LXXXVIII. "Unmann'd he stands, and, less alive than dead, LXXXIX. "Then binds her as our woodmen faggots bind, Ties her, thus fetter'd, to a neighbouring tree, XC. "He then piles round the witch of wood a heap, Which, kindled, smokes and blazes tow'rds the skies; XCI. "Our hero gathers up the wretch's embers, And with assiduous care and hasten'd pace, Of her, thus brought to death in vile disgrace, The lovers resume their natural form, and while the conqueror is receiving their congratulations and thanks, he is summoned to Charlemagne by a messenger, who informs him "That once again in France unchristian wár is sèen, And Paris close besieg'd by heathens Sáràcèn." Here the first canto abruptly breaks off. Lord Glenbervie is discouraged from continuing his translation by learning that the same task is in other hands, and that two cantos are already published. We can pass no judgment upon a work which we have not seen; but in reference to this now before us, we should pronounce it a difficult undertaking to present the English reader with a more correct notion of the species of poetry which it professes to represent. The value assigned to the particular class to which it belongs will of course vary with different tastes. For ourselves, as our readers perhaps by this time have discovered to their cost, we are inclined to regard the Burlesca with very favourable eyes. It may be heresy to breathe such a whisper, but we have drawn more pleasure by a hundred fold from the insane pranks of Orlando, than from the measured and regular transactions of the pius Æneas. ART. III. The History and Antiquities of the Tower of London, with Biographical Anecdotes of Royal and Distinguished Persons, deduced from Records, State-Papers, and Manuscripts, and from other Original and Authentic Sources. By John Bayley, Esq. F. A. S. of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, and one of His Majesty's Sub-Commissioners on the Public Records. In Two Parts, Part I.-27 Plates, 4to. pp. 312. 31. 13s. 6d. Cadell. 1821. : It is a trite remark, that the places about which we know least are those most open to our knowledge and we believe many a man who can count the seven hills of Rome off hand would be grievously puzzled if he were asked to tell how many London stands upon. We are not surprised therefore to find that there is much to be heard about the Tower which we had never heard before, and which, but for Mr. Bayley's labours, it is probable we should never have heard at all and we are not a little obliged to the antiquarian and topographical diligence which has collected in so pleasing a form as that of the volume now before us, so large a mass of information respecting a building connected with some of the most interesting transactions of our History. Tradition assigns the foundation of the Tower to the Romans. Stukeley, in his account of Stonehenge, states, that "the Tower of London was erected about the time of Constantine the Great:" and Dr. Milles, President of the Society of Antiquaries in 1778, still more broadly asserts, that it "was undoubtedly the capital fortress of the Romans; it was their treasury as well as their mint;" and he rests his hypothesis on the discovery of some gold coins and a silver ingot, which were dug up on the south-side of the White Tower. One of the coins bore the impress of Honorius, the other two that of his brother Arcadius; and on the ingot were some characters which were read ex offic. Honorii. Its shape reminds us of the ivia, which Croesus offered at Delphi. It was a double wedge, four inches long, and about half as broad, and weighed npwards of eleven ounces. The learned President was assuredly somewhat bold in assuming these antiquities which, as Mr. Bayley observes, were incidental to any part of the Roman city or its suburbs, as positive evidences of his confident assertion: and it does not appear that more certain testimony than this can be found to carry back the origin of any existing part of the fortress, or indeed the existence of any fortress at all, till some years after the Norman Conquest. The structure now known as the White Tower was then built by command of William I. under the superintendance of Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, the most celebrated military architect of his time. In the civil wars, during the reign of Stephen, the Tower was already sufficiently strong to stand a successful siege : and in the succeeding reign, if we credit one of the writers of the day, the mortar used in its repairs was so tempered as must have made it impregnable by any mere human force. Fitstephens terms it, "arcem palatinam maximam et fortissimam cujus area muri a fundamento profundissimo exsurgunt, cemento cum sanguine animalium temperati." But it was to the munificence of Henry III. that some of the most interesting of its buildings now extant may be ascribed. In 1239, this Prince had laid up up vast treasures in the Tower, and expended upwards of 12,000 marks in increasing its fortifications. A series of extraordinary disasters opposed his progress. "The works were scarcely completed when on the night of St. George in the following year the foundation gave way, and a noble portal with the walls and bulwarks, on which so much pains and expence had been bestowed, all fell down as if by the effect of an earthquake; and strange to relate, no sooner were these works restored, than, in 1241, the whole fell down again on the very night, and, as we are told, at the self same hour that had proved destructive in the year preceding." P. 15. Matthew Paris, in recording this event gives it a still higher colouring of the marvellous: by which we are enabled to trace the king's calamity rather to the turbulence of his Barons and the discontent of his Clergy, than to the miraculous agency which the Historian calls in. A very learned and pious Clerk of those days beheld in a vision an Archbishop, in his pontifical habiliments, and holding a cross in his hands. The Prelate advanced to the new works with a stern countenance, and, striking them impetuously with the cross, demanded why they were rebuilt? The walls thereat suddenly tottered and fell down. The Clerk was astounded in his dream; he feared to question the Archbishop himself, and humbly craved a chaplain, who followed in his train, to tell the name of the Teichoclast. It is the blessed Martyr, Thomas, replied the chaplain. Himself a Londoner, he destroys without hope of restoration these walls built to oppress the Londoners. God bless us, what a waste of time and money have we been at! quoth the Clerk. If they had been built, rejoined the Chaplain, to furnish victuals to the poor workmen, then we might have put up with them. As it is, since they were not meant as a defence of the realm, but as a burden to the inoffensive Citizens, rest assured that if the blessed Thomas had been quiet, the blessed Edmund, the Confessor, who succeeded him, would have done the business yet more effectually. When the Clerk awoke he called up the whole house, and told the story: and what was his surprise the next morning when he found his dream was true! Three years afterwards, (1244), Griffin, son of Lewellin, Prince of Wales, attempted to escape from the Tower in which he had long been kept prisoner with his son and several other hostages. Having made a rope with the bedclothes he endeavoured to lower himself. The rope broke, and the same historian informs us, that he was found, on the following morning, with his head thrust in between his shoulders, a frightful spectacle! When King Henry kept his Easter in the Tower, the constable and bailiffs of Gloucester were commanded by a writ to catch all the Lampreys that could be found in their bailiwick, and send them up from day to day. Edward I. it seems, never held his court within these walls; but he tenanted them largely. Six hundred Jews were confined in them at once for clipping and coining in 1278. Edward II. had a daughter born to him in this fortress, to which she owed her title, Jane of the Tower. In Edward IIId's brilliant course of victory it was occupied by a long series of noble and illustrious captives. The Count of Eu, Constable of France, the Count of Tankerville, and 300 of the most opulent citizens of Caen were the first occupants: next came King David Bruce: he was succeeded by Charles de Blois, a competitor for the duchy of Britanny; and not long after by John of Vienne, the Governor of Calais, so well known for his brilliant defence. The list was completed by John, King of France, and his son Philip, who after lodging in a gentler captivity successively at the Savoy and at Windsor, were, on Edward's second expedition into France, transferred to the Tower; where as Lord Berners tells us from Froissart, "moche of their pleasure and sport was restrayned; for they were then straytlyer kept than they were before." Mr. Bayley is a staunch convert to Lord Orford's "Historic doubts." It is probable that he attaches more belief to Richard's innocence than the noble author himself felt in his heart; for we have always considered Lord Orford's tract more as a specimen of ingenious hypothesis, than as the fruit of conviction. One thing is sufficiently clear; that the bones found in Charles IId's time, and interred in Westminster Ahbey, as those of the two murdered Princes, were not found under the staircase, now pointed out as their former hiding place, in the Tower which from this circumstance has undeservedly acquired the foul name of the Bloody Tower; but in a very different part:" on the south-side of the White Tower, at the foot of a staircase which leads to the Chapel in that building." The mistake in locality however does not affect the fact of the commission of the crime and if we reject the mass of traditional evidence and contemporary belief upon which this rests, we scarcely know that event in History which may not be denied with equal appearance of fair reasoning. At the coronation of Henry VIII. the King when he set out from the Tower was drest in a robe of crimson velvet, and a jacket of raised gold. "The placard," continues Hall," was set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls, and the bawdrike with great balasses: the trappings of his horse were of damask gold, with a deep pursell of ermine." So caparisoned he proceeded to Westminster with Catharine of Arragon. The pomp which accompanied Anne Boleyn was still greater. The whole city, as she passed, was thick set with "marvellous cunning pageants," in which the Heathen Gods and Christian Saints had intermingled parts: for while Apollo, the Muses, and the Graces showered gratulations in Latin, the cardinal virtues pointed to the new Queen as the mirror in which they fashioned themselves, and Mary the wife of Cleophas with her children wished her a numerous progeny. The fate which Ann Boleyn soon afterwards encountered was reserved also for Catharine Howard. In the Record Office in the Tower is still preserved a letter from an eye |