Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 386, August 22, 1829», страница 2

TYRE

(For the Mirror.)

"And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard"—Ezekiel, chap. xxvi. verse 13.

"It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Ezekiel, chap xxvi. verse 5.

 
Thy harps are silent, mighty one!
Thy melody no more:
For ocean's mourning dirge alone
Breaks on thy rocky shore.
 
 
The fisher there his net has spread,
Thy prophecy to show;
Nor dreams he that thy doom was read,
Two thousand years ago.
 
 
On Chebar's banks the captive seer,
Thy future ruin told:
Visions of woe, how true and clear,
With power divine unroll'd!
 
 
The tall ship there no more is riding,
Of Lebanon's proud cedars made;
But the wild waves ne'er cease their chiding,
Where Tyre's past pomp and splendour fade.
 
 
The traveller to thy desert shore
No cherish'd record found of thee;
But fragments rude are scatter'd o'er
Thy dreary land's blank misery.
 
 
The sounds of busy life were hush'd,
But still the moaning blast,
That o'er the rocky barrier rush'd,
Sang wildly as it pass'd:—
Spirit of Time, thine echoes woke,
And thus the mighty Genius spoke:—
 
 
"Seek no more, seek no more,
Splendour past and glories o'er,
Here bleak ruin ever reigns;
See him scatter o'er the plains,
Arches broken, temples strew'd,
O'er the dreary solitude!
Long ago the words were spoken,
Words which never can be broken.
Where are now thy riches spread?
Where wilt thou thy commerce spread?
Thou shalt be sought but found no more!
Wanderers to thy desert shore
Former splendours bring thee never,
Tyre is fallen, fallen forever!"
 

Kirton Lindsey.

ANNIE R.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART. ²

(For the Mirror.)

 
Let science weep and droop her head,
Her favourite champion, Davy's dead!
The brightest star among the bright,
Alas! has ceased to shed its light.
Yet say not darkness reigns alone,
While "Safety Lamps" are burning on,
And shedding life that never dies.
Around the tomb where Davy lies
 

J.F.C.

HAMPTON COURT: BIRTH OF EDWARD THE SIXTH, AND DEATH OF QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR

(For the Mirror.)

Every hint, every ray of light, which tends, in the most distant manner, to illustrate an obscure passage in the history of our country, cannot we presume, while it affords great pleasure and satisfaction to the student attentively employed in such researches, be deemed either insignificant or uninteresting by the general reader.

The birth of Edward the Sixth must always be regarded as a bright star in the horizon of the Reformation, and one, which tended greatly to blast the prospects of those who were inimical to that glorious change in our religious constitution.

The marriage of Henry the Eighth, with the Lady Jane Seymour, ³ immediately after the death of his former Queen, Anne Boleyn, is so well known as to render it superfluous, if not presuming in us to enlarge upon it in this place: suffice it to say, that the nuptials were celebrated on the day following the execution of Anne, the twentieth of May, 1536, the King "not thinking it fit to mourn long, or much, for one the law had declared criminall." ⁴ Old Fuller says, "it is currantly traditioned, that at her [Jane's] first coming to court, Queen Anne Bolen espying a jewell pendant about her neck, snatched thereat, (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence; but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the King's picture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining and the other's ascending in her husband's affection." ⁵ About seventeen months after her marriage at the Palace of Hampton Court, Queen Jane gave birth to a son, Edward the Sixth.

The precise period of the birth of this prince has been variously stated by historians. Sir John Hayward, ⁶ who bestowed considerable labour upon writing his life, places it on the seventeenth of October, 1537; while Sanders, ⁷ on the other hand, fixes it on the tenth. Herbert, Godwin, ⁸ and Stow, whom, all ⁹ his more modern biographers have followed, agree that it happened on the twelfth of the same month, and their testimony is fully corroborated by the following official letter, addressed to Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, informing him of the birth of a prince:—

By the Quene

"Right trustie and right welbeloved, wee grete you well; and, forasmuche as by the inestimable goodnes and grace of Almighty God wee be delivered and brought in childbed of a Prince, conceived in most lawfull matrimonie between my Lord the King's Majestie and us; doubtinge not but, for the love and affection which ye beare unto us, and to the commonwealth of this realme, the knowledge thereof should be joyous and glad tydeings unto you, we have thought good to certifie you of the same, to th' intent you might not onely render unto God condigne thanks and praise for soe greate a benefit but alsoe continuallie praie for the longe continuance and preservacion of the same here in this life, to the honour of God, joy and pleasure of my Lord the Kinge and us, and the universall weale, quiett, and tranquillitie of this hole realm."

"Given under our Signet, att my Lord's Mannor of Hampton Courte, the xii daie of October." ¹⁰

Edward was christened with great state, on the Monday following, in the chapel at Hampton Court, Archbishop Cranmer, and the Duke of Norfolk being the godfathers, and his sister, the Princess Mary, godmother. ¹¹ "At his birth," says Hall, "was great fires made through the whole realme, and great joye made with thankesgeuyng to Almightie God which had sent so noble a prince to succeed to the crowne of this realme." ¹²

The joy, however, which the birth of a son and heir to the throne, excited in the mind of Henry was soon dispelled by the death of his queen. It was deemed necessary, both for the preservation of her life, and that of her offspring, to bring the latter into the world by means of the Caesarian operation, a mode which in the greater number of cases proves fatal to the mother. It has been maliciously, and without the least appearance of truth, asserted by Sanders, ¹³ one of the most bitter writers of the opposite party, that the question was put to the King by the physicians, whether the life of the Queen or the child should be saved, for it was judged impossible to preserve both? "The child's," he replied, "for I shall be able to find wives enough." Whether, however, her death originated from that terrible cause, we cannot, at this distant period, pretend to affirm, but from the report to the Privy Council of the birth of Edward the Sixth, still extant, it would appear not, as it informs us she was "happily" delivered, and died afterwards of a distemper incidental to women in that condition.

The death of Jane Seymour, like the birth of her son, is involved in considerable obscurity. Most of the chroniclers who appear to have followed Herbert ¹⁴ in this particular, fix it on the fourteenth of October, two days after the birth of Edward; Hayward, on the contrary, states that "shee dyed of the incision on the fourth day following," while Edward the Sixth, in his journal, written by himself, informs us, but without stating any precise period, that it happened "within a few dayes after the birth of her soone." ¹⁵ We shall, however, see from the following letter, that this event did not take place on either of the abovementioned days, nor until "duodecimo post die," as George Lilly truly informs us, the day also mentioned in the journal of Cecil. ¹⁶ This original document respecting the health of the Queen, which is still extant, is signed by Thomas Rutland, and five other medical men, is dated on a Wednesday, which if it were only the following Wednesday, and we shall presently prove that it was not, would, at least, make it five days afterwards.

"These shal be to advertise yor lordship of the Quenes estate. Yesterdaie afternonne she had an naturall laxe, by reason whereof she beganne sumwhat to lyghten, and (as it appeared,) to amende; and so contynued till towards night. All this night she hath bene very syck, and doth rather appaire than amend. Her Confessor hath bene with her grace this morning, and hath done [all] that to his office apperteyneth, and even now is preparing to minister to her grace the sacrament of unction. At Hampton Court, this Wednesday mornyng, at viii of the clock." ¹⁷

As a further and additional proof of the date of her decease, we shall refer our readers to a manuscript, preserved in the Herald's College, the preamble of which runs as follows:—"An ordre taken and made for the interrement of the most high, most excellent, and most Chrysten Pryncess, Jane, Quene of England, and of France, Lady of Ireland, and mother of the most noble and puyssant Prynce Edward; which deceasyd at Hampton Courte, the xxixth yere of the reigne of our most dread Soveraigne Lord Kyng Henry the eight, her most dearest husband, the xxiiiith day of Octobre, beyng Wedynsday, at nyght, xii of the clock; which departyng was the twelf day after the byrthe of the said Prynce her Grace beying in childbed." By this document it is fixed on the second Wednesday after the birth of the prince, on the morning of which day, the abovementioned letter of her physicians was undoubtedly written, as the ministering of the holy unction would show that her death was fast approaching.

The remains of Jane Seymour were conveyed with great solemnity to Windsor, and interred in the choir of St. George's Chapel, on the 12th of November. The following epitaph was inscribed to her memory:—

 
Phoenix Jana iacet, nato Phoenice dolendum,
Secala Phoenices nulla tulisse duas.
 

Of which Fuller gives this quaint translation—

 
Soon as her Phoenix Bud was blown,
Root-Phoenix Jane did wither,
Sad, that no age a brace had shown
Of Phoenixes together.
 

The funeral rites were solemnized according to the forms of the Catholic faith. The original letter ¹⁸ from Richard Gresham to the Lord Privy Seal, dated "Thurssdaye the viiith day of Novbr." is still preserved, proposing that a solemn dirge, and masses should be said for the soul of the late Queen Jane, in St. Paul's, in presence of the Mayor, Alderman, and Commoners, which were accordingly performed, as appears from the following passage in Holinshed:—"There was a solemne hearse made for her in Paule's Church, and funerall exequies celebrated, as well as in all other churches within the Citie of London." ¹⁹

S.I.B.