Tipping, for the Duke of Marlbo-
rough's favourite and valorous serjeaat, is a gem in its
way, and throws a pleasant relief upon the more serious
incidents of the work, whilst the character of Proddy, the
Queen's coachman, is inimitable. When we have said
that it deserves to be ranked in the same scale of funni-
ness and drollery with that of the valorous dwarf Zit,
described in his -1` Tower of London," we have bestowed
upon it ample commendation.
The work is illustrated, with his usual excellence, by
the inimitable George Cruickshank, who appears, in his
portraiture of the various characters introduced, to have
caught, and keenly relished, the spirit of the author.
We cannot resist extracting the closing incident of the
work :
.0n the evening of Tuesday, the 27th Ju1y.1714, Oxford
received a sudden and peremptory intimation from the
Queen to resign the staff into her hands without a mo-
ment's delay ; upon which, though it was getting late, he
immediately repaired to the palace.
Ushered into the queen's presence, be found Lady Ma-
sham and Bolingbroke with her, and their triumphant
looks increased his ill-dissembled rage and mortification.
Anne looked ill and suffering. She had only just reco-
vered from a severe inflammatory fever, attended with
gout and ague, and had still dangerous symptoms about
her. Her figure was enlarged and loose, her brow lower-
ing, her features swollen and cadaverous, and her eyes
heavy and injected with blood. She scarcely made an
effort to maintain her dignity, but had the air of a confined
invalid. On the.table near her stood a draught prescribed
for her by her physician, Sir Richard Blackmore, of which
she occasionally sipped.
Moved neither by the evident indisposition of the queen,
nor by any feelings of gratitude or respect, Oxford ad-
vanced quickly towards her, and eyeing his opponents
with a look of defiance, said, in an insolent tone, and
with a slight inclination of the head—" Your majesty has
commanded me to bring the staff. I here deliver it to
you."
And as he spoke he placed it with some violence on the
table.
My lord!" exclaimed Anne, " this rudeness!"
" Lord Oxford has thrown off the mask," said Boling-
broke. " Your majesty sees him in his true colours."
" It shall not be my fault, Bolingbroke," replied Ox-
ford, bitterly, "if her majesty—ay, and the whole nation
—does not see you in your true colours—and they are
black enough. And you, too, madam," he added to Lady
Masham, "the world shall know what arts you have used."
" If I have practised any arts, my Lord Oxford, they
have been of your teaching," rejoined Lady Masham.
" You forget the instructions you gave me respecting the
Duchess of Marlborough."
" No, viper ! I do not," cried Oxford, his rage becom-
ing ungovernable. "I do not forget that I found you a
bedchamber-woman ; I do not forget that I used you as
an instrument to gain the queen's favour—a mere instru-
ment—nothing more ; I do not forget that 1 made you
what you are ; nor will I rest till I have left you as low as
I found you."
"My lord I—my lord !" cried Anne. " This attack is
most unmanly. I pray you to withdraw, if you cannot
control yourself."
Your pardon, if I venture to disobey you, madam,"
replied Oxford. " Having been sent for, I shall take leave
to stay until I have unmasked your treacherous favourites.
So good an oprortunity may not speedily occur, and I
shall not lose it.
" But I do not wish :to hear the exposure, my lord,"
said Anne.
" I pray your majesty, let him speak," interposed Bo-
lingbroke, haughtily.
" Take care of your bead, Bolingbroke," cried Oxford;
" though her majesty may sanction your correspondence
with the courts of St. Germain, her parliament will not."
" Your majesty can now judge of his baseness and ma-
lignity," said Bolingbrolce, with cold contempt, know-
ing how he himself has duped your royal brother."