For JANUARY, 1819. A New and Improved Series. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ILLUSTRIOUS AND DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS. Number One Hundred and Nineteen. HER LATE MAJESTY QUEEN CHARLOTTE. THE glare of popularity, the fluctuating praise of the multitude, and the indiscriminate incense of misguided judgment, are too often unceasingly offered at the shrine of celebrity, beauty, and dazzling attractions, while the milder virtues of domestic qualifications and unostentatious beneficence often flourish long unknown, like the fragrant but unobtrusive violet, or the myrtle flourishing amongst the Alpine snows. But when these are discovered to the eye of investigation, they are more dearly appreciated than the flaunting woodbine, or the gaudy tulip; so when the gentle deeds of mercy and the calm exercise of charity become known by their fruits, they cause the "memory of the just to live for ever." After this due eulogium to the tranquil and real virtue of our late venerated Queen, we feel certain that a portrait of her, taken in the prime of life and health, will be regarded as a real embellishment by our female readers, and particularly estimated by those who are, perhaps, not in possession of that published in our former series. Twice have we given a biographical sketch of our late revered and lamented Queen, we shall therefore merely conclude this article by an extract from a highly interesting work, published since her de mise, and which, we think, cannot fail of being pleasing to our readers, from the striking incidents it contains. EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. WALPOLE RELATIVE TO THE QUEEN'S ARRIVAL. "Nothing was ever equal to the bustle and uncertainty of the town for the last three days. The Queen was seen off the coast on Saturday last, and is not arrived yet; nay, last night at ten o'clock, it was neither certain where she landed, nor when she would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even at this very moment in St. James's-street. The messenger that brought the letter yesterday morning said she arriv ed at half an hour after four, at Harwich. This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers. Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich Roads: and they recollected that half an hour after four happens twice in twentyfour hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. The New Road and the Parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off, and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty, was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart. Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and no Queen. She lay at Witham, at Lord Abercorn's, who was most tranquilly in town; aud it is not certain even whether she will be composed enough to be in town to-night. She has been sick but half an hour; sung and played on the harpsichord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time." In another letter, written to General Conway, then in Ireland, Mr. Walpole gave a very characteristic sketch of the Queen, with some anecdotes, which cannot be told so well as in his own words:- she caught the first glimpse of the palace she grew frightened, and turned pale. The Duchess of Hamilton smiled; the Princess said- My dear Duchess you may laugh; you have been married twice, but it is no "The date of my promise is now arrived, joke to me.'-Her lips trembled as the and I fulfil it-fulfil it with great satisfac- coach stopped, but she jumped out with tion, for the Queen is come. I have seen spirit, and has done nothing but with good her, have been presented to her, and may humour and cheerfulness. At first, when go back to Strawberry. For this fortnight the bridemaids and the court were introI have lived upon the road between Twick- duced to her, she said- Mon Dieu, il y en enham and London. I came, grew impa- || a tant, il y en a tant!-The King looked tient, returned; came again, still to no pur. very handsome, and talked to her contipose. Yesterday the Queen arrived at St. nually, and with great good humour. It James's. In half an hour one heard of does not promise as if they two would be nothing but proclamations of her beauty: the two most unhappy persons in England every body was content, every body pleas- from this event." ed. The night was sultry: about ten the procession began to move towards the chapel, and at eleven they all came up into the drawing-room. She looks very sen- "She was described at this time as being sible, cheerful, and is remarkable genteel. of a middling stature, and rather small, but You will have no doubt of her sense by her shape fine, and carriage graceful; her what I shall tell you. On the road they hands and neck exceeding well turned, her wanted her to curl her toupet: she said she hair auburn, her face round and fair, the thought it looked as well as that of any of eyes of a light blue, and beaming with the ladies sent to fetch her; if the King sweetness; the nose a little flat, and turned bid her, she would wear a periwig, other-up at the point, the mouth rather large, wise she would remain as she was. When with rosy lips, and very fine teeth." Further on is the following description of the Queen's person when shining in the bloom of youth : ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUSIC. Jenkins was certainly a great master of divisions; but unfortunately all his earliest and best works are forgotten. FROM the death of Charles 1. to the restoration, music seems to have been almost prohibited by the gloomy fanatics of the interregnum, except their own syllabic In spite, however, of the fanatic reign of psalmody, chanted in a nasal and inhar-puritanism, Hilton, an excellent composer, monious manner: yet several musicians commenced their career about this time, who afterwards attained to great eminence. One of these was John Jenkins, who lived to the age of eighty-six, eighteen years after the restoration. He produced a great || variety of compositions, and various catches; one of which is yet much admired, viz. "A boat, a boat, haste to the ferry, ventured, in 1652, to publish a choice selection of catches, rounds, and canons, for three and four voices. These helped to solace the royalists in private during the triumph of their enemies and their suppression of all public amusements: these are now extremely scarce and valuable. In 1655, a volume of airs and dialogues was published by Henry Lawes. All public theatres being then shut, music became more cultivated than ever as a domestic amusement: but amidst the violent invect ives of the fanatics, none were levelled || in such general favour, that almost all the more keenly than those they published first English musicians were performers on against music, its patrons, and professors. Some writers endeavoured to prove that all theatrical exhibitions were immoral, and wholly inconsistent with Christian purity; and these opinions were rendered still more acceptable to the fanaticism of the times, by the unbridled and scurrilous pen of William Prynne; for though stage plays are the principal objects of his satire, he is no less severe in his censures against music, both vocal and instrumental. Though the public theatres were shut up, many plays were written and printed during Cromwell's usurpation: and in May, 1656, Sir William Davenant obtained permission to open a kind of theatre at RutlandHouse, in Charter-House Square, for the exhibition of what he called "An Entertainment in Declamation and Music, after the manner of the Ancients." Anthony Wood imagines it to have been the first Italian opera performed in England, as he expressly says " Oliver Cromwell had now prohibited all other theatrical representations; he allowed of this because, being in an unknown language, it could not corrupt the morals of the people." Sir William Davenant, in 1658, had a piece performed every day at the Cockpit, in Drury-lane, called, Sir Francis Drake; or, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru; this was expressed by vocal and instrumental music. We find no other dramatic performances till 1659, when Rhodes, a bookseller, obtained a license for acting plays at the Cockpit, in Drury-lane, where the opera of Sir William Davenant had been translated, according to Anthony Wood's expression. During the last year of Cromwell's usurpation, the bass viol, or viol de Gamba, was it, and composed pieces expressly to shew its powers; but this instrument, like the lute, was soon after so totally banished that the form and construction were scarcely known, till Abel arrived in England, whose taste, knowledge, and expression on the bass viol were so exquisite that all other musicians despaired of ever attaining to such excellence. Oxford, during the civil war, was the only place where musical sounds were heard; however, in 1646, when the King was compelled to quit this post, and had been defeated at Naseby, the musicians were obliged to disperse, and those who could not find an asylum in the houses of those who were secret friends to the royal cause and to the art, were obliged to betake themselves to other employments. Anthony Wood, to whose diligent inquiries every succeeding age has been indebted, and our researches into history rendered easy, was born at Oxford, in 1632. He was, as he tells us, insatiably fond of music: he was a skilful performer on the violin; but was unfortunate in never being able to procure a good master: he, notwithstanding, by his own perseverance, obtained a proficiency in the art, for his skill in music was genuine. He once played against the great musician Baltzar, and came off victor; which is a proof of his musical abilities, for Baltzar, on the restoration of Charles II. was placed at the head of his Majesty's band of violins. Baltzar died in 1663, and is buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. He was unfortunately too much of a bon vivant; and his excessive drinking brought him to the grave. (To be continued.) SKETCHES OF PUBLIC CHARACTERS. JOHN HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. (Concluded from our last.) THE Country Mr. Howard intended first to visit was Portugal, then rendered particularly interesting by the situation of its capital, still smoking in ruins from the effects of the tremendous earthquake that had recently shaken it to its very foundations; a great part of which, with the superb edifices erected upon them, and thousands of their unfortunate inhabitants, had been suddenly embowelled in the earth. It was to this sublime, but melancholy spectacle, that Mr. Howard's atten tion was principally directed; and he ac- until the success of his application to the cordingly took his passage in a Lisbon British ministry should satisfy him that he packet, called the Hanover, which had the might remain in his native country with misfortune to be captured on its voyage honour, which, with a man of his prinby a French privateer. His captors used ciples, was precisely the same thing with him with great cruelty; for after having his remaining there at all. This point been kept forty hours without food or being, however, happily accomplished water, he was carried into Brest, and con- without difficulty, he was no sooner assured fined with the other prisoners taken in the of his own liberty, than be exerted all his packet, in the castle of that place. Here influence to procure the liberation of some his hardships were but little, if they were of his fellow-countrymen who were still at all diminished; for, after being cast with imprisoned in the towns where he himself the crew and the rest of the passengers had been confined; or, at least, to secure into a filthy dungeon, and there kept a a mitigation of those sufferings which he considerable time longer without nourish- had been convinced, by too melancholy ment, a joint of mutton was at length proofs, that they experienced there. Whilst thrown into the midst of them, which, for at Carpaix, he corresponded with the want of the accommodation of so much as English prisoners at Brest, Morlaix, and a solitary knife, they were obliged to tear Dinnau, and had sufficient evidence of their to pieces, and gnaw like dogs. In this being treated with such barbarity that dungeon he and his companions in mis- many hundreds had perished; and that fortune experienced very similar treatment || thirty-six were buried in a hole at Dinnau for nearly a week, having been compelled in one day. His humanity being excited to lie for six nights upon the floor of their by this affecting statement of the wretched miserable dungeon, with nothing but straw situation of so many of his gallant countryto shelter them from its noxious and unmen, to much of whose cruel treatment he wholesome damps. He was afterwards re- had himself been an eye-witness, and even moved to Morlaix, and thence to Carpaix, shared in its horrors, he lost no time in where he was two months upon parole; or making so strong a representation upon the rather more correctly speaking, was per- subject to the Commissioners of Sick and mitted to reside in the town, though not Wounded Seamen, that they not only gave an officer, entitled by the law of nations, him their thanks for his information, but and the usages of war, to this indulgence, took such immediate and effectual meaowing, we are told, to the humanity of his sures for getting the injury redressed, that gaoler, and the confidence he reposed in he had soon the satisfaction of learning, his prisoner's honour. A similar conviction that the prisoners of war confined in the of his integrity is also said to have induced three prisons to which he had more partithe person in whose house he went to cularly directed their attention, were sent board and lodge, amply to supply him, home in the first cartel ships that arrived though an utter stranger, with both clothes in England; being entirely indebted for and money, of which he had been stripped their deliverance from their accumulated at Brest; and maintain him upon the faith sufferings to his benevolent and timely inof being paid for so doing when he got terference on their behalf. It is to this back to his home, or could get remittances event that Mr. Howard himself refers the from thence, until he was allowed to visit first excitement of that attention to the disEngland, upon his promise to return to his tressed situation of those of his fellowcaptivity if his own government should re- creatures who were sick and in prison, with fuse to exchange him for a French naval no one to visit or relieve them, which afterofficer. But as he was only a private per- wards so fully occupied the greater part of son, their consenting to do this appeared to sixteen years of his useful but most labobe so much a matter of doubt, that he re- rious life. It was some time, however, quested his friends to suspend their con- before the impression thus made upon his gratulations upon the recovery of his li- mind by the barbarity with which he himberty, with which, upon his arrival amongst self had been treated, or by the still greater them, they were ready to overwhelm him, "hardships which he had seen some of his countrymen undergo, coupled with the witnessing of other scenes of a somewhat similar nature, had the effect of inducing him to devote all the most active energies of his being to the devising and carrying into execution his benevolent plans for the relief of persons under similar circumstances of aggravated distress. to find they had acquired a protector and benefactor; and in every part of the world these relations are returned with gratitude and attachment. After continuing at Watcombe three or four years, he sold the place and went back to Cardington, which thenceforth became his fixed residence. Among other improvements which Mr. Howard effected there, after his return, there is one which is too interesting to be omitted. He had a kind of hermitage built for his meditative hours, which still exists without any material alteration. After his return he dedicated his time chiefly to the improvement of his Cardington estate. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1756, and on the 25th of April, 1758, he married his second wife, Miss Henrietta Leeds, of CambridgeThis little rural retreat is built entirely sbire. She was blessed with amiable dis- in the rustic style, without any of those positions, and had, what is not very usual curious intermixtures of Chinese, Grecian, among the more lovely part of the creation, or Tuscan architecture, which give to many an aversion to dress and jewellery. The buildings, intended for similar purposes, in following is a characteristic anecdote of this our days, a sort of non-descript character singular woman. When Mr. Howard was often truly ridiculous. The materials of in London, soon after his marriage, he took which it is formed are the roots and trunks his wife to the Pantheon, which people of of trees; the roof thatch-work, without fashion used to frequent as a promenade. ceiling or pannelling on the inside to mar His motive for so doing was to ascertain the rude simplicity of the exterior. The what effect such a scene would have upon door and its portico are Gothic, with winher mind. As they were walking the gay dows of the same description on each and idly busy round, she appeared to be side, just admitting light enough into the quite lost in thought, wholly unobservant || hermitage to fit it for the purposes of of what was passing around. Her husband || study and retirement, for which it was instopped, and turning round to her said- tended, without destroying the sombre "Now Harriet,' for though her name was and recluse appearance of the whole. The Henrietta this was the appellation by which furniture exactly corresponded with the he more familiarly addressed her, "I must room. In the centre are still the remains insist on your telling me what you have of a lamp formed out of a root, and origibeen thinking about." To which she re- nally furnished with glasses, some of which plied-" Well, if I must tell you, I have were broken the first time they were used, been thinking of Mr. 's sermon last and have never been replaced. In one Sunday." corner there is a fire-place hid from obserThe delicate state of Mrs. Howard's vation by a chimney-board, formed, like health soon after, rendered a change of air the rest of the interior of the building, of necessary, and in consequence her husband roots and rough-hewn pieces of green removed with her to Hampshire. In this wood. The place of chairs is supplied, pleasant retreat he managed to live in per-partly by some singular masses of peat, of fect security in the midst of a people against a very curious description, in the precise whom his predecessor thought it necessary || to employ all the contrivances of engines and guns, in order to preserve himself from their hostilities. He had, indeed, none of those propensities which so frequently embroiled country gentlemen with their neighbours, both small and great. He was no sportsman, no executor of the game laws, and in no respect an encroacher on the rights and advantages of others. In possessing him the poor could not fail soon state in which they were cut out of a moss at Ampthill, a market town in Bedfordshire, distant from Cardington about seven miles; and on another side of the room by benches, fastened into the wall, and covered with coarse matting. Opposite to these is a stone slab, and ornamented with a female figure in marble, seemingly a nun, in a reclining posture, a model in wood of one of the public buildings which Mr. Howard had seen in the course of his travels; aud |