Born: Nicholas Sanson, geographer, 1599, Abbeville;
Samuel, Viscount Hood, British admiral, 1724, Butley, Somersetshire; Dr.
Erasmus Darwin, poet and
physiologist, 1731, Elston, near Newark; Sir William Beechey, artist, 1753;
Archduchess Maria Louisa,
second wife of Napoleon, 1791.
Died: Darius Nothus, of Persia, 405 B.C.; Henry St.
John, Viscount Bolingbroke, political and philosophical writer, 1751, Battersea;
Colley Cibber,
dramatist, 1757, Islington; Sir Mark Isamhard Brunel, engineer of Thames Tunnel,
1849, London.
Feast Day: Saints Epimachus, Alexander, and others,
martyrs, 250. St. Corentin, bishop and confessor, 5th century.
St. Columba, abbot in Ireland,
548. St. Finian, or Finan, confessor, bishop of Clonard, in Ireland,
6th century. St.
Cormac, abbot in Ireland. St. Valery, abbot, 622. St. Colman, abbot in Ireland,
659. St. Eadburge, abbess of Menstrey, in Thanet, 751.
THE
TWO EMPRESSES, JOSEPHINE AND MARIA LOUISA
An historical parallel has sometimes been drawn between Queen
Catharine and the Empress Josephine: the one having been
divorced by Henry VIII, in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn; and the other
divorced by the Emperor
Napoleon, in order that he
might marry the Arch-duchess Maria Louisa. But, beyond these points of
similarity, the parallel
fails. Henry sought to throw a stigma on her of whom he was tired as a wife;
Napoleon had political reasons only for what he did. Josephine bowed meekly to
her fate; but Catharine
felt keenly that she was an injured woman. A little has been said, in a former
article, concerning a prophecy or
fortune-teller's story to which Josephine gave credence; but
something may be added here relating more nearly to Maria Louisa.
In 1809, Napoleon was approaching the zenith of his power.
His conquests had made nearly all the sovereigns of Europe suppliants for his
favour. Austria had
long held out, but the terrible defeat at Wagram had brought her, too, into
subjection. Napoleon's ambition, never satisfied, sought for still more and more
of the adjuncts of
imperial power. He had married a lady with no royal blood in her veins, and by
this lady he had no child to inherit his imperial throne; thus a double reason
was afforded to a man
of his character for getting rid of his poor wife. And, in addition, the French
themselves were uneasy at the future prospects of their country, in the event of
the emperor dying
without issue. M. Thiers, though a glorifier of Napoleon, does not hide the real
character of the line of conduct adopted by him on this occasion. On the
26th of October
1809, Napoleon stated his views to the Chancellor Cambac�r�s:
'He loved that old companion of his life, Josephine,' says
the historian, 'though he was not scrupulously faithful to her, and it wrung
his heart to part
from her; but, as his popularity declined, he liked to suppose that it was not
his fault, but the want of a future, which menaced his glorious throne with
premature decay. To
consolidate what he felt trembling under his feet, was his engrossing thought;
if a new wife were chosen, obtained, placed in the Tuileries, and became the
mother of a male heir,
the faults which had set all the world against him might, perchance, be
disarmed of their consequences. It was well, no doubt, to have an indisputable
heir; but better, a
hundredfold better, would it have been to be prudent and wise! However this
may be, Napoleon, who, notwithstanding his want of a son, at the zenith of his
glory and power after
Tilsit, had been unable to bring himself to sacrifice Josephine, now at last
resolved to do so; because he felt the empire shaken, and was about to seek,
in a new marriage, the
security which he ought to have derived from an able and moderate course of
conduct.'
Cambac�r�s ventured to urge that the proceeding was in
various ways objectionable; but Napoleon haughtily silenced him. The emperor had
long before secretly
sounded Alexander concerning an alliance with the House of Russia. On the
9th of December, at a painful interview between Napoleon, Josephine,
and her son and daughter
by her first marriage, the separation was agreed upon�the inflexible will of the
emperor overbearing all opposition. On the 15th, the civil contract
of marriage was
formally dissolved, in presence of most of the emperor's relations; and a
conclave of obsequious bishops soon afterwards found arguments for annulling the
spiritual or religious
marriage. Meanwhile negotiations were going on between Napoleon and Alexander
for the marriage of the former to the Princess Anna of Russia, the Emperor
Alexander's sister. Austria
and Saxony had each thrown out hints that an alliance with the great military
conqueror would be acceptable; and as there was some hesitation on the part of
Russia, Napoleon
suddenly changed his plan, and, on the 5th of February 1810, demanded
in marriage the youthful Archduchess Maria Louisa of Austria.
The demand was eagerly responded to by the court of Vienna,
and the lady herself seems to have urged no objection. M. Thiers states that the
emperor,
Francis II, delighted at the prospect, nevertheless desired that the wishes of
his daughter should be consulted, and sent M. Metternich to tell her the news.
'The young princess was eighteen, of a good figure,
excellent health, and a fair German complexion. She had been carefully
educated, had some talent, and
a placid temper; in short, the qualities desirable in a mother. She was
surprised and pleased, far from being dismayed, at going into that France
where, but lately, the
revolutionary monster devoured kings; and where a conqueror, now mastering the
revolutionary monster, made kings tremble in his turn. She accepted with
becoming reserve, but with
much delight, the brilliant lot offered to her. She consented to become the
consort of Napoleon, and mother to the heir of the greatest empire in the
world.'
A marriage by proxy took place in Vienna on the
11th of March; a civil marriage at St. Cloud on the 1st of
April; and a final
spiritual marriage at the Tuileries on the 2nd.
Maria Louisa became a mother in due course, and Napoleon
seems to have had no particular affection for her in any other light. She was a
princess of neutral
or negative qualities, kind in private life, but a little embarrassed when her
husband wished her to take the lead in splendid court-ceremonies. Poor
Josephine, of course, was not
likely to be brought into her society. There was nearly thirty years' difference
in their ages (Josephine was born June 24th, 1763, and Maria Louisa
December 12th,
1791); and still more difference in their antecedents. Both empresses were alike
in this, they ceased to be empresses while Napoleon was still alive; though
Maria Louisa succeeded
still in retaining a certain rank, being made Duchess of Parma by the allies,
after the fall of Bonaparte.
BRUNEL
Mark Isambard Brunel was born at Hacqueville, a few miles
from Rouen, in 1769�that notable year which gave to the world Napoleon and
Wellington, Humboldt
and envier. Like so many other inventors, Brunel displayed from childhood a
passion for
construction. His father, who was a prosperous farmer, determined to make him a
priest; but Mark shewed no inclination whatever for literary studies, devoting
his attention to
drawing, mathematics, and mechanics, and amusing himself in making boats,
clocks, and musical instruments, while a carpenter's shop was to him a paradise.
There was little gained
by contending with such impulses, and Brunel, having been allowed in 1786 to
enter the navy, made several voyages to the West Indies. In 1793, his ship was
paid off, and happening
shortly afterwards to visit Paris, he imprudently, in a moment of excitement,
made a royalist speech at a political club, and was counselled to seek safety in
flight. He escaped to
Rouen, and sailed for New York, where he was naturalised as an American citizen.
He found easy and abundant employment as an engineer; and was appointed to make
a survey for a
canal between Lake Champlain and the Hudson, to design and build a theatre in
New York, and to plan the defence and fortification of that city. There was
every reason for him to
remain in the United States, but whilst at Rouen he had made the acquaintance of
Sophia Kingdom, an English lady, for whose sake he
abandoned his
professional prospects. In 1799, he accordingly recrossed the Atlantic, settled
in England, and married.
The story of Brunel's life,for years hereafter, is comprised
in a list of inventions over which he bestowed a world of pains and anxiety, but
from which he
reaped little beyond a bare subsistence. One of the most useful was a plan for
making block-pulleys for ships by machinery. It was adopted by the government in
1803, and he was
employed to carry it into execution in the dock-yard at Portsmouth. The
ingenuity of the contrivance was not less remarkable than the accuracy and
economy with which its operations
were performed. It comprises, so to speak, sixteen different machines, all
driven by the same steam-power; seven of which cut and shape logs of elm or ash
into the shells of blocks
of any required size, while nine fashion stems of lignrun-vitae into pulleys or
sheaves, and form the iron pin, on the insertion of which the block is complete.
Four men with this
machine turn out as many blocks as fourscore did formerly; and although 1500
blocks are required in the rigging of a single ship of the line, the supply has
never failed even in
time of war; and sixty years' experience has suggested scarcely an improvement
on Brunel's original design.
The service he thus rendered to the navy he endeavoured to
repeat for the army, in devising machinery for the manufacture of shoes, in
which pins took the
place of thread, so that the rubbish supplied by rascally contractors might be
superseded. The peace of 1815 removed the pressing necessity for great numbers
of soldiers' shoes,
and it was reserved for American enterprise to develop into commercial practice
shoe-making by machinery. The circular-saw, worked by the steam-engine, was
brought to its present
high degree of force and efficiency by Brunel, and the saw-mill in Chatham
dock-yard was erected under his care. He devised a machine for twisting cotton
and forming it into balls;
another for hemming and stitching; another for knitting; another for copying
letters; another for ruling paper; another for nail-making; another for making
wooden boxes; a
hydraulic packing press; besides new methods and combinations for
suspension-bridges, and a process for building wide and flat arches without
centerings. He was employed in the
construction of the first Ramsgate steamer, and was the first to suggest the use
of steam-tugs to the Admiralty. At the playful request of Lady Spencer, he
produced a machine for
shuffling cards. The cards were placed in a box, a handle was turned, and in a
few seconds the sides flew open, and presented the pack divided into four parts,
thoroughly mixed.
This enumeration may give some idea of the versatility of Brunel's inventive
powers, but he lacked mercantile faculty whereby to turn them to pecuniary
advantage. In 1821, he was
actually imprisoned for debt, and was only released by a vote of �5000 from
government.
In the construction of an engine with carbonic acid gas for
the motive-power, Brunel, assisted by his son, spent nearly fifteen years and
�15,000 in
experiments. They overcame most of the mechanical difficulties�they obtained an
intense power at a low temperature�and the hopes of the scientific and
commercial worlds were alike
strongly excited; but in the end they had to confess a failure, and admit, 'that
the effect of any given amount of caloric on gaseous bodies was not greater than
that produced by
the expansion of water into steam;' and that, therefore, 'the practical
application of condensed gases, including common air, was not so advantageous as
that derived from the
expansive force of steam.'
The great enterprise by which Brunel became popularly
distinguished, was the Thames Tunnel. Two or three attempts had been made to
connect the shores of
Essex and Kent by a subaqueous passage, but all had failed. One day, when Brunel
was passing through the dock-yard at Chatham, his eye was caught by a piece of
ship-timber
perforated by the destructive worm�the Teredo Navalis; and the study of its mode
of operation suggested the construction of a cast-iron shield, which should bore
like an auger by
means of strong hydraulic screws, while as fast as the earth was cut away,
bricklayers should be at hand to replace it with an arch. He patented the plan,
and revived the project
of a road under the Thames. In 1824, a Thames Tunnel Company was formed, and in
1825, the work commenced, and was pursued through many difficulties from
explosions of gas and
irruptions of water, until 1828. At the beginning of that year about 600 feet
were completed, when, on the 12th of January, the river broke
through, six men were
drowned, and Brunel's son, also so distinguished in after-days as an engineer,
only escaped by being washed up the shaft. The tunnel was emptied, but the funds
of the company were
exhausted. In an 'Ode to M. Brunel,' Hood wrote:
Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on the shelf:
But thy concern was at the worst
When it began to liquidate itself.'
For seven years, until 1835, work was suspended, when, at the
solicitation of the Duke of Wellington, government advanced the company, on
loan, �246,000. At
last the entire 1200 feet, from Wapping to Rotherhithe, were completed, and on
the 25th of March 1843 the tunnel was opened to the public. Brunel
was knighted by the
Queen, and his fame was borne to the ends of the earth. As an engineer, the work
reflected great credit on him, but commercially it was a failure. It cost
well-nigh �500,000, and
the tolls produce annually something less than �5000, a sum barely sufficient to
keep the tunnel in repair. If it were possible to complete the original design,
and open it as a
carriage-way, the revenue would be enormously increased; but in order to do so,
it is estimated that �180,000 would be required to construct the necessary
approaches.
Brunel died in 1849, in his eighty-first year, leaving behind
him a son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who fully inherited his father's genius.
Brunel was a
little man, with a head so large, that an Irishman once said, 'Why that man's
face is all head!' Many amusing anecdotes are told of his blunders during his
moods of inventive
abstraction; as, for instance, caressing a lady's hand, who sat next him at
table, thinking it his wife's; forgetting his own name, and handing in other
people's cards at houses he
visited; and getting into wrong coaches, and travelling long distances ere he
discovered his mistake. At other times he shewed rare presence of mind. Once
when inspecting the
Birmingham railway, trains, to the horror of the bystanders, were observed to
approach from opposite directions. Brunel, seeing retreat to be impossible,
buttoned his coat, brought
the skirts close round him, and placing himself firmly between the two lines of
rail, the trains swept past, and left him unscathed.
PRAISE-GOD
BAREBONES' PARLIAMENT
When Charles I had been put to death
by the Revolutionists, on the 30th January 1649,
the nation was governed, for four or five years, by the parliament, more or less
under the control of the successful military leaders. Circumstances gave these
military leaders
more and more influence; for, owing to the contentions of Royalists,
Presbyterians, Levellers, Covenanters, Fifth - Monarchy Men, Antinomians, and
other parties, the civil power
was very much distracted. Cromwell soon gained an ascendency over all the other
active men of the day, on account both of his military successes, and of the
force of his character
generally. After the battle of Worcester (September 3rd, 1651), and
the flight of Charles
II, Cromwell made
gradual strides towards supreme power. The parliament grew jealous of him and
the army, and he jealous of their preference for the navy. At length, on April
20th, 1653,
he forcibly dissolved that celebrated parliament, known in history as the Long
Parliament: a most violent proceeding, which made him practically dictator over
the whole kingdom.
Cromwell, in his self-assumed capacity as 'captain-general
and commander-in-chief of all the armies and forces raised and to be raised
within this
commonwealth,' summoned a sort of parliament, by an order dated June 6: the
parliament or council to consist of persons nominated by him, and not elected by
the people. A hundred
and forty of these summonses were issued, and all but two of the persons
summoned attended. Bulstrode expressed wonder, when recording these events, that
so many persons of
good-fortune and education accepted the summons from such a man as Oliver. Mr.
Carlyle comments on Bulstrode's perplexity, and on the constitution of the
assembly generally, in one
of his most characteristic passages:
'My disconsolate friend, it is a sign that Puritan England,
in general, accepts this action of Cromwell and his officers, and thanks them
for it, in such
a case of extremity; saying, as audibly as the means permitted: Yea, we did
wish it so! Rather mournful to the disconsolate official mind! Lord Clarendon,
again, writing with
much latitude, has characterised this convention as containing in it
"divers gentlemen who had estates, and such a proportion of credit in the
world as might give some colour to
the business;" but consisting, on the whole, of a very miserable beggarly
sort of persons, acquainted with nothing but the art of praying;
"artificers of the meanest trades," if
they even had any trade: all which the reader shall, if he please, add to the
general guano-mountains, and pass on, not regarding. The undeniable fact is,
these men were, as
Whitelock intimates, a quite respectable assembly; got together by anxious
"consultation of the godly clergy," and chief Puritan lights in
their respective counties; not without
much earnest revision, and solemn consideration in all kinds, on the part of
men adequate enough for such a work, and desirous enough to do it well.
The list of the assembly exists; not yet entirely gone dark for mankind. A
fair proportion of them still recognisable to mankind. Actual peers one or
two: founders of peerage
families, two or three, which still exist among us�Colonel Edward Montague, Colonel Charles Howard, Anthony
Ashley Cooper. And better than kings'
peers, certain peers of nature; whom, if not the king and his pasteboard
Norroys have had the lack to make peers of, the living heart of England has
since raised to the peerage,
and means to keep there�Colonel Robert Blake, the Sea-King, for one.
"Known persons, I do think, of approved integrity, men fearing God; and
perhaps not entirely destitute of
sense any one of them! Truly it seems rather a distinguished parliament�even
though Mr. Praise-God Barebone, the leather merchant in Fleet Street, be, as
all mortals must admit,
a member of it.
The fault, I hope, is forgivable? Praise-God, though he deals in leather, and
has a name which can be misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents;
to be himself a man
of piety, of understanding, and weight�and even of considerable private
capital, my witty funky friends! We will leave Praise-God to do the best he
can, I think.�And old Francis
Rouse is there from Devonshire; once member for Truro; provost of Eton
College; whom by-and-by they make speaker; whose psalms the northern kirks
will sing. Richard, mayor of
Hursley, is there, and even idle Dick Norton;
Alexander Jaffray of Aberdeen, Laird Swinton of the College of Justice in
Edinburgh; Alderman Ireton,
brother of the late Lord Deputy, colleague of Praise-God in London. In fact, a
real assembly of the notables in Puritan England; a parliament, parliamentum,
a real speaking
apparatus for the now dominant interest in England, as exact as could well be
got �much more exact, I suppose, than any ballot-box, free hustings, or
ale-barrel election usually
yields. Such is the assembly called the Little Parliament, and wittily
Barebones' Parliament. Their witty name survives; but their history is gone
all dark
This was, indeed, a little parliament of only five months'
duration. Hume casts unsparing
ridicule on its
proceedings; Carlyle praises it, saying that its mission was 'to introduce
Christianity into private life.' It failed. 'No wonder,' says Carlyle. Fearful
impediments lay against
that effort of theirs: the sluggishness, the half-and-half-ness, the greediness,
the cowardice, the general opacity of ten million men against it�alas, the whole
world, and what we
call the devil and all his angels, against it!! Considerable angels, human and
others.'
Cromwell found his Little Parliament often going beyond his
wishes in reform; and at length a bill to abolish tithes, because the clergy
were lazy. and
another to abolish the Court of Chancery, raised such a storm against them that
Cromwell was glad to get rid of them. By a sort of party-manoeuvre, on December
12th, the
parliament voted its own death, in a resolution: 'That the sitting of this
parliament any longer, as now constituted, will not be for the good of the
commonwealth; and that
therefore it is requisite to deliver up unto the Lord-general Cromwell the
powers which we received from him.' The minority insisted on maintaining 'a
house,' and continued the
sittings with a new speaker. But General Harrison entered with a few soldiers,
and asked what they were doing. 'We are seeking the Lord,' said they. 'Then you
may go elsewhere,'
said he: 'for to my certain knowledge, He has not been here these many years.'
Thus the 'Barebones' Parliament' died: four days afterwards, Oliver Cromwell
became Protector.
THE TRADESCANTS
The following lines are inscribed upon a tomb in Lambeth
churchyard:
Know, stranger, are thou pass; beneath this stone,
Lye John Tradescant, grandsire, father, son;
The last dy'd in his spring; the other two
Lived till they had travelled Art and Nature through,
As by their choice collections may appear,
Of what is rare, in land, in sea, in air;
Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut)
A world of wonders in one closet shut.
These famous antiquarians that had been
Both Gardeners to the Rose and Lily Queen,
Transplanted now themselves, sleep here; and when
Angels shall with their trumpets waken men,
And fire shall purge the world, these hence shall rise
And change this garden for a paradise.'
The grandsire of the above epitaph came of Flemish origin.
After travelling through Europe and in the East, he settled in England; and was
at one time
gardener to the Duke of Buckingham, and afterwards to Charles I. He formed a
large 'physic garden' at South Lambeth, and was the means of introducing many
plants into this country.
So ardent was he in the acquisition of rarities, that he is said to have joined
an expedition against the Algerine corsairs, in order to obtain a new sort of
apricot from North
Africa, which was known thence as the Algier apricot. He was also an
enthusiastic collector of curiosities, with which he filled his house, and
earned for it the popular name of 'Tradeskin's
Ark.' He died at an advanced age, in 1652 or 1653.
His son, another John Tradescant, followed in his father's
footsteps. In 1656, he published a catalogue of his collection under the title
of Museum
Tradescantianum. From this we learn that it was indeed a multifarious
assemblage of strange things�stuffed animals and birds, chemicals, dyeing
materials, idols, weapons,
clothes, coins, medals, musical instruments, and relics of all sorts. We here
enumerate a few of the strangest articles�'Easter eggs of the patriarchs of
Jerusalem; two feathers of
the phoenix tayle; claw of the bird Roc, who, as authors report, is able to
truss an elephant; a natural dragon above two inches long; the Dodad, from the
isle of Mauritius, so big
as not to be able to fly; the bustard, as big as a turkey, usually taken by
greyhounds on Newmarket Heath; a cow's tail from Arabia; half a hazel-nut, with
seventy pieces of
household stuff in it; a set of chessmen in a peppercorn; landskips, stories,
trees, and figures, cut in paper by some of the emperors; a trunnion of Drake's
ship; knife wherewith
Hudson was killed in Hudson's Bay; Anna Bullen's night-vail; Edward the
Confessor's gloves.'
In Ashmole's diary, under date 12th
December 1659, occurs this entry:
'Mr Tradescant and his wife told me they had long been
considering upon whom to bestow their closet of curiosities when they died,
and at last resolved to
give it unto me.'
Tradescant died in 1672, and bequeathed his house to Ashmole,
who, after some litigation with his friend's widow, took possession of the ark
in 1674. The
collection was left by Ashmole to the university of Oxford, and was the nucleus
of the museum bearing his name.
In May 1747, Sir W. Watson visited the long neglected garden
of Tradescant, and found it entirely grown over with weeds, with which, however,
a few of the
old gardener's favourites yet struggled for life. Among them were 'two trees of
the arbutus, the largest which I have seen, which from their being so long used
to our winters, did
not suffer by the severe colds of 1729 and 1740, when most of their kind were
killed throughout England.'
