Then for Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, table-stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, brasenas, &c., all of massy silver, and out of number, besides some of her Majesty's best paintings." Imagine, as a contrast to this picture, another, in which Charles sat in state in the Banqueting House, when a physician led certain patients up to him to be touched for the evil or scrofula, whilst a chaplain, standing by, was not ashamed to repeat over each the passage from Scripture, "He put his hands upon them, and healed them." Even at this period of degradation the palace possessed one great charm-the music of its Chapel-Royal. The choir, famous in Charles I.'s time, was now distinguished above all others by the great superiority of its officers, and by the number of excellent composers it produced. It will be sufficient to mention the most illustrious of its names, Henry Purcell, England's greatest musician. To Charles's taste and munificence this result was mainly owing; yet it is difficult to understand how he could step from the Chapel-Royal, with a full appreciation of its sublime strains, into such a scene as that described by Evelyn in the following striking passage, written the night after the King's death: "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day se'nnight I was witness of; the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c.; a French boy singing love-songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2000l. in gold before them; upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust." Charles had long been suspected to be in his heart a Roman Catholic, and at the point of death his brother and successor, James, with great secrecy and some difficulty, brought to his bedside Father Huddlestone, a Catholic priest, who had aided Charles in his escape from Worcester. His death took place on the 6th of February, 1685. Among his last words were some that scandalised the bishops present very much, but which are touching and valuable were it only that they show that the King had a heart. "Do not," said he, "let poor Nelly (Gwynne) starve." Charles died; and although James was essentially little better, his court was more decent in all outward observances than his brother's. The new King's reigning mistress was Catherine Sedley, who had no pretension to beauty, but inherited much of her father's wit. Charles used to say that one might fancy his brother's mistresses were given him by his father-confessor as penances, they were all so ugly. According to Walpole, Miss Sedley (ennobled into the Countess of Dorchester when installed at Whitehall) was herself accustomed to wonder what James chose his mistresses for. "We are none of us handsome," she said, " and if we had wit, he had not enough to find it out." James's tendencies were very quickly made evident. the 5th of March, only a month after his accession, Evelyn saw, "to his great grief," the "new pulpit set up in the Popish oratorie at Whitehall for the Lent preaching, mass being publicly said, and the Romanists swarming at court with greater confidence than had ever been seen in England since the Reformation." Other and less objectionable additions were made in the same year to the palace. James built a new range of buildings on the garden side, including a chapel, and On lodgings for his Queen, Mary d'Este. The embroidery of her Majesty's bed cost 3000/., and the carving about the chimney-piece, by Gibbons, was, says Evelyn, "incomparable." Statues of white marble, and an altar-piece by Verrio, decorated the chapel. Blind as his father had been to all the signs of the times, the King would not be content without rushing into conflict with the people; and though his head was allowed to remain on his shoulders, the result, as regards his throne, was the same. William came over; and, finding that James was in no hurry to leave Whitehall, sent some battalions of the Dutch guards into Westminster to quicken his departure: with so little dignity did he fall. The history of the palace is now near its conclusion. On the 10th of April, 1691, a considerable portion of it was burnt by a fire which broke out in the apartment of the Duchess of Portsmouth; and in 1698 the entire structure, with the exception of the Banqueting House and some small portion of its buildings, was destroyed by the same element. Evelyn thus generalises the results:—“ Whitehall burnt; nothing but walls and ruins left." The interior of the Banqueting House has been occupied as a chapel since the time of George I., who granted a stipend to certain clergymen to preach in it. About four years ago it underwent a thorough repair and restoration; when a gallery, built for the use of the Guards, was removed. The immense size and noble proportions of this room now appear in all their original grandeur. Over the door is a bust of the founder, James I. A lofty gallery runs along the two sides of the room, and across the end over the door of entrance, where there is a fine organ. But the great attraction of the Banqueting House is the ceiling, with its series of paintings by Rubens, before referred to, which, immediately the spectator enters the room, attract his eyes by their brilliant and harmonious colouring. Their great height, however, renders any close and accurate inspection impossible. Dr. Waagen, the celebrated German critic, gives on the whole, we think, the best account of them. "The ceiling," he says, "divided into nine compartments, is decorated with so many oil-paintings by Rubens. The largest, in the centre, of an oval form, contains the apotheosis of King James I. On the two long sides of it are great friezes with genii, who load sheaves of corn and fruits in carriages drawn by lions, bears, and rams. All the proportions are so colossal that each of these boys measures nine feet. The other two pictures in the centre row represent King James as protector of Peace, and sitting on his throne, appointing Prince Charles as his successor. The four pictures at the sides of these contain allegorical representations of Royal Power and Virtue. These paintings, executed in 1630, by commission from King Charles I., have by no means given me satisfaction. Independently of the inconvenience of looking at them, all large ceiling paintings have an oppressive, heavy, and, as ornaments to the architecture, unfavourable effect; for which reason, the refined judgment of the ancients never allowed of them, but was content with light decorations on a bright ground. Least of all are the colossal and heavy figures of Rubens adapted to such a purpose. Not to speak of the repulsive coldness of all allegories, the overcharging and clumsiness of those of Rubens are not calculated to make them attractive; and lastly, the character and reign of James I. could scarcely inspire him with any poetical enthusiasm. There is little doubt that the greater part was originally executed by the pupils of Rubens, as was subsequently the case with the series of the Life of Mary di Medicis, in the Louvre: add to this, that these pictures have already undergone four restorations, the last of which was completed a short time ago."* The statue seen in our engraving of the Banqueting House is that of James II. This is the work of Gibbons, and in every way worthy of his reputation. The attitude of the figure is easy, yet dignified; and a calm but serious and very thoughtful expression is stamped upon the well-formed features and brow. James is habited in the costume of a Roman emperor, a somewhat incongruous association of ideas; indeed, the only circumstance connected with this beautiful work that at all interferes with our admiration of it is its association with a sovereign so little deserving of the permanent interest that art can confer upon all those with whom it has any connection. IN the map of London, according to the survey of Aggas in 1560, Chancery Lane presents to us only a few scattered houses at the ends which connect it with Fleet Street and Holborn. Nearly the whole of the eastern side exhibits one large enclosed garden; whilst the western has a corresponding garden of greater length, containing a smaller enclosure, that of Lincoln's Inn. In the reign of Elizabeth, when the militant spirit of the owners of the soil displayed itself in the battle-field of the Court of Chancery, and the law was fast rising into the most thriving of professions, Chancery Lane would of necessity partake more than an equal share of the common improvements of London. The garden of Lincoln's Inn was a pleasant place, with its formal walks and shady avenues; and the reverend benchers would naturally desire that the eye of the vulgar passenger should look not upon their solemn musings or their frequent mirth. And so they built a wall in Chancery Lane to shut out the garden. Upon that wall laboured with his own hands the most illustrious of bricklayers, Benjamin Jonson. "His mother, after his father's death, married a bricklayer, and it is generally said that he wrought some time with his father-in-law, and particularly on the garden-wall of Lincoln's Inn, next to Chancery Lane." This is Aubrey's account; and there can be no doubt of the fact of Jonson's early occupation. But the young bricklayer had been building up something better than the garden-wall of Lincoln's Inn. He had raised for himself an edifice of sound scholarship, as a boy of Westminster; and whilst his mother and step-father, according to Fuller, "lived in Hartshorn Lane near Charing Cross," he was studying under the great Camden, then a junior master of that celebrated school. The good old author of the Worthies' thus continues:-" He was statutably admitted into Saint John's College in Cambridge (as many years after incorpo rated a honorary member of Christ Church in Oxford), where he continued but few weeks for want of further maintenance, being fain to return to the trade of his father-in-law. And let not them blush that have, but those that have not, a lawful calling. He helped in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket.” Aubrey tells the story of his going to college with a little more romance. He had not only the book in his pocket, but he was heard to repeat " Greek verses out of Homer ;" and a bencher, discoursing with him, gave him an exhibition at Trinity College. Jonson's name does not appear in any of the Cambridge registers; and he probably remained at the University a very short time. Aubrey continues, "Then he went into the Low Countries, and spent some time (not very long) in the army, not to the disgrace of it, as you may find in his epigrams." The little poem to which Aubrey alludes is an address To True Soldiers :' "I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love In Jonson's Conversation with Drummond of Hawthornden' he is made to tell that "In his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed one enemy and taken opima spolia from him." Jonson was born in 1574; and there is little doubt that his feats of arms were performed before he was twenty. In 1597 we find him in London, a player and a writer for the stage. Philip Henslow, one of the theatrical managers in that prosperous time of theatres, records in his diary of July, 1597, a loan of four pounds to Benjamin Jonson, player; and on the 3rd of December of the same year he also advances him twenty shillings "upon a book which he was to write for us before Christmas next." At this time he had written Every Man in his Humour,' for Henslow's theatre; not, however, in its present state, but with its scene laid in Italy. In the Life of Alleyn,' recently published by Mr. Collier, there is a letter from Henslow to Alleyn, for the first time printed, which contains the following very curious passage:-" Since you were with me I have lost one of my company, which hurteth me greatly-that is Gabrell, for he is slain in Hogsden Fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." This letter is dated in September, 1598. The use of the term "bricklayer," to designate Jonson's calling, is most remarkable. Either Henslow was ignorant (which appears very improbable) that the man who slew "Gabrell" was one of his own authors; or Jonson, with that manly independence which we cannot enough admire in his character, followed his step-father's laborious occupation even at the time when he was struggling to attain the honours of a poet. That he unhappily killed a man in a duel there can be no doubt; he himself told the story to Drummond. Since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary, which hurt him in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches longer than his; for the which he was imprisoned and almost at the gallows." Aubrey, in his loose way, says, "He killed Mr. Marlowe, the poet, on Bunhill." Marlowe was killed in 1593. Gifford supposes that this unfortunate event happened in 1595; but, if there be no error as to the date of Henslow's letter," Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer," was a poet of no mean reputation at the time of this event. His enemies 66 |