a strain of great boldness and considerable poetic merit, to descant on the causes of the existing troubles, and particularly on the part borne in them by Rome. The piece opens with a circumstantial description of himself in the position in which he is drawn in the Manesse MS., seated upon a rock (or bank of flowers), reposing one knee on the other, with the elbow resting on the uppermost, and the hand covering the chin and one cheek. The engraving, in the preceding page, is from an outline of that illumination, in the "Lays of the Minnesingers;" the representation is curious, on account of the antiquity of the original, and because it assigns to Vogelweide an emblematical armorial bearing of a singing bird upon a shield. The bearing of arms on a shield originated during the crusades.* His next historical piece is a song of triumph on the coronation of Philip, in 1198, at Mentz, where he appears to have been present. He gives judicious advice to the new emperor for consolidating his government by a liberal policy; and fortifies his counsel by the examples of Saladin, and Richard Cœur de Lion. Many of his subsequent songs allude to the evils which intestine war and the intrigues of the papal court had brought upon Germany. Soon afterwards he commemorated the marriage, celebrated at Magdeburg, in 1207, between Philip and a Grecian princess :— A Cæsar's brother and a Cæsar's child. The bride he describes as A thornless rose, a gall-less dove." Walter's life was that of a wanderer. With the geige and the harp he pursued his way on horseback. "From the Elbe to the Rhine, and thence to Hungary, had he," as he says, "surveyed ;-from the Seine to the Mur, from the Po to the Drave, had he learned the customs of mankind" yet he ends with preferring the excellence of his native land-the cipal character, and rejoiced in one of his songs at having entered the service of the landgrave, "the flower that shines through the snow." Several of his pieces, at this period of his life, refer to his companions at the court, to its customs, and even jokes. Others are devoted to the inculcation of moral and knightly virtue, and are often of a highly liberal and philosophic, and not unfrequently of a religious and devotional, turn. During the struggle between Otho and Frederic, for the Imperial crown, Walter drew a poetic comparison between their merits and pretensions, and sided with Frederic. At the court of Vienna, under Leopold VII., he addressed to him and other princes a very plaintive appeal :— To me is barr'd the door of joy and ease; There stand I as an orphan, lone, forlorn, And nothing boots me that I frequent knock. Strange that on every hand the shower should fall, And not one cheering drop should reach to me! Might stoop to pluck one little leaf for me, So might I fitly praise a scene so fair! Walter sought protection in Carinthia, at the court of the duke Bernard, a patron of song, with whom he had a misunderstanding; and he soon returned to the court of Leopold, whose death was followed by fierce intestine disturbances. These calamities wrung from his muse a song of sadness, which boldly personifies the court of Vienna, and makes it address to himself a bitter lamentation over the wreck of its greatness. The times were rapidly growing worse for men of his mood and habits; and he sighed for a resting-place from his wanderings. In one of the most interesting of his poems, addressed to the emperor Frederic II., he says Fain, could it be, would I a home obtain, good-breeding of the men, and the angel- Then, then, I'd sing about the sweet birds' forms of the women. Walter joined the court of Herman, landgrave of Thuringia, the great fostering-place of the Minnesinging art, where, in 1207, was the famous contention of the minnesingers, or poetic battle of Wartburg, at which he assisted as a prin * Fosbroke. strain, And fields and flowers, as I have whilome done; And paint in song the lily and the rose His next song announced the fulfilment of his wishes, in a burst of gratitude to "the noble king, the generous king," for his bounty. He had promised to turn his thoughts, when placed in ease and repose, to fields, and flowers, and ladies' charms; and he produced many of these lighter pieces, although he was not so much distinguished for gaiety as others of the Minnesingers. His touching accents in adversity were yet accompanied by expressions of confidence in his poetic powers : Chill penury, and winter's power, In the dissensions between Frederic II. and the pope, Walter fearlessly exposed the crafty policy of the see of Rome, and the mischiefs that resulted from investing the church with political power, which produced an anomalous herd, as he observes, of "preaching knights and fighting priests." Still he was a warm exhorter to what he considered the Christian duty of engaging in the holy wars. He opposed gion in lofty strains of devotional feeling. Too well thy weakness have I proved; It does not appear where Walter spent the latter period of his life, subsequently to his expedition to the Holy Land.`At all events it was after a long absence, and in old age, that he returned to his native land, and expressed his feelings on revisiting the scenes of youth, in a plaintive song, which commences thus: Ah! where are hours departed fled? From fancy's visitings proceed? To me the thing best known before : Despoil'd the woods, the fields, of home, (Alas! that e'er such change should come !) And he who knew me once so well Salutes me now as one estranged: the pretensions of the pope, on prin- The very earth to me can tell Of nought but things perverted, changed: That passed me as the dashing oars Ceaseless my heart its fate deplores. An ancient MS. records that Walter's mortal remains were deposited beneath a tree in the precincts of the minster at Wurtzburg; and his name and talents commemorated by the following epi-, taph : father-land, and, to the admiration of the beauties of nature, and to the praise of female virtue. At an after period he says, "Forty years and more have I sung of love." He attained to an advanced age, little blest by the gifts of fortune, but, with an increasing love for his country, zealously inculcating the precepts of reli Pascua qui volucrum vivus, Walthere, fuisti, Qui legit, hic dicat-" Deus istius miserere! It is stated, on the same authority, that Vogelweide, by his last will, dictated grateful and pure feelings of the minnea bequest, beautifully accordant with the singer" of the Birdmeadow"-he directed the birds to be statedly fed upon his tomb.* *Lays of the Minnesingers. [Original.] REMEMBER. Remember, remember, the vow so early made, By the marble fountain's side, 'neath the spreading palm tree's shade; Remember, remember, the hour so sad to me, When thou fled'st thy home and love in a strange bark o'er the sea; But prophetic tears came on my cheek, my heart yearn'd, and I blest. And madness of heart and head, I saw thee once again; When menials spurn'd the maniac from the portal where he lay, But one star yet to thee is left-nay, fear from me no word, March 8. THE CHANCELLOR'S MACE. On the 8th of March, 1577, there was a trial at the old Bailey, arising out of the following circumstances : A little girl, the daughter of a woman who let lodgings in Knight Rider Street, went up to a room of one of the lodgers to make the bed, and was agreeably surprised with finding on the floor some silver spangles and odd ends of silver. Her curiosity was awakened; she pryed further, and looking through the keyhole of the door, to a locked closet perceived what she imagined to be the royal crown. She hastened down stairs, and cried out," Oh mother! mother! yonder's the king's crown in our closet! Pray mother come along with me and see it." The admiring mother followed her daughter, opened the lock of her lodgers' closet with a knife, and discovered the lord chancellor's mace, which had been stolen from his house. She had been informed of the loss, and immediately gave information of the discovery. Officers were despatched and secured the persons who rented the room, consist S. H.S. ing of three men and women; they were examined and committed for trial. These circumstances are stated in a rare little quarto tract of four leaves, entitled "A perfect narrative of the Apprehension, Trial, and Confession on the day before mentioned of the five several persons that were confederates in stealing the mace and two privy purses from the lord high chancellor of England, at the sessions held at Justice Hall in the Old Baily." On the arraignment of the prisoners, and before the evidence was taken, “the principal of those malefactors, a person very well known in court, having been arraigned at the same bar five or six several times," very confidently said to the bench, "My lord, I own the fact it was I, and this man," pointing to a fellow prisoner at the bar, "that robbed my lord chancellor, and the other three are clear of the fact; though I cannot say but that they were confederates with us in the concealment of the prize after it was taken. This I declare to the honorable bench, that I may be clear of the blood of these other three persons." The court was surprised by this premature avowal, and quite as much when, one of the witnesses deposing upon examination to the manner of ap Sun rises. sets Twilight ends Peach in bloom. apricot is fully out. h. m. 4 28 6 21 5 39 7 32 By this time the March 9. GREAT SHIPS. prehending the prisoners, the same culprit March 8. Day breaks It was the Lord Chancellor Nottingham who thus lost and recovered his mace of office and purses. A like mishap befel Lord Thurlow. When he was chancellor, and lived in Great Ormond Street, his house was broken open and the great seal stolen, which was a greater loss. The thieves were discovered, but the seal, being of silver, they had disposed of it in the melting pot, and patents and important public documents which required the great seal were delayed until a new one was made. THE MACE. This was a weapon used in warfare, and differed from a club only in being surrounded with little horns or spikes. Both mace and sceptre, which was also a warlike instrument, became symbols of authority and power. The origin of the corporation mace is thus given by Dr. Clarke :-The sceptre of Agamemnon was preserved by the Charoneans, and seems to have been used among them after the manner of a mace in corporate towns; for Pausanias relates that it was not kept in any temple appropriated for its reception, but that it was annually brought forth with proper ceremonies, and honored by daily sacrifices; and a sort of mayor's feast seems to have been provided upon the occasion-a table covered with all sorts of vegetables was then set forth.* Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities. On the 9th of March, 1655, Mr. Evelyn enters in his diary, "I went to see the great ship newly built by the usurper Oliver [Cromwell], carrying ninety-six brass guns and 1000 tons burthen. In the prow was Oliver on horseback, trampling six nations under foot, a Scot, Irishman, Dutchman, Spaniard, and English, as was easily made out by their several habits. A Fame held a laurel over his insulting head; the word God with us.”: burthen in England is derivable from the The first mention of ships of great inscription on Canning's tomb in Rad had "forfeited the king's peace," or, in cliffe church, Bristol, which states that he plain words, committed piracies on the high seas, for which he was condemned to pay king took of him 2470 tons of shipping, 3000 marks; in lieu of which sum the amongst which there was one ship of 900 tons burthen, another of 500, one of 400, and the rest smaller. These ships had English names, yet it is doubtful whether at that time ships of so large a size were built in England; it seems more probable that Canning had purchased or taken these ships from the Hanseatics, or else from the Venetians, Genoese, Luccese, Ragusians, or Pisans; all of whom then had ships of even larger tonnage.* When I see a gallant ship well-rigged, trimmed, tackled, man'd, munitioned, spread sayles proudly swelling with a full with her top and top-gallant, and her gale in fair weather, putting out of the haven into the smooth maine, and drawing the spectators' eyes, with a well-wishing admiration, and shortly heare of the same ship splitted against some dangerous rock, or wracked by some disastrous tempest, * Anderson. or sunk by some leake sprung in her by some accident, me seemeth I see the case of some court-favourite, who, to-day, like Sejanus, dazzleth all men's eyes with the splendour of his glory, and with the proud and potent beake of his powerful prosperity, cutteth the waves and ploweth through the prease of the vulgar, and scorneth to feare some remora at his keele below, or any crosse winds from above, and yet to-morrow, on some storens of unexpected disfavour, springs a leake in his honour, and sinkes on the Syrtes of disgrace, or, dashed against the rocks of displeasure, is splitted and wracked in the Charybdis of infamy; and so concludes his voyage in misery and misfortune.-A. Warwick. Enough, I reckon wealth; That mean, the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, My wishes are but few, All easy to fulfil; I make the limits of my power I fear no care for gold ; Well-doing is my wealth ; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health. I clip high-climbing thoughts, The wings of swelling pride; Their fall is worst that from the height Of greatest honour slide. Since sails of largest size The storm doth soonest tear; I bear so low and small a sail I wrestle not with rage, . Into a quiet friend. And, taught with often proof, A temper'd calm I find To be most solace to itself, My clothes more fit than fine; Whom favour doth advance; I take no pleasure in their pain That have less happy chance. |
