a

VENICE.

pursuits, and in the composition or revising of his | Then Freedom gave her last expiring sigh, numerous publications, till his death, which occurred And, born with Venice, learned with her to die, in June, 1848.

And fled from violated rights below Such a life of such a man cannot be other than To plead above a prostrate city's woe.

But as, when Arethusa's fountain source interesting, for it unites the greatest possible range Fled from Thessalian Alpheus' wanton force, and variety of events with the reflections of a mind The limpid stream through many a hidden vein of great power, ardent imagination, and extensive Rose to the earth at Syracuse again, erudition. His autobiography, or Mémoires d'Outre Thus Venice mocked the spoiler's wasting band, Tombe, as it is called, was accordingly looked for And springs again upon her island strand. with great interest, which has not been sensibly

Say, when the latest Doge, Manini, saw diminished by the revolution of 1848, which has

His country prostrate to the conqueror's law, brought a new set of political actors on the stage. In one Lethean ocean swept away,

The historic glories of her ancient sway Four volumes only have hitherto been published, And deemed her shore should yet deserted lie, but the rest may speedily be looked for, now that A second Tyre for fishers' nets to drythe military government of Prince Louis Napoleon Or where the unfrequent gondolier would scan, has terminated that of anarchy in France. The With careless gaze, Rialto's broken span, three first volumes certainly disappointed us; chiefly Where sunken shafts and shivered marble piles from the perpetual and offensive vanity which they say, could the Doge himself—the last who wore

Should stand, the relics of her hundred islesexhibited, and the number of details, many of them The crown a Dandoli had worn before of a puerile or trifling character, which they con- Say, could Manini deem his fallen name* tained. The fourth volume, however, from which Should yet wipe out long centuries of shamethe preceding extracts have been taken, exhibits That as with him began her servile state, Chateaubriand, in many places, in his original So from his sons her second rise should date? vigor; and if the succeeding ones are of the same Then should the dragon-teeth of conquest, sown

In well-won fields of glory once her own, stamp, we propose to return to them.

Spring in a night with warrior's serried files,
The iron harvest of her hundred isles.

Ye that at Candia or Lepanto bled-
Albion, the Ocean Queen, should not

Shades of the mighty, Venice claims her deadAbandon Ocean's children in the fall

Old Contarini and the swarthy Moor, Of Venice—think on thine, despite thy watery wall. Immortal chiefs, your laureled swords restore.

Byrox. While names like these were victory alone, When empires fade, and dynasties decay, Shall Venice sue from strangers for her own? Let history's page record their fallen sway ;

While names like these her annals yet record, Let kings deplore a prostrate monarch's case,

Can Venice crouch before a Croat horde ?
And statesmen mourn a minister's disgrace :

Ah! no: Jet desolation rather sweep
Leave such to rue the extinction of a throne Her tarnished trophies to the yawning deep,
Whose crumbling fortunes must involve their own. Ere Venice lingers an inglorious slave,
But there are cities, in whose rise and fall

Without the nerve to die, the power to save.
Is stamped the common destiny of all-

-Dublin Univ. Mag. Whose glories were the glories of the mind, That dawned with them, and with their wane de. (ENGLISH REPUGNANCE TO THE CLASSIC SCHOOL OF clined

POETRY.] Whose beams were like the lunar light to guide Writing to a Frenchman, (1765,) Horace WalThe ebb and flow of learning's sacred tide- pole says, “All that Aristotle, or his superior comWhose world-wide story spreads through every mentators, you authors, have taught us, have not clime,

yet subdued us to regularity; we still prefer the Their scope, the soul ; their chronicle, all time.

extravagant beauties of Shakespeare and Milton 10 Who wept when Odoacer's conquering hour the cold and well disciplined merit of Addison, and Deposed the minion of prætorian power,

even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, The last degenerate of a dwindled line,

it was but t'other day that we were transported to The imperial puppet of the Palatine ?

hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than But when, in sandy Afric's arid waste,

Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's.”— The soul of Rome in Cato looked her last, Correspondence, vol. 3, p. 26. True as an Indian widow to her lord, Expiring freedom fell on Cato's sword ;

(Hervey's INFLUENCE UPON PURITAN TASTE.] While the same stroke that laid the patriot low,

“ The celebrated Mr. Hervey succeeded so well To freedom dealt the suicidal blow. 'Tis Venice-thus the world has wept for thee, the thistles of theological controversy in his Dia

in his attempts to unite the flowers of poetry with Cradle thou wert and grave of liberty ; From thy first sires her nourishment she drew,

logues between Theron and Aspasio, as to introduce Born at thy birth, and with thy stature grew;

among the modern Puritans a taste for the gaudy Thy fostering hand to glory was her guide;

and brilliant in writing, and a fondness for religious

books of entertainment, which was unknown to Thy hoine her empire, and thy seat her pride; And when decay had stamped thy brow serene

their ancestors.”—Monthly Review, vol. 61, p. 95. With age, and shame, and sorrow, Hadrian Queen- * It is a curious coincidence, that the name of the last When France, enslaving all in Freedom's name,

J. B. H.

a

From Blackwood's Magazine.

of his great mystery, and expose every fragment

of it to the admiring crowd. It was but a simple NEW LIGHT ON THE STORY OF LADY GRANGE.

matter in the eyes of those who were concerned Before we offer our readers some new light in it. The woman was troublesome-her huson this renowned mystery, it is necessary that we band was a judge, and therefore a powerful man should give them, in a sentence, the briefest pos- -80 he put her out of the way. Nor was he sible outline of the oft-told tale, so far as it has cruel or unscrupulous, according to the morality been hitherto known. John Erskine, Lord Grange, of the circle in which he lived, in the method he a judge of the Court of Session, and a leader of adopted to accomplish his end. He had advisers the ultra-religious party in Scotland, was married about him, who would have taken a shorter and a to the daughter of that Chiesley of Dalry who more effectual plan for ridding themselves of a had shot the Lord President in the High Street troublesome woman, wife or not, and would have of Edinburgh, for giving a decision against him. walked forth into the world without being haunted The marriage was a very unhappy one. The by any dread that rumors of remote captivities pious leader of a religious party was scandalized might rise up to disturb their peace. Indeed, in various ways, obliged to live separate from his when we remember the character of the instruwife, and subjected to many outrages from her. ments to whom Lord Grange committed the kidAt length her death was announced, her funeral napping and removal of his wife, it is only wonwas duly attended, and the widower preserved the derful that they had patience enough to carry out decorous silence of one to whom death has brought so long and troublesome an operation ; and that relief from what is generally counted a calamity. they did not, out of regard to themselves and to

This occurred in January, 1732. The lapse of their employer, put a violent termination to the nearly nine years had almost consigned the re- career of their troublesome charge, and send her membrance of the unfortunate woman to oblivion, at once to where the weary are at rest. Had this when strange rumors gained circulation, that she been her fate, the affair of Lady Grange would who was believed to be dead and buried was liv- have been one of secondary interest. Such things ing in bondage in the distant island of St. Kilda. were too easily accomplished in those days. The The account she subsequently gave of her adven-chances would have been greatly against a discovtures, bore, that one night in her solitary lodging ery, and if it took place, equally great against the she was seized by some Highlanders, whom she conviction and punishment of the offenders, unless knew to be retainers of Lord Lovat, and conveyed the lady had a more powerful party at her back away, gagged and blindfolded, in the arms of a than the daughter of Chiesley the murderer would man seated in a sedan chair. It appears that she be likely to command. It would have created, so was kept in various places of confinement, and far as it was known, great excitement, and some subjected to much rough usage, in the Low Coun- little horror at the time, but it would have speedtry. At length she was conveyed north-westward, ily sunk to the level of the ordinary contents of towards the Highland line. She passed through the criminal records, and would never have bethe grim solitudes of Glencoe, where recent mur- queathed to the ensuing century an object which der must have awakened in the captive horrible antiquarians have hunted out as religionsly and associations, on to the western part of Lord Lov- zealously as if it had involved the fate of Europe. al's country, where any deed of tyranny or vio- In fact, Lord Grange was what was called in lence might be committed with safety. Thence his day a discreet man." He wished to avoid she was transferred to the equally safe country of scandal, and bore a character for religious zeal, Glengarry, and, after crossing some of the high- which appears to have been on occasion a very est mountains in Scotland, was shipped on the serious burden not easily borne. He dreaded wild Loeh Hourn, forever darkened by the shadow scandal and notoriety, and therefore he shrouded of gigantic mountains falling on its narrow waters. his great act of iniquity in the most profound She was kept for some time on the small island of secrecy. Moreover, he kept a conscience--someHeskir, belonging to Macdonald of Sleat, and was thing that, like Rob Roy's honesty, might be afterwards transferred to the still more inaccessible called a conscience “after a kind.” He said St. Kilda, which has acquired a sort of celebrity pretty accurately of himself in his Diary—“I from its connection with her strange history. In have religion enough to spoil my relish and pros1741, when a communication from the captive had, ecution of this world, and not enough to get me through devious courses, reached her friends in Ed-to the next." We may probably believe that, inburgh, an effort was made to release her ; but it even if he could have performed the deed with was baffled by her transference to another place of perfect secrecy and safety, so far as this world is confinement, where she died in 1745.

concerned, he would not have murdered his wife, Little did the old judge imagine, at the time his conscience recoiling at the dreadful crimewhen he had so successfully and so quietly got rid his fear of the world causing him to shrink from of his domestic curse--when the mock funeral exposure. Urged by these two conflicting motives, had been performed, the family condolences acted he adopted the expedient of the secret removal to over, and the victim safely conveyed to her distant a desolate and distant spot, believing that he had prison, that on some future day the public, frantic surrounded the whole project with a deep and imwith curiosity, would tear to pieces the covering i penetrable cloud of mystery. Never was human

foresight more signally set at naught. It was this a little zeal to peruse the whole series ; but, unvery machinery of intense mystery that, by min- less we are greatly deceived, we think we can istering to one of the cravings of the human imag-present our readers with a few plums picked out ination, has made the incident one of the most of the mass, which they may find not unacceptanotorious of human events. It is almost satisfac- ble. And here, by the way, let us observe, how tory to know that this dreaded notoriety visited great a service is done by those who ransack the the hoary tyrant, for after he had for nine years repositories of our old Scottish houses, and make enjoyed in secret the success of his plot, and kept their contents accessible to the public.

We are his fair fame with the world, we find him, when convinced that in dusty garrets, in vaults, in musty legal proceedings were commenced against him, libraries, and crazy old oak-chests, there is still an bitterly saying that “ strange stories were spread almost inexhaustible wealth of curious lore of this all over the town of Edinburgh, and made the talk description. The correspondence of the old Scotof coffee-houses and tea-tables, and sent, as I have tish families is generally far more interesting than ground to apprehend, to several other places of that of English houses of the same rank. Since Great Britain."* One may notice, too, in the the civil wars of the seventeenth century, England following discontented mumblings, the bitterness may be said to have been internally undisturbed, with which he contemplated the divulging of the and no private papers contain matters of state, secret--it is in a letter to the imprisoned lady's save those of the great families whose ancestors champion, Mr. Hope of Rankeillor.

have been high in office. But in Scotland, the Any of the smallest discretion will see what a

various outbreaks, and the unceasing Jacobite inworthy part he acts towards me and mine, and trigues, made almost all the country gentlemen many others, and even towards the person pre- statesmen-made too many of them state offendtended to be cared for, who, in such an occasion, ers. The Essex squire, be he ever so rich, was begins by spreading through Great Britain strange still but the lord of a certain quantity of timber stories, unexamined and unavouched, and not so and . oxen, grass and turnips.

The Highland much as communicated to us concerned ; and next, laird, be he ever so poor, was a leader of menwhen offered satisfaction, yet proceeds to fix such on public records, and to force others to bring on

a person who had more or less the power of keeprecord sad and proved truths, which he himself ing the country in a state of war or danger-a knows and formerly has acknowledged to be truths, sort of petty king reigning over his own people. and that ought forever to be sunk. This cannot be Hence, while the letters of the last century one construed to be anything but an endeavor to fix, as might pick up in a comfortable old English manfar as in him lies, a lasting blot on persons and fam- sion, would relate to swing-gates and turnpike ilies. The first was defamation, and the next would roads, game preserves and tithes, those found hidbe the same, under a cover of a pretended legal den behind the wainscoat of a gaunt old cheerless shape, but in itself more atrocious. One cannot doubt that this is a serious thing to many more than Scottish fortalice, would relate to risings at home, and cannot but be laid to heart.f

or landings from abroad—to the number of broad

swords and targets still kept in defiance of the The text from which we are at present dis

Arms Act—to communications received through coursing, is a bundle of confidential letters from

French Jesuits, or

secret missions “

across the Lord Grange, printed in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club, and not the least valuable and

We believe that the passages from these docucurious of the many contributions made by that useful and spirited institution, to the elucidation ments, on which we are now to comment, in the

first place exhibit to us pretty plainly the motive of Scottish history and manners. At the foot of the high conical hill of Bennochie, in a small and, in the second place, prove that he entertained

of Lord Grange for the deportation of his wife ; group of forest trees, there nestles one of those quaint small turreted mansions of old French ar- with whom he was nearly connected.

designs of a similar character against another female chitecture so frequently to be seen in the north of Scotland. The owner of this mansion was an communicated to the public, it was believed that

When Lady Grange's strange history was first Erskine ; he was related to Erskine of Grange, and it so happened that this relative was the per day, and for the amusement of the inmates a general

* We remember once in such a house-it was a rainy son in whose ear he poured his secret sorrows, as

rummage was made among old papers-that in a corner a disappointed and morbid politician. Such con- of a press of a law library were found a multitude of letfidential outpourings are not the most interesting ters very precisely folded up, and titled—they had a most of communications, even when one has the for- examined they were found to consist of the confidential

business-like and uninteresting appearance, but on being tune to be so far connected with the wailer as to correspondence of the leaders of the Jacobite army in be the chosen vessel into which he pours the an

1745. Their preservation was accounted for by the cir.

cumstance that an ancestor of the owner of the house guish of his heart. Some of these letters are

was sheriff of the county at the period of the rebellion. portentous—they are absolute pamphlets—in He had seized the letters; but, finding probably that they their spirit as yellow and mildewed with discon- implicated a considerable number of his own relations, he

did not consider himself especially called on to invite the tent, as their outward aspect may have been by attention of the law officers of the crown to his prize ; the cold damp air of Bennochie, when they were while, on the other hand, the damnatory documents were

me,

water.

the cause of her abduction was not merely her vio-| to refute the supposition that the affair had any lent temper, but her possession of certain secrets connection with the political intrigues of the pewhich would enable her to compromise the safety of riod.” On the contrary, we cannot read the conher husband and his friends, by proving their con- fidential portion of the correspondence without nection with the Jacobite intrigues of the period. feeling that it almost conclusively establishes the The view more lately taken of the mystery has been fact, that the affair had a “connection with the that she was merely a mad woman, and that her political intrigues of the period ;" and that the abduction, with all its laborious mystery, was only reason why so many people of rank and political an attempt to accommodate the judge with a re- influence aided the plot, why the removal was consource in which Scotland was then deficient—a ducted with so much secrecy, and the place of selunatic asylum for insane relatives. Though, as clusion was so remote and inaccessible, was bewe shall presently see, his confidential communi- cause Lady Grange was possessed of dangerous cations give other and darker revelations, this was secrets, which compromised her husband and his the light in which Lord Grange wished the matter friends. The general tone of the letters, and their to be viewed, after his plot had been discovered ; many cautious and mysterious, yet unmistakeable, and in his controversial letter to Mr. Hope, already references to the proceedings of friends across the referred to, he gives an account of her frantic out- water, show that the judge confided to the owner breaks, which certainly affords a picture of one of the old mansion at the foot of Bennochie some likely to have been a most distressing partner in things which it would be dangerous for an enemy life to a grave judge, having a few secrets to con- to know. But we shall cite just one passage, ceal which required him to be peculiarly circum- which we consider sufficient of itself to support spect in his walk; and holding a high, but a rather our position. It is taken from a letter dated 22d precarious position, in the opinion of the religious March, 1731, just ten months before his wife was world. After stating that she had agreed to a seized and carried off. There is something very separation, he continues

peculiar in the structure of the letter; and, whether Then it was hoped that I and the children (who

in pursuit of some not very appreciable joke, or to she used to curse bitterly when they went duti- waylay the penetration of any hostile party who fully to wait on her) would be in quiet ; but she might take the liberty of opening the packet on its often attacked my house, and from the streets, and journey, the writer speaks of himself, during the among the footmen and chairmen of visitors, cried most curious and important part of it, in the third and raged against me and mine, and watched for me person. Talking of a very difficult and hazardous in the streets, and chased me from place to place in project in which he is about to be engaged, he the most indecent and shameless manner, and threat- thus passes a neat commendation on himselfened to attack me on the bench, which, dreading she would do every time I went to it, made my duty

"But I am sure he never yet was frightened from there very heavy on me, lest that honorable Court what was right in itself, and his duty towards his of Session should be disturbed and affronted on my friends, by his own trouble or danger, and he occasion. And not content with these, and odd and seems as little frighted now, as ever in his life.” very bad contrivances about the poor children, she He then approaches the subject of his wife's charwaited on a Sunday's afternoon that my sister, acter and intentions, like a man treading on the Lady Jane Paterson, with my second daughter, came out of the Tron church, and on the street, verge of a frightful pitfall. “ I have found that, among all the people, fell upon her with violent in such a case, there is no bounds set to such misscolding and curses, and followed her so down Mer- chief, and it is pushed on though it should go the lin's Wynd, till Lady Jane and the child near the length of your utter ruin, and of Tyburn itself, or bottom of it got shelter from her and being exposed the Grassmarket—the one being the place where to the multitude in a friend's house. You also the gibbet of London, the other where that of know, and may well remember, that before you and Edinburgh, stood. From such portentous assothe rest advised the separation, and till she went from ciations he passes immediately to his wife and her my house, she would not keep herself in that part of it (the best apartment) which was assigned her, proceedings. To make the passage more distinct, but abused all in the family, and when none were we fill up the names, of which the letter contains adverting, broke into the room of ane old gentle- only the first and last letters ; it will be remarked woman, recommended to me for housekeeper, and that he still assumes the third person, and that he carried off and destroyed her accompts, &c., and himself is the person about to depart for London. committed outrages, so that at length I was forced to have a watch in my house, and especially in the to London. She knows nothing of his going, nor

“ Then I am told that Lady Grange is going night time, as if it had been in the frontier of an enemy's country, or to be spoiled by robbers.*

is it suspected here, nor shall it be till the day

before he goes off, and so she cannot pretend it is This was doubtless the truth, but not the whole

to follow him. She will certainly strive to get truth. Founding apparently on these statements, access to Lady Mary Wortley, Lady Mar's sister, which are Lord Grange's vindication of himself

, | (whom she openly blesses for her opposition to our the editor of the collection of letters says—" The

friends,) and to all where her malice may prompt letters now printed must considerably impair the her to hope she can do hurt to us. You will mystery of the reasons which led to the abduction remember with what lying impudence she threat of Lady Grange. They may be held conclusively ened Lord Grange, and many of his friends, with

* Miscellany of the Spalding Club, iii., 60. accusations of high treason and other capital crimes, and spoke so loud of her accusing di- and we find him defeated in his aim, and receiving rectly by a signed information to Lord Justice- some very significant hints about the nature of his Clerk, that it came to his ears, and she was correspondence. stopped by hearing he said, that, if the mad wo- “ Sir Robert told me in wrath that he would man caine to him, he would cause his footmen to have nothing to do with Lord Mar, that he had turn her down stairs. What effect her lies may dealt ill with him, and he should not have his have, where she is not so well known, and with pardon ; and he would by no means give me any those who, from opposition to what Lord Grange reason for it, but Lord Townsend did, whom they is about, may think their interest to encourage had stirred up; for he in anger told me Sir Robthem, one cannot certainly know ; but is proper ert had intercepted his letters to me with very odd measures be not fallen on against it, the creature things in them, injurious to Sir Robert and his may prove troublesome ; at any rate, 'this whole friends. * Soon after this, Ilay, with cloudy affair will require a great deal of diligence, cau- looks, began to make insinuations of some distion, and address."*

coveries against me too, and at length told me that He talks of her as mad ; and so far as passion Sir Robert said that he had also intercepted bad

1 and the thirst of vengeance make people mad, letters of mine to Lord Mar, but confessed they she undoubtedly was so. He speaks of her in- were not directed to Lord Mar, and neither subtended accusations as lies—that is, of course, a scribed by me nor in my hand of write, but that convenient expression to use towards them. But by the contents they knew them to be mine to what is very clearly at the bottom of all the trepi- Lord Mar. I answered that they might assert dation, and doubt, and difficulty, is, that she might what they pleased of letters said to be directed to be able, mad and false as she was, to get facts es- me, and which they owned I had never seen, but tablished which called up very ugly associations that I must know of letters wrote by myself, and with Tyburn and the Grassmarket. A minute that I ever wrote any such was a damned, villaincident stated in the common histories of the nous, malicious lie ; and let Sir Robert or any else affair, that Lady Grange planned a journey to Lon- be the asserter of it, whoever did assert it, was a don for the purpose of taking her accusation to the liar.' fountain-head of political power, is confirmed by This is a very successful outbreak of virtuous this extract. It may easily be believed that, indignation, and does considerable credit to its among Grange's official colleagues—some of whom author, as a pupil of that school of which his dear had also their own secrets to keep—the lady's friend Lord Lovat was the undoubted head. frantic accusations met with little encourage- We cannot help considering that it is a ques

The Justice-Clerk referred to in the ex- tion of some historical interest and importance, tract, Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, was, like whether the abduction of Lady Grange was or was Grange himself, a great professed light of the not a measure adopted for political reasons, and church, and what sort of interview he would have that the letters before us, by finally deciding the held with the furious lady, may be inferred from question, throw an important light on the political the character given him by a contemporary : “He state of Scotland in the early part of the eighteenth became universally hated in Scotland, where they century. If we suppose that the lady was carried called him the curse of Scotland ; and when la- under circumstances of such profound mystery, dies were at cards, playing the nine of diamonds, and by the agency of some conspicuous and discommonly called the curse of Scotland,' they tinguished personages, to the distant island of St. called it the Justice-Clerk. He was indeed of a Kilda, merely because she was a lunatic who rehot temper, and violent in all his measures."'+ quired to be in custody, we only see that many

In the old narratives of the affair, it is stated important and sagacious people were taking a that Grange felt his position to be the more dan- very complex and cumbrous method of accomplishgerous, as some letters had been intercepted tend- ing what might have been done with ease ; for in ing to inculpate him with the Jacobites on the those days, few would have troubled themselves continent. It is singular that this should also be about the wretched woman, if her husband had pretty satisfactorily proved by the present corre- chosen to keep her in any place of confinement, spondence. It will be remembered that Grange telling the neighborhood that she was insane. But was a brother of the Earl of Mar, whose prom- when we find that the Jacobite party in Scotland inence in the affairs of 1715 had driven him into were powerful enough to kidnap a person obnoxexile. A strong attachment to this unfortunate ious to them, and keep her for nine years in a man is, on the whole, the most pleasing feature in place to which the laws of the realm and the authe character of the more cautions and more fortu- thority of the crown nominally extended, but nate judge. It was natural that the brothers should where their own power was the real operative aukeep up a correspondence, and quite as natural thority, we have a very formidable notion of the that Sir Robert Walpole should be particularly strength and compactness of the Jacobite union anxious to discover what they said to each other. during Walpole's apparently powerful ministry. Grange conducted some negotiations witn the gov- The correspondence of Lord Grange admits its ernment for his brother's pardon and restoration, reader to a species of confidential intercourse with

him, which can scarcely be called agreeable. It * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, iii., 6. + Houston's Memoirs, 92.

* Miscellany of the Spalding Club, iii., 34, 35.

ment.

6