1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



415 



as much of marshalling a field as a " spin- 

 ster," or a reviewer ; but Froissart is all 

 before her, and he delights in the toils and 

 tumults of battles with very little labour 

 convertible, and all he possesses is fair plun- 

 der. Castles, and courts, and dresses, and 

 processions, he paints like a Flemish artist ; 

 and in castles, and churches, and domes, and 

 arches, Mrs. B. is herself quite at home ; 

 and Ghent she accordingly describes like a 

 native, born and bred on its waters in the 

 fourteenth century. 



The scene of the story is Flanders, the 

 period the fourteenth century, and the occa- 

 sion the revolt of the city of Ghent, whose 

 adherents, from the distinguishing part of 

 their dress, were called the White Hoods. 

 Lewis de Male was Earl of Flanders at the 

 time, and the rebellion was occasioned by his 

 interference with some of the privileges of 

 his good city of Ghent. These privileges 

 were thus invaded on the promptings of 

 private interest a very common case, we 

 take it and not from any desire of en- 

 croachment on the part of the prince. A 

 low intriguing fellow gets the ear of the 

 Earl, suggests some new charge upon the 

 customs, the execution of which must fall 

 upon the dean of the pilots, whose office he 

 himself covets, and who he knows will re- 

 sist and thus eventually supplants him. 

 John Lyon, the dean, in revenge, joins a 

 discontented party, who take advantage of 

 the dissatisfaction, and rumours of new 

 attempts on public liberties, and a rebel- 

 lion is got up in the Jaffier style. With 

 the execution and final defeat of this rebel- 

 lion, which is an historical fact, is mixed up 

 a tale of domestic events. 



The disgraced dean had a very beautiful 

 daughter, whom, to promote his own aspir- 

 ing views for he was before of an in- 

 triguing turn he contrives to introduce to 

 the gaieties of the court and the observance 

 of the Earl. The Earl is a widower, still 

 young and ardent, and is with difficulty 

 dissuaded from marrying her ; but though 

 thus defeated, he is too deeply enamoured 

 to give her up quietly, and makes divers 

 fruitless efforts to win her on easier terms. 

 His mother, the Countess d'Artois, a lady 

 of most imperious and royal spirit the 

 chief obstruction to her son's matching with 

 Anna condescends to truckle with Gilbert 

 Mathew, her son's favourite, to remove 

 Anna out of the Earl's way, and his ap- 

 pointed course is to blacken John Lyon, 

 and blast his fortunes. The father thus 

 dismissed from his office, and publicly dis- 

 graced, in the heat of resentment, joins a 

 set of conspirators men of broken fortunes 

 and profligate habits, at the head of which 

 was his own nephew Du Bois ; and just 

 before the party are about to commence 

 operations, John Lyon, in a brawl at an 

 inn with Mathew, the man who had sup- 

 planted him, unluckily kills Mathew's bro- 

 ther. Though he escapes, he is in immi- 



nent peril from the vengeance and the in- 

 terest of the favourite ; and his presence is 

 indispensable to the success of the con- 

 spiracy. A pardon must, therefore, by fair 

 means or foul, be procured ; and Anna is 

 accordingly called in requisition. She must 

 present herself to the Earl, and solicit her 

 father's life. To expose herself to the 

 hazards of misconstruction, she, the most 

 delicate of human angels, is of course reluc- 

 tant ; but the peril of her father, of whose 

 disloyalty till now she knows nothing, forces 

 her to consent. Baffled in her first attempt 

 to put the petition into the Earl's hand in 

 public, she is, luckily, in the midst of her 

 embarrassments, rescued from them by the 

 encounter of a young gentleman, whom she 

 had not seen for two years before, but whom 

 she had known as a student at St. Omer's, 

 and to whom she had given her entire af- 

 fections. Of him and his friends she knew 

 absolutely nothing, but he now undertakes to 

 procure her an interview with the Earl 

 warning her, however, against committing 

 herself, in any way, with him for he is a 

 man to take advantages. Though warned, 

 yet driven to desperation by the inflexibility 

 and artifice of Lewis, she does so far commit 

 herself as to consent to wear a gold necklace 

 which the Earl insists upon, and which is 

 to entitle him to conference on demand. 

 The sight of the necklace excites a little 

 uneasiness in the lover, but not much, and 

 we wonder at it. 



John Lyon, now abroad again, the rebel- 

 lion ripens apace, and we are admitted 

 to the secret councils of the conspirators, 

 and to the midnight diableries of one of the 

 prime agents a sorceress one of Sir Wal- 

 ter Scott's viragoes, whose stirring energies, 

 at will, rouse or paralyse those of all who 

 come in contact with her. The explosion 

 at length comes, and one of the first acts of 

 the Earl, in revenge for the father's trea- 

 son, is to get forcible possession of the 

 daughter ; but just as he is worked up by 

 her resistance to actual violence, the rebels 

 break into the palace, and he is compelled 

 to drop the prey, and escapes himself with 

 extreme difficulty. The rebels now ad- 

 vance towards Bruges, headed by John 

 Lyon, accompanied by his daughter, and 

 Bruges is taken that very night by surprise. 

 The Earl's mother is there, and celebrating 

 a feast, which the chiefs of the rebels make 

 no ceremony in joining; and before the 

 party break up, through her worthless agent 

 Mathew, the Countess contrives to poison 

 John, and his lovely daughter escapes only 

 by the whispered warnings of her lover, 

 who happens to be present also, and who 

 now proves to be no less a person than Sir 

 Walter D'Anghien, the Earl's nephew. 

 In a subsequent encounter with the rebels, 

 this Sir Walter, by an act of headlong 

 valour, falls into their hands, desperately 

 wounded, and is taken to the very house 

 where poor Anna resides, who of course be- 



