sity, that they offered the marshal's widow eighty thousand livres for it; but the duchess refused it, saying, that from the reverence and respect in which she held the memory of her husband, she could not part with it for less than 150,000 livres !

LINES BY HENRY VIII.

THE eagle's force subdues each bird that flies:
What metal can resist the flaming fire?
Doth not the sun dazzle the clearest eyes,

And melt the ice, and make the frost retire?
The hardest stones are pierced through with tools,
The wisest are, with princes, made but fools.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH HISTORY.

ABOUT thirty years ago, Mr. Lodge published a work, which he intitled, "Illustrations of British History." It consists of a series of letters, written between the reign of Henry VIII. and that of James I., selected from the manuscripts of the families of Howard, Talbot, and Cecil. Considering how much history may be illustrated by such documents, it is to be regretted, that the treasures in the British Museum, are not more frequently applied to that purpose than they are; and particularly that the three volumes of Historical Letters, collected and transcribed by Dr. Birch, have never been given to the public. As a proof of the value of such collections, it may only be necessary to enumerate few of the historical facts ascertained by the letters published by Mr. Lodge. They prove, among other things,

That the article of gunpowder, which Baker, and other writers, insisted was not made till the reign of Elizabeth, had been manufactured as early as the reign of Henry the Seventh;

That instructions were issued by king Henry the Eighth, for raising money from his subjects by" loving contributions;" probably the same kind of oppressive exactions as the patriotic contributions" of the French, at the commencement of the Revolution;

That in the time of Edward the Sixth, the houses in London, belonging to the suppressed monasteries, sold at

fifteen years' purchase, which, for that time, was a good price;

That wine was much used in those days, and among other purposes for bathing;

That the earls of Shrewsbury and Leicester, lord Burleigh, and other noblemen, were engaged in trade, particularly in such articles as were the produce of their mines and estates;

And that the courtiers of that period could feel and express a spirit of independence, when occasion required. The earl of Sussex writes to lord Burleigh, "Sooner than be a camelion, and yield no other shew than as it shall please others to give the colour, I will content myself to live a private life." Addison gives a similar sentiment to his hero in the tragedy of Cato.

Such are a few of the curious facts which these papers bring to light.

WASHINGTON ON A MARRIED LIFE.

THE following elegant letter, on a very interesting subject, from the pen of the celebrated Washington, has been communicated to the present collector by a learned American, It has not, he believes, appeared before in any European publication.

Letter from General Washington to the Marquis de Chastellux Mount Vernon, April 25th, 1788.

My dear Marquis,

In reading your friendly and acceptable letter of the 21st December, 1787, which came to hand by last mail, I was, as you may well suppose, not less delighted than surprised, to come across that plain American word " my wife." A wife! Well, my dear marquis, I can hardly refrain from smiling, to find you are caught at last. I saw, by the eulogium you often made on the happiness of domestic life in America, that you had swallowed the bait, and that you would, as sure as you are a philosopher and a soldier, be taken, one day or other. So your day has at length come. I am glad of it with all my life and soul. It is good enough for you: now you are so well served for coming to fight in favour of the American rebels

all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, by catching that terrible contagion, which, like the small-pox or the plague, a man can only have once in his life, because it commonly lasts him (at least with us in America: I don't know how you manage these matters in France) for his life-time. And yet, after all the maledictions you so richly merit on the subject, the worst wish I can find it in my heart to make against Madame de Chastellux and yourself, is, that you may neither of you get the better of this domestic felicity during the course of your mortal existence.

If so wonderful an event should have occasioned me, my

dear marquis, to have written in a strange style, you will understand me as clearly as if I had said, (what, in plain English, is simple truth); do me the justice to believe, that I take heartfelt interest in whatever concerns your happiness; and in this view, I sincerely congratulate you on your auspicious matrimonial connexion.

I am happy to find that Madame de Chastellux is so immediately connected with the Duchess of Orleans, as I have always understood that this noble lady was an illustrious pattern of connubial love, as well as an excellent model of virtue in general.

While you have been making love under the banner of Hymen, the great personages of the north have been making war under the inspiration, or rather the infatuation of Mars. Now, for my part, I humbly conceive you had much the best and wisest of the bargain; for certainly it is more consonant to all the principles of reason and religion (natural and revealed) to replenish the earth with inhabitants, rather than depopulate it by killing those already in existence; besides, it is time for the age of knight-errantry and mad heroism to

be at an end.

Your young military men, who want to reap the harvest of laurels, don't care, I suppose, how many seeds of war are sown; but, for the sake of humanity, it is devoutly to be wished, that the manly employment of agriculture, and the humanizing benefits of commerce, should supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; that the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and, as the Scriptures express it," the nations learn war

no more."

I will now give you a little news from this side of the Atlantic, and then finish. As for us, we are plodding on in the dark road of peace and politics. We, who live in these ends of the earth, only hear of the rumours of war, like the roar of distant thunder. It is to be hoped our remote

local situation will prevent us from being swept into its

vortex.

The constitution, which was proposed by the federal convention, has been adopted by the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. No state has rejected it. The convention of Maryland is now sitting, and will probably adopt it, as that of South Carolina will do in May. The other conventions will assemble early in the summer. Hitherto, there has been much greater unanimity in favour of the proposed government than could have been reasonably expected.

Should it be adopted (and I think it will be), America will lift up her head again, and in a few years become respectable among the nations. It is a flattering and consolatory reflection, that our rising republic has the good wishes of all philosophers, patriots and virtuous men, in all nations; and that they look upon it as a kind of asylum for mankind. God grant that we may not be disappointed in our honest expectations by our folly and perverseness!

With sentiments of the purest attachment and esteem, I have the honour to be, my dear marquis, your most obedient and humble servant,

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

P.S. If the duke de Lauzun is still with you, I beg you will thank him, in my name, for his kind remembrance of me, and make my compliments to him.

May 1st.-Since writing the above, I have been favoured with a duplicate of your letter, in the hand-writing of a lady, and cannot close this without acknowledging my obligations to the flattering postcript of the fair transcriber. In effect, my dear marquis, the characters of this interpreter of your sentiments are so much fairer than those through which I have been accustomed to decipher them, that I already consider myself as no small gainer by your matrimonial connexion; especially as I hope that your amiable amanuensis will not forget, sometimes, to add a few annotations of her own to your original text.

G. W.

VERSES WRITTEN IN SHORT HAND UPON THE BACK OF A THOUSAND POUND BANK NOTE.

THE following effusion is from the pen of a banker's clerk, who, about forty years ago, was well known in Lombard Street by the familiar name of JEMMY TAYLOR. He has been dead many years, and it is the only production that can with any degree of certainty be traced to him.

What strange vicissitudes of fate,

What change of masters and of state,

This poor bank note has known!-
From Thompson's* hand, in trim so neat,
'Twas kick'd about in Lombard Street,
And made to scour the town.

My lord demands the bargain'd price,
Away to Charing Cross it flies,
His balance to augment;

With mouldy bonds and legal pow'rs,
It pass'd away some peaceful hours,
In iron durance pent:

From hence, too soon, alas! 'twas torn,
In Stephen's grasping clutches borne,
By Fate's unkind decree;

But how it shock'd Britannia's + pride!
Besides, 'tis om'nous to reside

So near the fatal tree. ‡

Here, barter'd for a pigmy race,
It skulk'd within some runner's § case,
A long and tedious round;
Through many a court, and many a square,
From Jermyn Street || to Temple Bar,
And to its native ground.

*The cashier who signed it, Thompson.

+ Alluding to the figure of Britannia in the corner of the bank-notes.

The fatal tree was some sign, which it was then customary for bankers to have. The house of Smith, Wright, and Gray, in Lombard Street, was known by the sign of the "Three Kings," and another, in Cornhill, the "Bunch of Grapes;" and even now there are bankers in the Strand and Fleet Street, whose original signs of the Anchor, and the Leathern Bottle, were, not long ago, remaining.

§ A "banker's runner" was then the term for one who is now chiefly employed in presenting bills, &c. for payment.

In Jermyn Street was the house of Graham and Co. eminent bankers.