obfervable that almoft all the dwarfs were of their country, when, as fome of our old writers lament, men difproportionately finall were fought for to ferve as pages to great ladies, and men difproportionately large were chofen as porters to great lords, fo that honeft fellows of a common height lacked mafters. When fovereigns indeed chanced thus to be curtailed of human nature's regular pretenfions, they were obliged to vindicate their claims by valour; and Charlemagne had always delighted himfelf to relate, how when his father Pepin the Short was crowned, they let loofe a lion to feize a bull for diverfion of the French court: "And now," exclaims the king," who will take that "beaft off the bull?" Nobody stirred; but their young monarch leap'd himself into the arena, and with his sword stabbed the unfufpecting lion to the heart, releasing the scarce lefs enraged victim to his fury. Oncques foi dign! was the royal exclamation, while applause and admiration filled the whole affembly. And the fine ftatue reprefenting this event was, in the reign of Robespierre, flung under heaps of rubbish, Mercier fays, and broken in thofe paroxyfms of rage against every king alive or dead, which diftinguifhed Frenchmen in 1794.

But we return to Poland, which was in the thirteenth century fcarcely as much civilized as France was in the eighth; and though Lafconigus fought no lions, he made head againft innumerable foes, and came off conqueror in fourteen engagements. Poetry did not profper in the north like perfonal bravery. Warton gives to the reign of Henry III., I think, our first love fong in England: it is a very cold one, and its burthen "Blou, blou, blou northerne wynde, blou, "blou, blou," is favage enough. Thiboult de Navarre and Rudelle were before hand with us; and if King Richard wrote gay verfes, it 1 her had. was because had he kept gay company and lived among the crufaders. Wit wants more fire to warm it than does learning or courage: they are of every climate. But Louis IX. of France, fon to the dauphin who invaded England, collected in his character a conftellation of excellence, not to be comprized in what remains of this chapter, which

fees

fees the great church at Toledo built and decorated by the fucceffor of Sanctius the Idle, Ferdinand IV. by name, who drove the Moors from Andalufia, united the kingdoms of Caftile and Leon, and was related to the dowager queen of France, widow to Louis VIII., he who is faid to have been fon to an admirable father, and father to an incomparable fon. The fiege of Cairo by the leagued fovereigns in the east, and their diftrefs arifing from ignorance of thofe periodical inundations that fertilize and protect old Egypt; with the taking Damietta by Andrew, husband to intriguing Gertrude, fhall close this portion of the thirteenth century, adding only a flight and cursory review of those foi-difant emperors in the eaft, who reigning after the time when Theodore Lafcaris and Henry parted the dominion; one living at Adrianople and the other at Conftantinople, no hope could be entertained of any but a lingering and feeble existence to both. Iolanta, daughter to this last named fovereign, reigned with her husband Peter comte d'Auxerre, and during his imprisonment fwayed the fceptre alone; but the Greeks could not endure to fee Latins as they called them, ruling at old Byzantium. They weakened the throne daily by their disputes, and fometimes injured it by their union; when a new Lafcaris, married to the daughter of Bulgaria, and named Theodore Angelus, wished to take up only the title of king, and fling the faded purple quite away. John Ducas however was of another mind; he took the Ifle of Cyprus in 1230, where we will finish our Retrospection of a portion of time peculiarly unfavourable and perplexing to epitome.

VOL. I.

U u

CHAP.

CHAP. XIX.

SECOND PORTION OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

MR.

R. GRAY fays fomewhere, and fays very wifely, that the RetroSpect of error is serviceable when it tends to vindicate the lessons of truth. Our King John's ftrange behaviour contributed against his own intention to ascertain his people's future liberties-a baby fucceffor coming to the throne somewhat accelerated the then distant moment; for although governed by the wife earl of Pembroke, justly so called, that earl of Pembroke was at most a steward; and who ever saw a steward yet, that would not favour tenants rather than their landlord? The tender prince willingly confirmed our famous Magna Charta, wherein claufes were added propitious to the poor, and of confolation to the people, not then deemed dangerous by their haughty lords, who each kept up a show of royalty within their feparate caftles, where the Senefchal* and Chancellor, Conftable and Chamberlain, lived as in petty courts; while mercenary exactions were by them practifed on inferior claffes, as by the fovereign himself on the nobility; till the bribes openly given and received even shock a modern reader with recital: witness the story how Hugh de Oyfel prefented King Henrye with two robes of a grene colore, for the fake of obtaining, through his in

* The Senefchal was a perfon of no fmall confequence. There is an old tale in Gefta Romanorura, how an old Baron left his favourite child and dog, both creatures of ineftimable value, under the care of five knights, to be fed by the Senefchalle. This officer neglectful of his charge, and going out to vifit a neighbouring female, the starved blood-hound devours the baby, whilft the knights were fallied forth in queft of food. The nobleman returning, and hearing this tale, burns the Senefchalle alive.

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fluence over fome Flemish merchants, 1000 marks which the faid Oy fel had left in Flanders, and could not get agayne: and Hoveden tells us how Richard de Neville gave one of our kings 20 palfreys for his grace's good word with Ifolda Biget, a beautiful French lady whom he wished to marry. King John had three greyhounds given on a like account, if I remember, and they had claffick names, Achilles, Hannibal, and Hector: the laft has been a common name for greyhounds ever fince. We read likewife in fome of the old books that dame Nichole paid 100 marks for permiffion to marry her daughter to whoever the pleafed, the king's mimicks alone excepted; nor can I find whether the exception was made because of royalty or confcience, for it had been decreed fome years before, that mimicks must not be admitted to receive the holy facrament. Such fordid defire of accumulating wealth forts but iil, as it should seem, with military pride; and even l'amour des dames, of which so much was said, appears to have been swallow'd in avaricious rapacity, when records inform us how Robert de Veaux gave our fovereign fix Lombardy fteeds, and a famous hawk befide, to make him hold his tongue, and tell no tales of Henri de Pinel's wife, whofe reputation feems to have depended on his filence. Such indeed was the frequency of bribes in those days, and fuch the neceffity of an inferior's offering visible inducements to perfuade nobles or princes to act as it is now deemed indifpenfable for every man of honour to do without perfuafion, that Saint Lewis of France was canonized for having taken no presents to pervert the courfe of law; and Innocent III. had been justly enough half adored for a like delicacy in all civil cases, although he fcrupled not to fell indulgences without hesitation: angelick Fleury blames fuch conduct, but foftens down the facts he is unable to deny. He fays too, with what unjustifiable severity the court and church of Rome acted towards Bishop Grofthead, who oppofed their ufurpations about 1235. The pope of that day thirfted for his blood, fays he; and was diffuaded by a favourite cardinal from going to extremes, chiefly because the subtle and penetrating Italian had obferved to him that Eng

Jand even then fate loofer than other realms did towards the fee, adding, my heart tells me that ifland will quit or break from us one day; and fo it did, continues Fleury, 300 years after his true prediction. Warton mentions a book, called Roman d'Antichrift, about this period; and Grofthead gave broad hints that the character was faft filling up at Rome, which was now certainly become the scarlet city, as fhe had long been the fanguinary. Red hats were beftow'd as a new diftinction upon cardinals, and the three pontiffs who followed each other in fucceffion after Innocent, added splendour to their city without lofing ought of her authority. But every high mountain has a plain upon its top, where you run level for a while before defcent commences; and there feems to be a fort of folftitial paufe in governments, when they have reached their utmost elevation: perhaps the appearance may be fallacious, owing to the obliquity of the fphere; those who live under the equator are not confcious of it; yet it was undoubtedly fo with pagan, and I think with papal Rome. Contentions concerning the bleffed Trinity, and its inexplicable nature, had ended fome time fince; yet were those difputes rather finished by fatigue at laft, than reconciled by reafon or reflexion: for however we fee fire, water, and air, creatures exposed to constant observation, subsisting in and for and through and by each other all day long; there never was wife mortal could tell how: and yet this limited and arrogant animal, this still more unaccountable man, will daringly prefume to pry into his Maker's effence, and refift redemption till he is made acquainted with the constituent substance of his Redeemer, never discovering by common sense, what indifference and apathy embraced as foon as found :

That points obfcure 'twere of small use to learn,

But common quiet was mankind's concern.

Oh wretched state of poor humanity! While I am lamenting the fervour which glowed up into madness in the early ages of Chriftianity, infulting heaven by trying to tear down the myftick veil that keeps

our