1827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



81 



kicked her pugnis, calcibu, calcaribns verberat. 

 Having performed this feat, lie rode off with im- 

 punity. The damsel of course took to her bed ; 

 but when interrogated by her father concerning 

 the matter, such is the unaccountableness of ladies' 

 tastes, she declared she would never have any 

 other husband than the Duke of Normandy. 



Mr. Clarke questions the story of the 

 Curfew, because no writer speaks of it 

 earlier than Polydore Virgil, in the time 



and haying married her, by the aivice of six bishop t 

 assembled at St. Paul's, she assumed the Christian 

 faith, and was baptised by the name of Matilda, 

 and became the mother of Thomas a lieckct. 



The most intolerable parts of the vo- 

 lumes are the details of Irish aud Scotch 

 kings ; and the best and most agreeable 

 his reviews of the original sources of our 

 history, and his examinations of Shak- 

 speare's historical plays. The internal 



of Henry VIII. But this was a law of evidences he produces that Falsfaff's name 



police, says Hume correctly, which Wil- 

 liam had previously established in Nor- 

 mandy. See Du Moulin, Hist, de Nor- 

 mandie, p. 160, The same law had place 

 in Scotland. L. L. Burgor, cap. 86. 



7'he monuments which remain of Wil- 

 liam Rufus, according to the historians, 

 are the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and 

 London Bridge. 



William added, replies Mr. Clark, a spacious 

 hall to the palace at Westminster, which remained 

 three centuries ; but the present structure was 

 erected by Richard II. The account of the other 

 edifices is not much more correct : the London 

 Bridge constructed by William Rufus was of wood ; 

 the first stone bridge, consisting of nineteen arches, 

 being begun by King John ; and the " Towers of 

 Julius, London's lasting shame," as a truly learn- 

 ed and elegant poet most absurdly calls them, were 

 commenced by the conqueror. The principal tower 

 or keep, being injured by a violent storm, was re- 

 paired and completed by William Rufus ; its mo- 

 dern casing is of the age of Charles the first. 



Queen Eleanor's offer of the dagger or 

 the bowl to poor Rosamond, vanishes at the 

 touch of such criticism as depends upon 

 contemporary and existing documents: 



was originally Oldcastle, but with no 

 reference to Lord Cobham, and changed 

 to Falstatf without reference to the wealthy 

 knight ot'that name, are very satisfactory. 

 His review of Macbeth, too with the 

 descent of the Stuarts from Bungro, and, 

 generally, his exhibitions of Shakspeare's 

 complaisance to Elizabeth and James. 



Of almost all the original writers of 

 English history he has given apparently 

 a ve;y faithful account. We do not pre- 

 tend ourselves to any very extensive ac- 

 quaintance with them, but so far as we 

 have at different times dipped into them, 

 our conceptions correspond pretty closely 

 with the author's estimate. He has given 

 a very full, and we have no doubt an 

 accurate account of the different collec- 

 tions of them from Parker's in 1547, to 

 Gales in 1691, and Baron Maseres in 1807. 

 But we have no complete and uniform 

 collection nothing like the Recueil des 

 Histoires des Gauls et de la France, 

 though that is yet very far from complete 

 the 18th volume, folio, was published 

 in 1822, and reaches only to the thirteenth 

 century. A resolution passed the House 



The old chroniclers never allude to the tragical of Commons about three or four years ago, 



or violent death of Rosamond, further than by re- 

 lating that the furious menaces of the queen pro- 

 duced such an effect upon her spirits, that she did 

 not long survive. Her tomb being adorned with 

 various pieces of sculpture one of them a cup 

 probably an accidental ornament, might suggest 

 the notion that she was poisoned. 



At the same touch flies the romance of 

 the queen of Edward the First sucking 

 the poisoned wound of her husband. 



Mr. Clarke produces from the Old 

 Chronicles a curious account of Beckett's 

 family: 



Eeckett, the first man of English descent who, 

 after the Roman Conquest, rose to any considerable 



recommending such a publication to the 

 care of the government; and steps, it is 

 said, have been taken for the accomplish- 

 ment of this object. We only pray the 

 publication may move at a quicker rate 

 than the French one; and, above all things, 

 be printed more for use than show that 

 is, at an approachable price. 



Dramatic Scenes, by Miss Milford ; 

 1827. Our general experience of similar 

 attempts was little likely, we must confess, 

 to make us sanguine with respect even to 

 the particular instance of Miss Mitford. 

 Besides most readers, we feel convinced, 

 are conscious of a misgiving almost an 



preferment,, was the son of Gilbert Beckett, a citi- ex p ec{at j oa o f disappointment, on open- 

 ing books of a miscellaneous character, 

 whether those books be the productions 

 of a single mind in its different moods, or 

 the contributions of many. Few persons, 

 in these days of universal authorship, are 

 so ignorant of the process by which Ge- 

 nius effects her best productions, as not 

 to know that strong conceptions have a 

 tendency to dilate rather than contract 

 their dimensions that images crowd and 

 accumulate by meditation that the fancy 

 and the feeling become microscopic ; and 



zen of London, who, travelling into the Holy Land 

 as a pilgrim, was taken prisoner, and became the 

 slave of a Mahometan chief. In .his captivity he 

 had the fortune to acquire the affections of his 

 master's daughter, who aided him to escape ; but 

 the lady, unable to endure the absence of her lover, 

 speedily followed him. The only English words 

 with which she was acquainted were London and 

 Gilbert ; and arriving in the metropolis, she ran 

 from street to street, repeating Gilbert, Gilbert, to 

 a deriding crowd. But true love, ever faithful to 

 his votaries, at length directed her steps to Beckett's 

 house : he received her with the utmost affection ; 

 M.M. New Scries, VoL.IV. No, 19. 



M 



