author crowned with something more substantial than bays. Among the various poetical rarities attributed to the peaceful monarch, neither Lord Orford nor Mr. Park seems to have met with his complimentary strains, written during a visit to his favourite Buckingham, at Burleigh; nor am I aware that they have been ever before printed. Verses made by the Kinge, when he was entertayned at Burley, in Rutlandshire, by my L. Marquesse of Buckingham, August, 1621. The heauens that wept perpetually before, Since we came hither, show theyr smilinge cleere. The buckes and stagges in fatt they seeme to smile: Votum, a Vow, and Wish, for the Felicity or Fertility of the Owners of this House. I satt upon Parnassus' forked hill, And there, inflam'd with sacred fury still, These are faithfully copied from a manuscript in the Bodleian. The following are taken from a transcript in the hand-writing of Camden the antiquary and topographical historian, who entitles them, Verses ascribed to the King's Maiesty, Dec. 9, 1618. Yee men of Brittaine! wherefore gaze yee so Vpon an angry starr? when, as yee know, The sunne must turne to darke, the moone to bloode, Oh! be so happy then, whilest time doth last, And misinterprett not, with vaine conceipt, Which, though itt bring the world some news from fate, Then let him dreame of famin, plague and warr, And thinke the match with Spain hath rays'd the starr. The comet to which his Majesty alludes, appeared in the latter end of 1618, and occasioned great dismay in the minds of his faithful subjects, who, young and old, were fain to believe that the end of the world was coming. The panic was universal: business was every where at a stand; Paul's walk crowded with frightened inquirers; its quire more fully attended than usual, by those who fancied they had now no time to spare; whilst reams of paper were printed with prognostications, warnings, calls to repentance, and the like; till Dr. Bainbridge, the mathematician, published a treatise calculated to give general comfort, for it went to show that the enemy so dreaded was still at a considerable distance, "as far above the moon (says he) as the moon is above the earth.' That learned and discreet knight, Sir Richard Baker, sagely observes, some thirty years after, "what it portended is onely known to God!" but he afterwards very positively assures us, that "the sequell of it was, that infinite slaughters and devastations followed upon it, both in Germany and other countries." King James, it seems, though he believed in witches, had not much faith in the stars. KING CHARLES THE FIRST. Aubrey, who dearly loved, and implicitly believed, the marvellous, tells us, that when James the First was about to depart for England, in order to receive the crown, an old man, dressed like a hermit, came to take leave of him. His visitor was secondsighted. He took little notice of Prince Henry, but addressing himself to the Duke of York, "fell a weeping, to think what misfortunes he should undergo, and that he should be one of the miserablest, unhappy princes that ever was." A vast number of Charles's letters are still in private hands, and there were probably many more at the commencement of the last century. About that time, there was an idea of collecting them for publication, but a learned and eminent literary character of the day very strongly urges, in a letter to the Bishop of Rochester, that they should not be printed; observing that "they would detract very much from his reputation, and somewhat from his integrity." I met with the following amongst a collection of papers, from Dr. Mead's collection. It is addressed to the Duke of Buckingham, after the capture of the Isle of Rhé, in 1627. Steenie,-I have receaued ye yoyfull newes of your happie success in ye taking of Re, by Dic Greame. I pray God to giue you as much contentment alwais, as I receaued then; and then I asseur you ye will be in no danger to dy of melancolie. Beecher lykwais gaue me two letters from you, out of which I haue taken suche notes, as to know what ye desyer and want, then burned them. After thease, ere yesternight, I haue receaued another, all which by this occasion ye shall see some answer to, though I hope to please you better in my actions, then my words. I haue made reddie a supply of victualles, munition, 400 men for recrutes, and 14,000 pounds readdie monie to bee brought to you by Beecher, who by the grace of God shall sett saile within thease eight dayes. Two regiments of a thousand men a peece, victualle for three monthes, shall be embarked by ye tenth of September. I haue sent for as manie officers from ye Low Cuntries as may bee had; of which, till my next, I can giue you no parfaite account. I hope lykwais ye shall haue 2,000 men out of Scotland vnder ye command of my Lo. Morton, and Sir Willam Balfore. So far for supplyes, which by the grace of God I shall send speedilie to you, and you may certainlie expect. Now I shall giue you my opinion in some things that Beecher has been talking withe me, and that I haue understood by your last dispatche. And first, in case the Frenche Kinge should dye, what were to be done upon it. My opinion is (and not without aduysment) that you ar to prosecute the warr, and by no meanes to be the first motioner of treaties; for it is bothe dishonnorable and unsafe, considering what men of faithes the French of late hath proued themselfes. But if they should offer, then to harken, but not to belife too hastilie. And beliue it, this is the best way to gaine our cheefe ends; for certainelie making showes, or being indeed desyrous of a treatie before they of themselfes demande it, may muche hurt vs, no way helpe vs. I have seene a draught of a manifest which ye haue sent my Lo. Conway, which if ye haue not yet published, I would wishe you to alter one point in it, which is, that wheras ye seeme to make the cause of religion the only reason that made me take armes; I would onlie have you declare it the cheefe cause, you hauing no need to name anie other, so that ye may leaue those of the religion to thinke what they will. But I thinke it muche inconuenient, by a manifest to be tyed onlie to that cause, of this warr, for cases may happen, that may force me goe against my declaration (being penned so) which I should be loathe should fall out. I haue sett three maine projects afoote, (besyds manie smale) Mint, increasing of the Customes by imposing on the booke of rates, and raiseing of a Banke. The two first I shall certainelie goe speedilie through withall; the last is most difficult, but I haue good hopes of it. So going to bed, and wishing thee as much happiness and good success as thy owen hart can desyer, I rest Your louing, faithfull, constant frend, I cannot ommit to tell you that my wyfe and I wer neuer better togeather. She, upon this action of yours, shoing herselfe so louing to me, by her discretion upon all occasions, that it makes vs all wonder and estime her. NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO NEW SOUTH WALES. Quæ fuit durum pati Meminisse dulce est.-Seneca. The sullen passage of thy weary voyage IT was on the 28th of August, 1816, that I embarked at Gravesend, and sailing the following morning, we soon reached the Downs, where we could not come to anchor, the wind blowing hard on shore. In the evening of the 31st, so violent a gale came on that several coasting vessels were wrecked in the night, and even our topmasts were damaged. The gale lasted all night, and in the morning it was our lot to pick up five men and a boy, the crew of a sloop laden with Portland stone from Weymouth: the vessel, which could not be lightened, soon afterwards went down in our sight. We now found ourselves near Cherbourg, and, therefore, tacked to make for Spithead to repair our tops. The wind had by this time abated; the morning of the 2d of September dawned calm and fair, and we found ourselves off the Isle of Wight. It was not till the next evening that we could attain anchorage in St. Helen's roads, where we eventually waited for a fair wind twelve days; lodging on shore, like Henry Fielding upon his voyage to Lisbon; but not like him meeting with so many enter VOL. V. taining adventures, or rather, not like him gifted with so humorous or philosophic a mind to create or re cord them. Oh reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring; Oh gentle reader! you would find A tale in every thing. It was not till the 16th of September that we weighed anchor for the last time; and it cost us three or four days more to pass the Land's End. The We posted rapidly through the bay of Biscay in a gale; but not before the abatement of the wind gave us full proof of the heavy swell of this far-famed cauldron. great boil was of course more mountainous after, than during the storm, and this must be that misery infernal which Shakspeare meant by the words -Imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world. On the 26th we emerged from this eternal sea-quake, and on the 30th made the island of Porto Santo, and soon afterwards Madeira cane in S sight. We sailed between these islands, and though we touched at neither, the very neighbourhood had the refreshing effect of the first stage, the first inn. In the morning we lay to in Funchal bay, with the intention of landing for an hour, but were refused that permission, because we had procured no bill of health, for half a guinea, from the Portuguese consul in London. We were forbid from the Leo rock, a smaller rock by the side of which more resembled a huge sitting beast, elevating his mouth-a lion in the path! After a sultry row back to our ship of ten miles, we made away from this inhospitable island, with a fair breeze, which continued for two days. In the morning of the 3d of October we passed the island of Palma,-the loftiest land we had yet seen, and it was not till the 6th that we crossed the tropic of Cancer. On this day the first flying fish were seen, sparkling from the waves in shoal-flights, and descending into them again as quickly. They can only fly while their finny wings are wet. A day or two afterwards we first witnessed, in the dark of night, alongside the vessel, that phosphorescent appearance of the sea, which is attributed by Capt. Cook to a luminous animal. On the evening of the 9th the island of St. Jago was in sight (one of the Cape de Verds), and, intending to water at Port Praya, we bore up off the land till day-light the next morning, when we unfortunately passed it, mistaking it for Mayo; that which we took for St. Jago turn ing out to be Fogo. We were, therefore, fain to pursue cur course, there being no convenience for watering at Fogo. Thus we were again disappointed, of our landing. This day we saw many bonitos (scomber pelamis) and albicores (scomber thynnus) leap out of the water to the height of five feet, when they turned in the air and fell into the sea again. On the next day the island of Brava was in sight, and on the 13th the thermometer attained its greatest height during the voyage, namely, 83°. My journal now presents no other record than that of a calm for a fortnight upon the burning line. A calm is the very bane of a ship; there are few quarters from which the wind can blow that a sailor cannot It Its We were now almost constantly visited by that elegant and companionable little bird called by the sailors Mother Carey's Chicken. is the procellaria pelagica, or stormy petrel; but we found it by no means the forerunner of storms. It is black, with a white rump, and flies close to the waves like a swallow. legs are long like a lark's, and it rests its tired body by literally treading upon the sea, with its wings expanded, whence it is called petrel, after St. Peter. It does not swim. It is delightful to see it evade the rise of every wave, which it never suffers to wet it, close as it flies to the sea. On the 26th October we fell in with a Spanish or Portuguese insurgent pirate. In return for our account of ourselves, she gave us something like Scrub's budget of news: she showed no colours, but said she came "from sea," and was bound "to sea;" which put me in mind of the Devil's answer (to the question in Job), "from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." On the next day we were gratified by a sight of the fish called by the seamen the Portuguese Man of War, and described by Capt. Cook as the Holuthuria Physalis of Linnæus. It is a species of mollusca of the nautilus kind. On the 28th October we met the Millwood of New York, bound from Canton to Europe with tea, which afforded us an opportunity of writing home. On the 4th November we crossed the equinoctial line, and were afterwards favoured by fair winds to Rio de Janeiro. On the 12th, we had the good fortune of another means of writing to England, by meeting two transports from Rio: and on the 18th, in the morning, we saw the coast of Brazil, as we stood into the bay of St. Ann's. The next day we saw, for the first time, two large albatrosses (diomedia exulans). This bird had long possessed a great interest in my mind, from the conspicuous part it plays in Mr. Coleridge's wonderful ballad of the "Ancient Marinere." The idea of this tale is, doubtless, taken from the following passage in Capt. George Shelvocke's Voyages, 1719. We had continued squalls of sleet, snow, and rain, and the heavens were perpetually hid from us by gloomy dismal clouds. One would think it impossible any thing could live in so rigid a climate; and, indeed, we all observed, we had not the sight of one fish of any kind since we were come to the southward of Strait le Maire, nor one sea bird, except a disconsolate black albatross, who accompanied us several days, hovering about as if he had lost himself; till Simon Hatley, my second captain, observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always hover ing near us, imagined, from his colour, that it might be some ill omen, and being encouraged in his superstition by the continued series of contrary tempestuous winds, which had oppressed us ever since we had got into this sea, he, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the albatross, perhaps not doubting that we should have a fair wind after it." The poet has certainly worked this hint up into an awful and beautiful poem; but landsmen make a great mistake when they attribute to seabirds the habit of resting upon the ships they follow. It is only the poor land-bird, accidentally blown off the shore, spread before the bird can fairly get under weigh: Parva motu primo mox sese attollit in auras. As he makes wing he gets power. Mr. Wilson has fallen into a similar error in the following passage in the "Isle of Palms." But sea-birds he oft had seen before, I would not be pedantic; and am aware that Mr. Campbell's line Doom'd the long isles of Sydney's cove to see, is just as good as ever, after the reader is told that there are no long isles even in Port Jackson, and none at all in Sydney cove. But merely descriptive Authors, before they write, should read, if they have not had an opportunity of seeing. Mr. Campbell himself, in his poetical specimens, has selected a passage from the late Mr. Headley's poems, in which that tasteful young student undertakes to describe New Zealand. To be sure he calls upon Fancy to conjure up the picture; and a pure fancy-piece it is. Lo! at her call, New Zealand's wastes arise, Casting their shadows far along the main, Whose brows cloud-capt in joyless majesty, No human foot hath trod since time began; Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells, Save when the watching sailor startled hears, Far from his native land, at darksome night, The shrill-ton'd petrel, or the penguin's voice, That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing, Through the black regions of a nameless main. Surely Mr. Headley might have learned from Capt. Cook that New Zealand is well-peopled; if not that the penguin does not fly, but swims; and where did he get the "shrill I never heard it. toned petrel?" On this same day we saw also several dolphins (coryphaena hippurus), one of which we caught with a hook and line, and killed. It was the most beautiful creature I ever saw; its colours shifting into an endless variety of blues, greens, and yellows; its back blues and greens, its |