From the Spectator 1 August. is closely joined to Imperial Austria; and we THE AUSTRO-BELGIAN MARRIAGE. find the pervading family of Saxe-Gotha, "HENCEFORTH," said the Burgomaster of which unites us by so many links with this the Belgian capital in uniting the Princess royal-imperial connection, assisting in the Charlotte to the Archduke Maximilian, "a forging of this new link in the network ; the new bond unites us to Austria:" and proba-Consort of our Queen promoting that further bly the Burgomaster was right. The situa- consolidation which helps to render the royal tion of Belgium is peculiar. At the Paris clan of Europe as independent as possible of Conference steps were taken which greatly national predilections or vicissitudes. derogated from the moral independence of This match draws closer the family union Belgium, and tended to confirm the suspicion of the Saxe-Coburg family, which supplies which prevails that France has had an eye to three-fourths of the blood of King Albert [or a re-absorption of French Flanders-a con- King Edward VII?] and mans the throne of venient stride towards the Rhine. If the Belgium, with the class that principally occuDuke of Brabant is completely under the do- pies the petty thrones of Germany and the minion of the Jesuits, the fact lends a fur- higher thrones of Prussia and Austria; and ther doubt to the question, what will become it proportionately tends to consolidate a class of Belgium after Leopold? The Duke whose interests and predominant feelings are might unmake the dynasty; for though it certainly not in accordance with their own. might have the support of the Catholic peas- The recently-arranged "link" between our ant majority, it would be intolerable to the own Court and that of Prussia did so in a Protestant energy and independence of the more direct mode. And there is not the towns; and he would thus prepare for a slightest evidence that our present most influunion of Catholic Belgium with most Catho-ential statesmen, who themselves more intilic France, whose Emperor is the Pope's mately belong to the diplomatic than the poCaptain of the Guard, and whose foreign litical class, do anything to counterbalance Minister treats Belgium so cavalierly. No this consolidation and enlargement of the wonder if King Leopold should seek new royalist interests on the Continent as opposed props to the throne which he must leave to feebler hands; and should set against the influence that would render Belgium a stepping-stone to the Rhine an influence that would regard Belgium as an outpost to Germany. to the national interests. It is our belief that "some day" this reactionary progress of that great joint-stock privilegium will be effectually checked; but much suffering, possibly a convulsion, will mark the transition. Such great human events may hinge upon the coupling of young men and women, more remarkable by position, probably, than by personal character. It is the more probable, since undoubtedly Belgium has not found in another quarter the support on which, by family ties and political sympathy, she ought to have counted. The protocol making that vicious allusion to DR. BLOMFIELD, late Bishop of London, the Belgian press was signed" Clarendon," has not long survived his resignation of the so little weight had the oral objection of our episcopate. His dangerous illness from an Minister in his own estimation. It is a re- epileptic attack was announced only on Tuesmarkable circumstance, that while the repre- day, and he died on Wednesday, 5 Aug. at sentative of our Cabinet assisted at the Con- Fulham Palace, in the seventy-second year of ference which indorsed Count Walewski's his age. Dr. Blomfield was born at Bury St. manifesto against Belgium, almost the high- Edmunds, where his father was Master of est representative of our Court assisted in the Grammar School. He remained under fastening the link which more closely unites parental instruction until he was eighteen, constitutional Belgium, our neighbor, to arbi- when he went to Cambridge. There he trary Austria on the other side of Europe. greatly distinguished himself. In 1810 he The incident reminds us how much more was a Fellow of Trinity, and known as the closely united are the several courts of Eu- editor of Eschylus. Livings were showered rope than the peoples, or even the political upon him-three in a few years. In 1817 states, of that same Europe. Royal Belgium | Dr. Howley, Bishop of London, appointed an act of THE well-known French novelist, Eugène him examining Chaplain, and gave him the last act of consciousness was living of St. Botolph, Bishopgate, and the prayer."-Spectator. Archdeaconry of Colchester. In 1824 he became Bishop of Chester; and when Dr. Howley was raised to the see of Canterbury, Sue died at Annecy in Savoy, on 3 Aug., of in 1828, Dr. Blomfield became Bishop of disease of the brain. He was born in 1804, London. In this capacity he labored hard to the son of one of Napoleon's physicians; his promote the erection of churches and the baptismal sponsors were Josephine and Eufoundation of schools, and to make provision gène Beauharnais. He served as a medical for the poorer clergy. The extension of man both ashore and afloat, and was present bishoprics in the Colonies had his warmest at the battle of Navarino. He early took to support, and in his time their number was in- literature. In 1848 he manifested Democreased from five to thirty-one. In his latter cratic and Socialist opinions, and was elected days, the rise of Tractarianism rendered his in 1850 a member of the National Assembly. position a difficult one; and the manner in He went into exile after the coup d'état of which he filled it, trying to steer a middle 1851.-Spectator. course, had been often commented on in the public prints, sometimes in a bitter spirit. Dr. Blomfield was an effective preacher and a good debater. He was a man of regular and virtuous life, and it is stated that "his MISS ANN COOK has died at Folkstone at the great age of a hundred and four. She had lived under five Sovereigns, from George the Second to Victoria. TURNING TO THE EAST.-What are the rea- | Bishop Stillingfleet's Eccles. Cases, p. 382.; sons usually adduced for turning towards the Stavely on Churches. p. 155.; Wheatly on the East (as many congregations do and particu- Common Prayer, and "N. & Q.," 1st S. larly I think in villages), at the repetition of vIII. 592.-Notes and Queries. our Church Creeds? Many adopt this practice, and know not why. RUSTICUS. "TO KNOCK UNDER." "A common expression which denotes that a man yields or submits. Submission is expressed among good fellows by knocking under the table."-Johnson. Neither Richardson nor Webster notice the phrase. [The learned Bishop Sparrow, in his Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, 1661, p. 44., has given two reasons for the observance of this ancient practice: 1. The East is the most honorable part of the world, being the "An expression borrowed from the practice region of light, whence the glorious sun arises, of knocking under the table when conquered." which is emblematical of the Sun of Righteous--Imperial Dictionary. ness. 2. As the Jews in their prayers looked towards the mercy-seat; so the Christians turned towards the principal part of the Church, "If therefore, after this, I'go the way of the altar, of which the mercy-seat was but a type. The most curious and learned treatise on my Fathers,' I freely waive that haughty epithis practice will be found in Gregorii Pos-taph Magnis tamen excidit ausis,' and instead, knock under table that Satan hath beguiled thuma: or Certain Learned Tracts, written me to play the fool with myself."-Asgill by John Gregory, M. A., 4to., 1671, chap. Asgill), quoted in Southey's XVIII., who states that "our forefathers lived (translated " and died in the belief that the second coming Doctor, ch. CIXXII., p. 452. of the one vol. of the Son of Man would be in the East, as edit. shown in the following quotation from Lib. Will some one tell me something about this Festivalis in Dedicatone Ecclesia: "Lete usknocking under table? Is it an obsolete, or an thinke (so the priest used to say on the Wake-existing, custom? What kind of submission, days) that Christ dyed in the Este, that we may does it indicate or admit? and how did the and to whom? and what manner of conquest be of the nombre that he dyed for. Also let us thinke, that he shall come out of the Este to fashion, if it were one, arise?-Notes and the doome. Wherefore let us pray heretily to Queries. Him and besely, that we may have grace of contrition in our hearts of our misdeeds with FUMADOES-Among whets for the appetite, shrift and satisfaction, that we may stonde that Burton (Anat. Mel.) mentions fumadoes. Am on the right honde of our Lord Jesu Christ." I right in supposing that these were smoked Consult a lso Bishop Kay on Tertullian p. | fish? Sausages are there spoken of as salsages. 402.; and on Clement of Alexandria, p. 452.;-Notes and Queries. From The Athenæum. The Countess de Bonneval: History of the tle of Peterwardein, his personal prowess covered him with glory. The Society of France hailed with acclamation the paladin achievements of the recreant. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau sang him as the "Nouvel Alcide." The Regent pardoned him. The Parliament received him AMONGST the many personages conspicu- with honors, and Paris raved about him,— ous during the early part of the eighteenth his figure, his height, his martial air, his elocentury, few raised so much contemporary quence and his ready repartee. curiosity as Claude Alexandre Count de Bon- His family took this opportunity of marryneval. He appeared endowed with every at-ing him. He was forty-two years of age. tribute of popularity and success. St.-Simon The bride chosen for the warrior was Mdlle. describes him as well born, with considerable Judith-Charlotte de Gontaut, one of twentymilitary talents, witty, well read, extravagant, and dissipated. By M. Sainte-Beuve he is celebrated as gay, cordial, amiable, witty, insolent, and bon enfant. And with such endowments, his adventures were of that extraThe subsequent career of Bonneval was ordinary nature to which, as to those of Lord even more extraordinary. For some time he Byron, or the Younger Son, every strange, was high in favor at the Imperial Court; but unfathered story is ascribed. In Bonneval's he was always discontented with good forown lifetime fictitious memoirs were founded tune. First quarrelling with the Governor of on this romantic theme. The real events of Brussels, he subsequently extended his anger his history can scarcely be eclipsed by ro- to Prince Eugene, whom he challenged. He then intrigued with Spain; and finally repairing, in 1729, to the frontier of Bosnia, Bonneval adopted the Mohammedan religion, under the designation of Pasha-Osman. mance. As a child, Bonneval distinguished himself in the navy, which he had entered at the invitation of his relative Tourville. An affair of honor with a superior officer, the Count de Beaumont, caused him to abandon this profession and to enter the army. This he did in 1698, and at the commencement of the War of Succession in 1701 he purchased the command of a regiment of infantry. M. Sainte-Beuve, in his "Causeries de Lundi," describes him as being born, not only a soldier, but a general, as having inspiration on the field, plans of campaign in his tent. His qualities attracted the notice and admiration of friend and foe. He stood high in the esteem of Vendôme, his commander, and at the battle of Luzzara his conduct elicited remark from Prince Eugene. six children of the Duke de Biron, and much her husband's junior. With her he stayed ten days. He started for Vienna, leaving his wife in France. He never returned. This was his last adventure. In Turkey he maintained the same gay disposition as in more civilized Europe. In 1747 he was about to attempt his escape to Rome, but death forestalled his intentions on the 23rd of March, the anniversary, as says his epitaph, of Mohammed's birth. It has been necessary to introduce this short history of the Pasha-Count to explain the object of Lady Georgiana's work. By the side of the haughty Bonneval there is placed a figure full of resignation and of grace. The ten days of Bonneval's married life, a speck in his long career, had concentrated the existence of his gentle wife. Madame de The want of conduct, however, which Bonneval was one of those angelic natures through life nullified all his great qualities shining with increased lustre from the disordrove Bonneval to the enemy's ranks. der and license surrounding her. The short Quarrelling with Chamissart, the Minister of period of her married life was the happiest War, and reduced to straits for want of of a sad career. Her heart was engaged by means, he concluded in 1706, at Venice, a treaty with Prince Eugene, and entered the service of the Emperor. For this he was hung in effigy at the Place de Grève. In his new service, however, he gradually achieved rank and distinction, till, in 1716, at the bat the brilliant adventurer. Little is known of her, but this fact, developed in a few letters, so delicate, so tender, so discreetly worded, as to prove the value of the treasure so ruthlessly abandoned. After her husband's departure she writes constantly. Few letters are extant, but these in their chronological | hood of Judith de Gontaut Lady Georgin order show the changing emotions of the has discovered the secret of the wife's affecwriter. First, she is full of love, sorrowful tion. A nurse's story of the Count's infancy, at separation, but hopeful. Then the hope the admiration of an old soldier, the contemdiminishes. Then follows love and resigna- plation of a picture, invest the adventurer tion. At length Bonneval abjures his faith, with qualities that excite the imagination and and she writes no more. Yes, she sends one devotion of the young girl. From her earlimore letter. "She was told one day that est days Bonneval is the principal object of the Count-Pacha de Bonneval begged her to her thoughts. As she increases in years she write but once again. She did so. None is told that he is to be her husband. The but himself has seen the letter. When he announcement causes no surprise. She has died it was not found with the others. Had he burnt it to remove importunate remorse, or had he kept it near his heart to be buried with him? None can say." known that he is to play a part in her existence, that she is to love him and to know sorrow. The rest is historical. The whole work forms one of those touchThe story of the abandoned wife has been ing stories which from their simplicity create undertaken by the Authoress of "Grantley | a lasting impression. The early education of Manor." Attracted by the short sketch of the authoress has given her a facility in the Madame de Bonneval in M. Ste.-Beuve's use of the French language and an acquaintwork, Lady Georgina Fullarton endeavored ance with French literature of which, on to find materials for a history of the heroine, this occasion, she has made good use. Her to unravel the secret of her love for a hus- style and her narratives are equally interestband known but for a few days, a stranger to ing. We trust that some one may be found her youth and her womanhood. This prov- to restore the production of an English auing impossible, she has supplied from her thoress to the language and literature which, imagination the missing links. In the child- by the laws of nature, claim her allegiance. ONE of the last of the Tories and Quarterly reviewers of the "old rock," whose name has been more frequently than genially brought before the public, has paid the debt of nature since the week came in. We allude to John Wilson Croker, who died, in his seventy-seventh year, on Monday night, after a protracted period of ill health. He was an Irishman, belonging to a good family, who received a liberal education, and who, in his early Dublin days-those when Moore was writing his "Gipsy Prince" and Lady Morgan singing her "Kate Kearney -made himself famous by a rhymed satire or two after the fashion of Anstey. But more distinguishing than his wit and sharpness of tongue was Mr. Croker's power, from an early age, of making friends with the great and the influential. He owed his Admiralty Secretaryship, we are told, to the favor of the goodnatured Duke of York, and (after a fit of juvenile indiscretion on behalf of Roman Catholic Emancipation) was presently, after his instalment in office, considered as having enlisted himself as a stanch "defender of the right divine "—as a blind worshipper of "the Duke" versies to which they gave occasion. But that he had other strings to his bow-as a literary man, as a journalist, and as a member of high scciety-the essay on Theodore Hook, also ascribed to his pen, will remind those who are conversant with London life during the past half-century. Briefly, he is spoken of, from his printed utterances, as neither a generous adversary nor a considerate friend-as keen and smart rather than scrupulous or courteous in his criticism-and as absolute, not to say bigoted, in his political philosophies. principal literary labors were the editorship of Boswell's "Johnson" and of the "Hervey Memoirs." His long-talked-of edition of Pope, we fancy, is not forthcoming.-Athenæum. His QUOTATION WANTED.-Can any of the readers of N. & Q." say where the following lines are to be found? I have heard them quoted, but by one very old person who has been dead nearly a quarter of a century. They struck me much at the time, and I have never forgotten them: "War begets poverty; poverty, peace; Peace doth make riches flow (fate ne'er doth cease); Riches bring pride; and pride is war's ground; as a flat denier of the wholesomeness or possibility of progress-as a close and keen searcher of all the intrigues and mysteries of the French Revolution-and as a controversialist, by whom every Whig man was to be lampooned as untruthful and every Whig woman placarded as immodest. We refer to the contributions in the Quarterly Review attributed to Mr. Croker,Notes and Queries. some of which he owned by the bitter contro War begets poverty, and so the world goes round." he describes, we must impute it entirely to his own moderation that he is not at this moment Emperor of China. It has been usual to speak of the Chinese as a very singular people. Goldsmith, who looked into the subject when he wrote his There is a proverb which says that every "Citizen of the World," in the assumed charman will speak of the fair as his own market acter of a Celestial philosopher, came to the has gone in it. This is alone sufficient to ac- conclusion that they and we were pretty count for many of the opposite conclusions much alike. The works of Mr. Fortune conwhich travellers have formed of the qualities firm this opinion. Their radical peculiarities of the nations they visit. So long as the are not greater than those of most other Jesuits were countenanced in China they races, and the better they are known the filled their books with glowing descriptions of more apparent it becomes that man in China the virtues and civilization of the people, but, is much the same as man elsewhere. One after they were persecuted and expelled, anomaly indeed they exhibit, which has exspoke in censure as exaggerated as their for- cited endless speculation, and has never been mer praise. Mr. Fortune dwells upon the explained. They anticipated every European importance of preserving good humor when nation by several centuries in some of the surrounded by Chinese. Laugh and joke noblest triumphs of art and science—in the with them, he says, and all will go well, but discovery of the properties of the magnet, in once lose your temper, and you will probably the composition of gunpowder, in the manube hooted and pelted with stones. A stran- facture of silk, in the fabrication of paper, ger, who has little tact, geniality, and forbear- and in the invention of printing. They hit ance, is not unlikely to be irritated when a upon ingenious and mechanical contrivances, pestering mob call him a "Pak Quei-tze," or and compounded and colored porcelain with White Devil, which is the general name in a perfection which has defied imitation. The China for a foreigner; and the man who has means by which they secured the splendid been pelted with stones brings away very dif- hues which distinguish their finest vases are ferent notions of the people from one who still a secret, and were certainly attained by has drawn forth mirth and smiles. Not only processes too complicated to be the result of does it depend upon the traveller whether he chance. The civilization which they conelicits the amiable or evil qualities of the na-quered in ages past they have sedulously tives, but the impressions made upon him by kept. Nowhere is learning held in equal eswhat he sees are influenced by his disposition teem, nowhere is education so widely spread, his health, his spirits. He who carries sun-nowhere are books cheaper or more prized. shine within his own breast throws its golden| With all this diffusion of knowledge and the hue over objects which look sombre to splen- careful retention of the benefits they inheritetic or uncongenial minds. Another source ed from remote ancestors, they have hardly, of discrepancy is to be found in the different in hundreds of years, advanced a step. How features presented by the inhabtants of dif- did it happen that the intellects which had ferent districts. Every writer is prone to proceeded so far in the path of discovery generalize his own limited experience, and should have suddenly stopped short-that, many persons, Mr. Fortune intimates, have having made large strides forward, they mistaken the traits of the low rabble of Can- should not have continued to make others in gent? By what means has original thought and inquiry been suspended for ages in millions of enlightened and educated minds, and the craving for progress, which seems an instinct of tutored intellects, been utterly ex ton for imperial characteristics. Voltaire the same direction, which our experience long ago exposed the error of judging a peo-shows to be still more easy and just as urple by its maritime population. "What," he asks, "would the Chinese have said if they had been shipwrecked on the French coast at the period when the law of nations sanctioned the confiscation of the cargo, and custom permitted the murder of the crew ?" Thus tinguished? These are questions which the dissimilar views are frequently rather one many have attempted to answer, but the sided than contradictory. Both, said Dr. causes they have assigned appear upon examJohnson of the remarks of Lord Orrery and ination to resolve themselves into a stateDelany on Swift, were right-only Delany ment, under another form, of the effects they had seen most of the good side, Lord Orrery are produced to explain. The problem has most of the bad. |