THE GERMAN PRINCESS. THE BOOK OF DAYS. THE EMPEROR DOMITIAN. Lady,' Madame Mary Carleton, which concludes those who came against her for want of wit, and those 'Her most illustrious worth Through all impediments of hate brake forth; Which her detracters sought within a prison T eclipse, whereby her fame's the higher risen. As gems i'th dark do cast a brighter ray Than when cbstructed by the rival day; So did the lustre of her mind appear Through this obscure condition, more clear. And when they thought by bringing to the bar To gain her public shame, they raised her far More noble trophies-she being cleared quite Both by her innocence and excellent wit.' Mr Carleton, however, refused to acknowledge his wife, and published his Ultima Vak, in which, after abusing her to his heart's content, he grows sentimental, and indites a poetical farewell to his perjured Maria; whose next appearance before the public was as an actress in a play founded upon her own adventures. Mr Pepys records: 15 April 1664-To the Duke's House, and there saw The German Princess acted by the woman herself; but never was anything so well done in earnest, worse performed in jest upon the stage. The theatre falling her, Mary Carleton took to thieving, was detected, tried, and sentenced to transportation to Jamaica By discovering a plot against the life of the captain of the convict-ship, she obtained her liberty upon arriving at Port Royal, but becoming tired of West-Indian life, she contrived to find her way back to England, and resumed her old life. For some time she appears to have done so with impunity, in one case succeeding in getting clear off with 4000 worth of property belonging to a watchmaker. The manner of her arrest was curious. A brewer, named Freeman, having been robbed, employed Low-; man, a keeper of the Marshalsea, to trace out the thieves. With this object in view, Lowman called at a house in New Spring Gardens, and there spied a gentlewoman walking in one of the rooms, two pair of stairs high, in her night gown, with her maid waiting upon ber. He presently enters the room, and spies three letters lying upon the table, casts his eye upon the superscription of one of them, directed to a prisoner of his; upon which the lady began to abuse him in no measured terms, and so drew him to look at her more closely than he had done, and thereby recognise her as Mrs Carleton. He at once took her into custody for the watch-robbery; she was tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty, and sentenced to death. She was executed at Tyburn on the 22 of January 1672-3, with five young men, who could not, among them all, complete the number of 120 years' She made a short exhortation to the people, sent some words of good advice to her husband, whose portrait she placed in her bosom at the last moment. Her body was given up to her friends, by whom it was interred in the churchyard of St Martin's and thus says her biographer, exit German Princess, in the thirty-eighth year of her age, and the same month she was born in.' In Luttrell's Collection of Eulogies and Flegies, there is preserved an Elegie on the famous and renowned HEB EPITAPH Here Beth one was hurried bence, Then let her sleep, for she hath wit SEPTEMBER 18. St Ferreol, martyr, about 304 St Methodius, bishop of Tyre, martyr, 4th century. St Thomas of Villanova, confessor, archbishop of Valentia, 1555. St Joseph of Capertina, confessor, 1663. Born-Trajan Roman Emperor, 55 D.; Gilbert, Bishop Barnet, historian, 1649, Edinburgh; William Collins, artist, 1787, London Died-Domitian, Roman emperor, slain 96 AD; Louis VIL of France, 1180, Paris; Hugo Vander Goes, Flemish painter, 1684; Matthew Prior, poet, 1721, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire; André Dacier, classic commentator, 1722, Paris; Olaf Swartz, eminent botanist, 1817, Stockholm; William Hazlit, miscellaneous writer, 1830; Joseph Locke, eminent engineer, 1860, Mejat. THE EMPEROR DOMITIAN. The obituary for this day includes the name of one of those monsters, who disgrace so frequently the annals of the ancient Roman empire. On 18th September, 96 A. D, the Emperor Domitian was assassinated by a band of conspirators, after having rendered himself for many years the terror and detestation of his subjects. The son of Vespasian, and the brother and successor of Titus, he exhibited in the commencement of his reign a great show of righteous severity, and came forward as a reformer of public morals. Several persons who had transgressed the laws of conjugal fidelity, as well as some vestal virgins who had violated their Vows, were punished with death. It was not long, however, before his real character shewed itself, and he became a disgrace to humanity by his acts of cruelty and avarice. Cowardice and falsehood entered largely into his disposition, which, if we are to credit all the accounts that have descended to us, seems to have scarcely had a redeeming point. Multitudes of persons were put to death, either because the emperor desired their wealth, or from his having become apprehensive of their popularity or influence. Secret informers were encouraged, but philosophers and literary men were slaughtered or banished, though Martial and Silius Italicus could so far degrade poetry, as make it the vehicle for flattery of the imperial monster. favourite amusement of his, it is said, was killing flies in which he would spend whole hours, and nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than A to witness the effects of terror on his fellow-creatures. On one occasion, he invited formally the members of the senate to a grand feast, and caused them on their arrival to be ushered into a large hall. hung with black and lighted with funeral torches, such as only served to exhibit to the awestruck guests an array of coffins, on which each read his own name Whilst they contemplated this ghastly spectacle, a troop of horrid forms, habited like furies, burst into the apartment, each with a lighted torch in one hand, and a poniard in the other. After having terrified for some time the members of Rome's legislative body, these demonmasqueraders opened the door of the hall, through which the senators were only too happy to make a speedy exit. Who can doubt that the character of Domitian had as much of the madman as the wretch in its composition? At length human patience was exhausted, and a conspiracy was formed for his destruction, in which his wife and some of his nearest friends were concerned. For a long time, the emperor had entertained a presentiment of his approaching end, and even of the hour and manner of his death. Becoming every day more and more fearful, he caused the galleries in which he walked to be lined with polished stones, so that he might see, as in a mirror, all that passed behind him. He never conversed with prisoners but alone and in secret, and it was his practice whilst he talked with them, to hold their chains in his hands. To inculcate on his servants a dread of compassing the death of their master, even with his own consent, he caused Epaphroditus to be put to death, because he had assisted Nero to commit suicide. The evening before his death, some truffles were brought, which he directed to be laid aside till the next day, adding, "If I am there;' and then turning to his courtiers said, that the next day the moon would be made bloody in the sign of Aquarius, and an event would take place of which all the world should speak. In the middle of the night, he awoke in an agony of fear, and started from his bed. The following morning, he had a consultation with a soothsayer from Germany, regarding a flash of lightning; the seer predicted a revolution in the empire, and was forthwith ordered off to execution. In scratching a pimple on his forehead, Domitian drew a little blood, and exclaimed: "Too happy should I be were this to compensate for all the blood that I cause to be shed!' He asked what o'clock it was, and as he had a dread of the fifth hour, his attendants informed him that the sixth had arrived. On hearing this he appeared reassured, as if all danger were past, and he was preparing to go to the bath, when he was stopped by Parthenius, the principal chamberlain, who informed him that a person demanded to speak with him on momentous business of state. He caused every one to retire, and entered his private closet. Here he found the person in question waiting for him, and whilst he listened with terror to the pretended revelation of some secret plot against himself, he was stabbed by this individual, and fell wounded to the ground. A band of conspirators, including the distinguished veteran Clodianus, Maximus a freedman, and Saturius the decurion of the palace, rushed in and despatched him with seven blows of a dagger. He was in the forty-fifth year of his age, and fifteenth of his reign. On receiving intelligence of his death, the senate elected Nerva as his successor. LANDING OF GEORGE I. IN ENGLAND. The death of Queen Anne on the 1st of August 1714 had ended the dynasty of the Stuarts. Although she left a Tory ministry, understood to be well affected to the restoration of her brother LANDING OF GEORGE I. IN ENGLAND. James, the Pretender,' yet the parliamentary enactments for the succession of the House of Hanover, in accordance with the Protestant predilections of the people, were quietly carried out; and, on the 16th of September, the Elector of Hanover, now styled George I. of Great Britain, embarked for England, and landing at Greenwich two days after, in the evening, was there duly received by the lords of the Regency, who had been conducting the government since the queen's death. Next day, there was a great court held in the palace of Greenwich, at which the Lord Treasurer Oxford was barely permitted to kiss the king's hand, the Lord Chancellor Harcourt was turned out of office, and the Duke of Ormond was not even admitted to the royal presence. It was evident there was to be a complete change of administration under the new sovereign. What made the treatment experienced by Ormond the more galling, was that he had come in a style of uncommon splendour and parade as captain-general, to pay his respects to the king. Although George I., as a man of fifty-four years of age and a foreigner, was not calculated to awaken much popular enthusiasm, he was received next day in London with all external demonstrations of honour. Two hundred coaches of nobles and great officials preceded his own. The city authorities met him at St Margaret's Hill, Southwark, in all their paraphernalia, to congratulate him on his taking possession of his kingdoms. There can be no doubt, that of those present, with loyalty on their lips, there were many ill affected to the new house; and of this the zealous friends of the Protestant succession must have been well aware. At the court held that day in St James's, the Whig Colonel Chudleigh, branded with the name of Jacobite Mr Charles Aldworth, M.P. for New Windsor; and a duel ensued in Marylebone Fields, where Mr Aldworth was killed. So began a series of two reigns which were on the whole happy for England. The two monarchs were certainly men of a mediocre stamp, who had little power of engaging the affections of their subjects; but they had the good sense to leave the ministers who enjoyed the confidence of parliament to rule, contenting themselves with a quiet life amongst the mere routine matters of a court. Walpole relates that on one of George I's journeys to Hanover, his coach broke down. At a distance in view was the château of a considerable German nobleman. The king sent to borrow assistance. The possessor came, conveyed the king to his house, and begged the honour of his majesty accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and, while the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his majesty with a collection of pictures, which he had formed in several tours to Italy. But what did the king see in one of the rooms, but an unknown portrait of a person in the robe and with the regalia of the sovereigns of Great Britain? George asked whom it represented. The nobleman replied, with much diffident but decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome, he had been acquainted with the Chevalier de St George, who had done him the honour of sending him that picture. Upon my word,' said the king, instantly, it is very like to the family.' It was impossible to remove the embarrassment of the proprietor with more good-breeding. FIRST DISMEMBERMENT OF POLAND. THE BOOK OF DAYS. FIRST DISMEMBERMENT OF POLAND. The iniquitous partition of this country between the three powers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, was first accomplished on the 18th September 1772. For many years previous, the distracted condition of the kingdom had rendered it but too easy and tempting a prey to such ambitious and active neighbours as the Empress Catherine and Frederick the Great. A war was on the point of breaking out between Russia and Austria, and Prussia would have been unable to avoid being drawn into the conflict. It was the interest of Frederick at the time to preserve peace, and he accordingly sent his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, to St Petersburg, to endeavour to bring about an adjustment of matters. Some overtures made to Frederick by the Prince of Kaunitz at the conference of Neustadt, and some expressions which escaped from Catherine, had induced Prince Henry to form the idea that a dismemberment of Poland might satisfy the ambitious aspirations of all the potentates, and prevent the contingency of war. Austria, on her part, demanded that Russia should restore to the Turks the conquests which she had made from them during the late war, and insisted more especially on the reddition of Moldavia and Wallachia. Russia, on the other hand, far from shewing a disposition to be dictated to, claimed the right herself of exercising this privilege; and hostilities were about to commence, when Prince Henry of Prussia suggested to Catherine the project of dismembering Poland. The empress was at first astonished, and probably chagrined, at being expected to share with others what she already regarded as her own property. She condescended, nevertheless, after some reflection, to entertain the subject which had been mooted to her by the prince. It was agreed between them that Austria should be invited to accede to the arrangement; and in case of her refusing to do so, the king of Prussia engaged to furnish Russia with assistance against Austria. This last-mentioned power was at that moment in alliance with Turkey, and by acceding to the proposed partition, laid herself open to the resentment of France; but, finding herself obliged to choose between partition and war, deemed it most advisable to adopt the former alternative. The plenipotentiaries of the three courts signed at St Petersburg, on 5th August 1772, the formal stipulations of the Partition Treaty. In this document, the boundaries of the territories which should be assigned in the division to each of the three powers were settled and reciprocally guaranteed. The actual execution of the dismemberment was deferred to September, on the 18th of which month it was completed. The Empress of Russia, by the same convention, bound herself to restore Moldavia and Wallachia to Turkey. Since the previous year, the governments of Vienna and Berlin had been advancing their troops to the frontiers of Poland. The king of Prussia had carried off from Great Poland more than twelve thousand families, and sent them to people the barren sands of his hereditary territories. Austria had laid hold of the salt-mines, which supplied one of the most valuable sources of revenue to the FIRST DISMEMBERMENT OF POLAND. Polish crown. Soon a manifesto was handed to King Stanislaus and the senate by the Austrian and Prussian ministers, declaring that their respective sovereigns had come to the resolution to make available certain ancient rights which they possessed over a portion of the Polish territory. Some days afterwards the envoy of the Empress Catherine made a similar declaration on the part of his mistress. The three powers specified subsequently in individual notes the provinces which they desired to appropriate in virtue of their pretended rights, and in pursuance of this announcement proceeded forthwith to take possession. The king of Poland and his ministers protested in vain against this act of spoliation, and sought, but ineffectually, the assistance of those powers by whom the integrity of their territories had been assured. The leading powers of Western Europe, Great Britain and France, remained shamefully passive, and permitted a flagrant breach of the law of nations to be perpetrated almost without remon strance. Too feeble, then, to offer any effectual resistance, and finding no help in any quarter, the unfortunate Stanislaus was compelled to accede to any terms which the trio of crowned robbers chose to impose. A diet summoned at Warsaw appointed a commission to conclude with the plenipotentiaries of the three sovereigns the necessary treaty of dismemberment. The convention was signed at Warsaw, and afterwards ratified in the Polish diet. Of the territory thus seized and distributed, Austria received as her share about 1300 German square miles (15 to the degree), and a population of 700,000; Russia, 4157 square miles, and a popu lation of 3,050,000; and Prussia, 1060 square miles, and a population of 1,150,000. It included about a third of the whole kingdom, and some of its richest provinces. The three plunderers Catherine, Frederick, and Joseph-bound themselves in the most solemn manner to refrain from asserting any further claims on the provinces retained by Stanislaus. It is well known, however, how shamefully this compact was violated, and how, by a second partition in 1793, and a third in 1795, the remaining territories of Poland were divided between the three powers, her king deposed, and herself obliterated from the map of Europe. SEPTEMBER 19. St Januarius, bishop of Benevento, and his companions, martyrs, 305. Saints Peleus, Pa-Termuthes, and companions, martyrs, beginning of 4th century. St Eustochius, bishop of Tours, 461. St Sequanus or Seine, abbot, about 580. St Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, confessor, 690. St Lucy, virgin, 1090. Born.-Henry III. of France, 1551, Fontainebleau; divine, 1587, Rotherham, Yorkshire; Rev. William. Robert Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, and high-church Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux, 1779, Edinburgh. Kirby, entomologist, 1759, Witnesham Hall, Suffolk ; Died.-Charles Edward Poulett Thomson, Lord Sydenham, governor of Canada, 1841; Professor John P. Nichol, author of The Architecture of the Heavens, &c., 1859, Rothesay. THE BATTLE OF POITIERS. THE BATTLE OF POITIERS. SEPTEMBER 19. In THE BATTLE OF POITIERS. discharge of arrows. The English knights, with the prince at their head, next charged across the open plain upon the main body of the French army. A division of cavalry, under the Constable of France, for a time stood firm, but ere long was broken and dispersed, their leader and most of his knights being slain. A body of reserve, under the Duke of Orleans, fled shamefully without striking a blow. King John did his best to turn the fortune of the day, and, accompanied by his youngest son, Philip, a boy of sixteen, who fought by his side, he led up on foot a division of troops to the encounter. After having received two wounds in the face, and been thrown to the ground, he rose, and for a time defended himself manfully with his battle-axe against the crowd of assailants by whom he was surrounded. The brave monarch would certainly have been slain had not a French knight, named Sir Denis, who had been banished for killing a man in a fray, and in consequence joined the English service, burst through the press of combatants, and exclaimed to John in French: Sire, surrender.' The king, who now felt that his position was desperate, replied: "To whom shall I surrender? Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales?' 'He is not here,' answered Sir Denis; 'but surrender to me, and I will conduct you to him.' 'But who are you?' rejoined the king. 'Denis de Morbecque,' was the reply; 'a knight of Artois; but I serve the king of England because I cannot belong to France, having forfeited all I had there.' render to you,' said John, extending his right-hand glove; but this submission was almost too late to save his life, for the English were disputing with Sir Denis and the Gascons the honour of his capture, and the French king was in the utmost danger from their violence. At last, Earl Warwick and Lord Cobham came up, and with every demonstration of respect conducted John and his son Philip to the Black Prince, who received them with the utmost courtesy. He invited them to supper, waited himself at table on John, as his superior in age and rank, praised his valour and endeavoured by every means in his power to diminish the humiliation of the royal captive. On 19th September 1356, the second great battle fought by the English on French soil, in assertion of their chimerical claim to the crown of that country, was won by the Black Prince, in the face, as at Crécy, of an overwhelming superiority of numbers. Whilst the army of the French king mustered sixty thousand horse alone, besides foot soldiers, the whole force of Edward, horse and foot together, did not exceed ten thousand men. The engagement was not of his own seeking, but forced upon him, in consequence of his having come unexpectedly on the rear of the French army in the neighbourhood of Poitiers, to which town he had advanced in the course of a devastating expedition from Guienne, without being aware of the proximity of the French monarch. Finding that the whole of the surrounding country swarmed with the enemy, and that his retreat was effectually cut off, his first feeling seems to have been one of consternation. "God help us!' he exclaimed; and then added undauntedly: 'We must consider how we can best fight them.' A strong position amid hedges and vineyards was taken up by him, and as night was then approaching, the English troops prepared themselves for repose in expectation of to-morrow's battle. the morning, King John marshalled his forces for the combat, but just as the engagement was about to commence, Cardinal Talleyrand, the pope's legate, arrived at the French camp, and obtained a reluctant permission to employ his offices, as mediator, to prevent bloodshed. The whole of that day (Sunday) was spent by him in trotting between the two armies, but to no effect. The English leader made the very liberal offer to John, to restore all the towns and castles which he had taken in the course of his campaign, to give up, unransomed, all his prisoners, and to bind himself by oath to refrain for seven years from bearing arms against the king of France. But the latter, confiding in his superiority of numbers, insisted on the Black Prince and a hundred of his best knights surrendering themselves prisoners, a proposition which Edward and his army indignantly rejected. Next morning at early dawn, the trumpets sounded for battle, and even then the indefatigable cardinal made another attempt to stay hostilities; but on riding over to the French camp for that purpose, he was cavalierly told to go back to where he came from, with the significant addition, that he had better bring no more treaties or pacifications, or it would be the worse for himself. Thus repulsed, the worthy prelate made his way to the English army, and told the Black Prince that he must do his best, as he had found it impossible to move the French king from his resolution. Then God defend the right!' replied Edward, and prepared at once for action. The attack was commenced by the French, a body of whose cavalry came charging down a narrow lane with the view of dislodging the English from their position; but they encountered such a galling fire from the archers posted behind the hedges, that they turned and fled in dismay. It was now Edward's turn to assail, and six hundred of his bowmen suddenly appeared on the flank and rear of John's second division, which was thrown into irretrievable confusion by the 'I sur The day after the victory of Poitiers, the Black Prince set out on his march to Bordeaux, which he reached without meeting any resistance. He remained during the ensuing winter in that city; concluded a truce with the Dauphin, Charles, John's eldest son; and, in the spring of 1357, crossed over to England with the king and Prince Philip as the trophies of his prowess. A magnificent entrance was made into London, John being mounted on a cream-coloured charger, whilst the Prince of Wales rode by his side on a little black palfrey as his page. Doubtless the French king would have willingly dispensed with this ostentatious mode of respect. He was lodged as a prisoner in the Savoy Palace, and continued there till 1360, when, in consequence of the treaty of Bretigny, he was enabled to return to France. The stipulations of this compact having been broken by John's sons and nobles, he conceived himself bound in honour to surrender himself again a prisoner to England, and actually returned thither, when Edward III. received him with great affection, and assigned him again his old quarters in the Savoy. His motives in displaying so nice a sense of honour, a proceeding so unusual in those times, when oaths ་་ Sumare of Debe is the sort of de vins di toring, and the timites dien tered in seeking a place office in the the worth-east of Lendon, turing the The Diage was at ta hesht i the The Makm in London va creased The king with the sou o fe Sultry, leaving the care of ke 1 Allemarie. The being unusually hot and increased the dese ace's narrative W give the A state of London at this esaing the month in which Susbury, he tells us that was strangely altered thes, city, liberties, wark, and altogether; the City, or much infected; I say, was tamain the broches I Tarime, VOHS de me was of the fei-net ve clei vas Trading Tales, and time at last a sina fegree, fat few sf the event per mi muse that remaine of them killei ter next at Wle-ad and that way, and signs i mares upon ABEL.... Is la te people used possible presantions; when any one bonent a joint of mess in the market, they wild act ake I cus of the butcher hand, bus took is of the hocks theme Mira, On the other hand, the bunther wonki not vach the money, bus have is put into a pet fall f vinegar, wash he kept for that purpose. The buyer carriet always small money to make up any odd wum, that they might take no change They carried bottles for ments and perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used were employed; but then the poor could not do even these things, and they went at all hazards. Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this Sometimes a man or very account. Woman |