Fac-simile of a French Assignat for Ten Sous,
Referred to in the following Communication.
To the Editor.
Dear sir,—Perhaps you may esteem the enclosed as a curiosity worthy of a place in the Table Book. It is a genuine specimen of the assignats used in lieu of money during the French revolution. I believe there are very few now to be had. It was given to me by a French gentleman, whose father (a native of Normandy) had lost considerable sums by them. He had unfortunately converted most of his property into assignats, as a precaution during those times, which, although eventually of so much benefit to the French nation, were so distressing while they lasted. But when the use of coin was resumed, he found his intention frustrated, and himself deprived of all his fortune.
This gentleman had been the means of assisting the duke and duchess of Chartres in their escape to England, after having concealed them for some time in his own house. They left him with reiterated assurances of liberal recompense and future patronage, should they ever be so fortunate as to return to their native country:—they did return—but their Norman benefactor was forgotten—he never heard any thing more of them.—“Telle est la récompense de loyauté!” was the concluding remark of his son, who related the story to me. He was a pleasant specimen of a Frenchman—light, kind-hearted, and extremely enthusiastic; but his enthusiasm was equally bestowed on the most important or the most trivial occasion. I have seen him rise from his seat, stretch his clasped hands out at full length, and utter with rapturous ecstasy through his clenched teeth, “Ah, Dieu! que c’étoit beau!” when perhaps the subject of his eulogy was the extraordinary leap of some rope-dancer, or the exaggerated shout of some opera-singer, whose greatest recommendation was, that she possessed “une voix à enlever le toit.” He had a habit of telling immensely long stories, and always forgot that you had heard him relate them often and often before. He used to tack his sentences together by an awful “alors,” which was the sure sign of his being in the humour (although by the by he never was otherwise) for telling one of his pet anecdotes, or, more properly interminable narratives, for such he made them by his peculiar tact at spinning them out. He had three special favourites;—the one above related of aristocratic ingratitude;—another about Buonaparte’s going incognito every morning, while he was at Boulogne sur Mer, to drink new milk at the cottage of an old woman, with whom he used to take snuff, and talk quite familiarly;—and the last and best-beloved, an account of his own good fortune in having once actually spoken with the emperor Napoleon Buonaparte himself! He had been an officer on board one of the ships belonging to the flotille destined for the invasion of England, and almost adored Buonaparte as a sort of God. He was perhaps as affectionate-hearted a human being as could possibly exist, and I never heard him speak bitterly against any one, excepting Messieurs les Clergés.
I have digressed considerably, but the assignat is merely a matter of curiosity to look at, and does not admit of much comment.
I am, dear sir,
Your respectful admirer,
M. H.
June 28, 1827.
A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong; and an huckster shall not be freed from sin.
As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; so doth sin stick close between buying and selling. Ecclesiasticus.
It has been observed in the House of Commons, “That commerce tends to corrupt the morals of a people.” If we examine the expression, we shall find it true, in a certain degree.
Perhaps every tradesman can furnish out numberless instances of small deceit. His conduct is marked with a littleness, which though allowed by general consent, is not strictly just. A person with whom I have long been connected in business, asked if I had dealt with his relation whom he had brought up, and who had lately entered into commercial life. I answered in the affirmative. He replied, “He is a very honest fellow.” I told him I saw all the finesse of a tradesman about him. “Oh, rejoined my friend, a man has a right to say all he can in favour of his own goods.”
Nor is the seller alone culpable. The buyer takes an equal share in the deception. Though neither of them speak their sentiments, they well understand each other. Whilst a treaty is agitating, the buyer pronounces against the article; but when finished, the seller whispers to his friend, “It is well sold,” and the buyer smiles at the bargain. The commercial track is a line of minute deceits.
But, on the other hand, it does not seem possible for a man in trade to pass this line, without wrecking his reputation; which, if once broken, can never be made whole. The character of a tradesman is valuable; it is his all; therefore, whatever seeds of the vicious kind may shoot forth in the mind, they are carefully watched and nipped in the bud, that they may never blossom into action.
Having stated the accounts between morality and trade, I shall leave the reader to draw the balance, and only ask, “Whether the people in trade are more corrupt than those out?” If the curious reader will lend an attentive ear to a pair of farmers in the market, bartering for a cow, he will find as much dissimulation as at St. James’s, or at any other saint’s, but couched in more homely phrase. The man of well-bred deceit is “infinitely your friend—it would give him immense pleasure to serve you!” while the man in the frock “will be —— if he tells you a word of a lie!”
Having occasion for a horse, in 1759, I mentioned it to an acquaintance, and informed him of the uses the animal was wanted for; he assured me he had one that would exactly suit; which he showed in the stable, and held the candle pretty high, “for fear of affecting the straw.” I told him it was needless to examine him, for I should rely upon his word, being conscious he was too much my friend to deceive me; I therefore bargained, and caused him to be sent home. But by the light of the sun which next morning illumined the heavens, I perceived the horse was “greased” on all fours. I therefore, in gentle terms, upbraided my friend with duplicity, when he replied with some warmth, “I would cheat my own brother in a horse.” Had this honourable friend stood a chance of selling me a horse once a week, his own interest would have prevented him from deceiving me.
A man enters into business with a view of acquiring a fortune—a laudable motive! That property which arises from honest industry is an honour to its owner; the repose of his age, the reward of a life of attention; but great as the advantage seems, yet, being of a private nature, it is one of the least in the mercantile walk. For the intercourse occasioned by traffic gives a man a view of the world, and of himself; removes the narrow limits that confine his judgment, expands the mind, opens his understanding, removes his prejudices, and polishes his manners. Civility and humanity are ever the companions of trade; the man of business is the man of liberal sentiment: if he be not the philosopher of nature he is the friend of his country. A barbarous and commercial people is a contradiction.[316]
[316] Hutton’s History of Birmingham.
In August, 1827, John Macdonald expired in his son’s house, in the Lawnmarket, at the advanced age of one hundred and seven years. He was born in Glen Tinisdale, in the Isle of Skye, and, like the other natives of that quarter, was bred to rural labour. Early one morning in his youth, when looking after his black cattle, he was surprised by the sight of two ladies, as he thought, winding slowly round a hill, and approaching the spot where he stood. When they came up, they inquired for a well or stream, where a drink of water could be obtained. He conducted them to the “Virgin Well,” an excellent spring, which was held in great reverence on account of its being the scene of some superstitious and legendary tales. When they had quenched their thirst, one of the ladies rewarded Macdonald with a shilling, the first silver coin of which he was possessed. At their own request he escorted them to a gentleman’s house at some distance, and there, to his great surprise and satisfaction, he learned that the two “ladies” were Flora Macdonald and prince Charles Stewart.
This was the proudest incident in Macdonald’s patriarchal life; and, when surrounded by his Celtic brethren, he used to dilate on all the relative circumstances with a sort of hereditary enthusiasm, and more than the common garrulity of age. He afterwards turned joiner, and bore a conspicuous part in the building of the first protestant church which was erected in the island of North Uist. He came to Edinburgh twenty-three years before his death, and continued to work at his trade till he was ninety-seven years of age.
Macdonald was a temperate, regular-living man, and never paid a sixpence to a surgeon for himself, nor had an hour’s sickness in the whole course of his life. He used to dance regularly on New-year’s day, along with some Highland friends, to the bagpipe. On New-year’s day, 1825, he danced a reel with the father, the son, the grandson, and great-grandson, and was in more than his usual spirits. His hearing was nothing impaired, and till within three weeks of his demise he could have threaded the finest needle with facility, without glasses.[317]
[317] Scotsman, August, 1827.
Having examined what knowledge the ancients had in logic and metaphysics, we are now to consider with the same impartiality, what general or particular discoveries they made in physics, astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, and the other sciences.
Although the distance may appear considerable between metaphysics and physics, yet an idea of their connection runs through the whole system of Leibnitz. He founds this on the principle, employed long ago by Archimedes, “that there must be a sufficient reason for every thing.” Leibnitz inquires, why bodies are extended in length, breadth, and thickness. He holds, that to discover the origin of extension, we must come at something unextended, and without parts; in short, at existences entirely simple; and he contends, that “things extended” could have had no existence, but for “things entirely simple.”
The foundations of this system were, in effect, long since laid by Pythagoras and his disciples. Traces of it are in Strato of Lampsacus, who succeeded Theophrastus in the Lyceum; in Democritus; in Plato, and those of his school; and in Sextus Empiricus, who has even furnished entire arguments to Leibnitz for establishing “the necessity of seeking for the reason of compound things, in those which never had external existence.” Moderatus Gaditanus, in relation to the numbers of Pythagoras, says, “Numbers are, so to speak, an assemblage of units, a progressive multitude which arises from unity, and finds there its ultimate cause.” And Hermias, expounding the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, says, that, according to them, “the unit, or simple essence, was the origin and principle of all things.”
Sextus Empiricus deems it unworthy of a philosopher to advance, that what falls under the notice of our senses, could be the principle of all things; for things sensible ought to be derived from what is not so. Things compounded of other things cannot possibly be themselves a principle; but what constitutes those things may. Those who affirm that atoms, similar parts, particles, or those bodies which only are to be apprehended by the intellect itself, are the primary elements of all things, in one respect say true, in another not. In so far as they acknowledge for principles, only such things as fall not under our senses, they are right; but they are wrong in apprehending those to be corporeal principles: for as those bodies which fall not under our senses, precede those which do, they themselves are preceded also by what is of another nature: and as the letters are not a discourse, though they go into the composition of it, neither are the elements of body, body: but since they must be either corporeal or incorporeal, it follows, that they are incorporeal. To this end he argues, that “bodies are composed of incorporeal principles, not to be comprehended but by the mind itself.”
To the same effect, Scipio Aquilianus, treating of the opinion of Alcmæon, the Pythagorean, concerning the principles of things, reduces it to a syllogism. “What precedes body in the order of nature, is the principle of body; number is such a thing; therefore number is the principle of body. The second of these propositions is proved thus:—Of two things, that is the first, which may be conceived independent of the other, whilst that other cannot of it. Now number may be conceived independently of body, but not body of number; wherefore number is antecedent to body in the order of nature.”
Marcilius Ficinus imputes to Plato the same notion, and gives us the substance of that philosopher’s thoughts. “The different species of all sorts of compounds may be traced out to something which in itself is uncompounded; as the boundaries of body to a point, which has no boundary; numbers to a unit, which consists not of numbers; and elements to what has nothing in it mixt or elementary.” Marcilius Ficinus expresses the system in a few words. “Compounds are reducible into things uncompounded, and these again into what is still more simple.” One sees here those compounds of Leibnitz, which, when reduced to their simple parts, terminate in the Deity for their cause and source.
Plotinus also affirms, that “there must be in bodies some principle, or substratum, entirely different from any thing corporeal.”
These quotations accord with passages in Plutarch concerning Heraclitus. There are passages in Stobæus, from Epicurus, Xenocrates, and Diodorus, to a similar purport; and a remarkable one in Hebrews xi. 3. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”[318]
It every where appears that Leibnitz drew many of his notions from Plato; and he defines his “monads,” just as Plato does his ideas, τα ὁντπως ὁντα, “things really existing.” An erudite German says, “I am assured by one of my friends, who was himself informed of it by a learned Italian, who went to Hanover to satisfy an ardent desire he had of being acquainted with Mr. Leibnitz, and spent three weeks with him, that this great man, at parting, said to him: ‘Sir you have often been so good as to insinuate, that you looked upon me as a man of some knowledge. Now, sir, I’ll show you the sources whence I drew it all;’ and immediately taking him by the hand, led him into his study, showing him all the books he had; which were Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Euclid, Archimedes, Pliny, Seneca, and Cicero.”
Leibnitz and Parmenides agree in these particulars:—
1. The existence and essence of things are different.
2. The essence of things existent, is without the things themselves.
3. There are, in nature, similar and dissimilar things.
4. The similar are conceived, as in existence essentially the same.
5. Whatever exists is reducible to certain classes, and specific forms.
6. All those forms have their existence in the unity; that is, in God; and hence the whole is one.
7. Science consists in the knowledge, not of individuals, but of kinds or species.
8. This knowledge differs from that of things existing externally.
9. Forms or ideas, as they exist in God, escape the observation of men.
10. Hence men perceive nothing perfectly.
11. Our mental notions are but the shades or resemblances of ideas.
Buffon’s theory respecting universal matter, generation, and nutrition, so much resembles what was taught by some of the ancients, that it is difficult not to think that his ideas drew their origin from that first school. It appears indeed, that he had attentively read the ancients, and knew how to value them. He says himself, that “the ancients understood much better, and made a greater progress in the natural history of animals and minerals, than we have done. They abounded more in real observations; and we ought to have made much better advantage of their illustrations and remarks.” Yet Buffon does not seem to have perceived the analogy which every where reigns between his system and that of the ancients.
Anaxagoras thought that bodies were composed of small, similar, or homogeneous particles; that those bodies, however, admitted a certain quantity of small particles that were heterogene, or of another kind; but that to constitute any body to be of a particular species, it sufficed, that it was composed of a great number of small particles, similar and constitutive of that species. Different bodies were masses of particles similar among themselves; dissimilar, however, relatively to those of any other body, or to the mass of small particles belonging to a different species. Thus, the ancients taught, that blood was formed of many drops or particles, each of which had blood in it; that a bone was formed of many small bones, which from their extreme littleness evaded our view; and these similar parts they called ομοιομερειας similaritates. Likewise, that nothing was properly liable to generation, or corruption, to birth, or to death; generations of every kind, being no other than an assemblage of small particles constituent of the kind; and the destruction of a body being no other than the disunion of many small bodies of the same sort, which always preserving a natural tendency to reunite, produce again, by their conjunction with other similar particles, other bodies of the same species. Vegetation and nutrition were but means employed by nature for the continuation of beings; thus, the different juices of the earth being composed of a collection of innumerable small particles intermixed, constituting the different parts of a tree or flower for example, take, according to the law of nature, different arrangements; and by the motion originally impressed upon them, proceed till, arriving at the places destined and proper for them, they collect themselves and halt, to form all the different parts of that tree or flower; in the same manner as many small imperceptible leaves go to the formation of the leaves we see, many little parts of the fruits of different kinds to the composition of those which we eat; and so of the rest. The same, with respect to the nutrition of animals. The bread we eat, and the other aliments we take, turn themselves, according to the ancients, into hair, veins, arteries, nerves, and all the other parts of our body; because there are, in those aliments, the constituent parts of blood, nerves, bones, hair, &c. which, uniting with one another, make themselves by their coalition perceptible, which they were not before, because of their infinite littleness.
Empedocles believed, that matter had in it a living principle, a subtile active fire, which put all in motion; and this Buffon calls, by another name, “organized matter, always active; or animated organic matter.” According to Empedocles, “this matter was distributed through the four elements, among which it had an uniting force to bind them, and a separating to put them asunder; for the small parts either mutually embraced, or repelled one another; whence nothing in reality perished, but every thing was in perpetual vicissitude.”
Empedocles had a sentiment, which Buffon follows, in the same terms; where he says, that “the sexes contain all the small parts analogous to the body of an animal, and necessary to its production.”
Plotinus, investigating what might be the reason of this sympathy and attraction in nature, discovered it to proceed from such a “harmony and assimilation of the parts, as bound them together when they met,” or repelled them when they were dissimilar; he says, that it is the variety of these assimilations that concurs to the formation of an animal; and calls this binding, or dissolving force, “the magic of the universe.”
Anaxagoras thought as Buffon does, that there is no preexistent seed, involving infinite numbers of the same kind one within another; but an ever active organic matter, always ready so to adapt itself, as to assimilate, and render other things conformable to that wherein it resides. The species of animals and vegetables can never therefore exhaust themselves; but as long as an individual subsists, the species will be always new. It is as extensive now as it was at the beginning, and all will subsist of themselves, till they are annihilated by the Creator.
It would be easy to show, that in morals and politics, as in physics, the most eminent moderns have said nothing new. Hobbes has advanced nothing, but what he found in the writings of the Grecian and Latin philosophers; and above all, in those of Epicurus. Montesquieu also assumes from the ancients the principles of his system; and Machiavel those of his politics from Aristotle, though we have attributed to his genius the whole honour of having invented them. But these discussions would detain the reader too long; we hasten therefore to another field of contemplation, not less fruitful of testimony, in support of the position, that the most celebrated philosophers among the moderns have taken what they advance from the works of the ancients.
[318] Perhaps this principle derives further illustration from scripture. “In the beginning was the Word.” John i, 1. Ed.
For the Table Book.
“Sauter de branche en branche.”
Aug. 1827. J. R. P.
For the Table Book.
A grocer’s shop at Camberwell—“the Grasshopper”—is much visited by wasps for the sweets of the sugar hogsheads. The shop is closed on Sundays, but they find entrance into it by creeping privately through the keyhole of the door.
C. W. P.
To the Editor.
My dear sir,—Nothing could possibly exceed the heartfelt pleasure I enjoyed when the last load was drawn into the farm-yard; and the farmer, and his men and women, witnessed the completion of the “Barley-mow.” Their huzzas filled the scenery, and the barns and church replied. The carters and horses were trimmed with boughs and wild flowers. The hedges siding the lanes, and the patriarch elms and walnut-trees, as the survivors of templar consecrations to the demesne, took their tithes, to the joy of birds; and the fields had still a generous strewing of ears for the peasant-gleaners, who, like ants, collected a small store for the days of frost and adversity. The farmer’s heart gladdened with the reward of his labours. The ale-bottle, when held upward, gurgled its choice liquid into many thirsty throats. Every thing and every body showed satisfaction. The housewife came forth with a rake in her hand, in her sun-shielding gloves and broad flat bonnet, and she sung the rejoicings of her peace in a minor key, suitable to her taste of harmony. Her daughter too came tripping in a lightsome gait and charming advance, towards her sire and myself, with cake and cider, dimpling and exhilarating.
By this time the “Barley-mow” was coning to a point, and the stray ears were plucked out of its bulging sides.
The evening closing into eternity, the peaceful aspect of nature sweetly accorded with the quiet sensations of thankfulness, glowing in the grateful breasts of the persons cast in this out-of-town spot. The increasing pall of dusk, when the work was ended, drew the labourers into a circle within their master’s welcome domicile. Here the farmer and his wife and family were assembled, and, without pride’s distinction, regaled the sharers of their summer-toil with that beverage that warms the feelings of hope into real joy. This was the triumph of the “Barley-mow.” Every tongue praised, as every energy assisted it. It was a heartfelt celebration. Songs were sung, and they danced down the midnight. The foot of Time stepped lightly, till the weather-featured clock toll’d the end of the joyful recreation. Sincerity, unity, and hospitality were blended: the master was satisfied with his servants—the servants were thankful with their means of support. My thoughts rebounded high, as my sympathies awakened to so much happiness in so small a compass. Ere satiety arrived the companions separated. My candle was ready; I shook hands with my friends; and, after penning you this outline, retired with benevolent impressions and aspirations in behalf of a cheerful country life, arising from contented habits and industrious courses.
The two following stanzas were audible for a long time in the neighbouring ruralries:
I am, my dear sir,
Yours very truly,
J. R. P.
T——n T——e,
August 1, 1827.
To the Editor.
Sir,—The custom of “hanging the shuttle” arose out of the introduction of a “spring loom,” which an eminent clothier at Langley ventured, in 1794, to have erected in one of his cottages, built for the use of his men.
One person performing nearly as much work in this loom as two persons, the weavers in the neighbourhood met at the “Plough,” to consider the best means of opposing the success of the one-shuttle stranger.
After sundry resolutions were passed, declarative that spring-looms would prove hurtful to weavers of the old school, they suspended a shuttle to a bacon rack by a skein of tangled yarn over the table round which they sat. Meeting every Saturday-night at this inn, they pledged their affiance to the “shuttle,” and continued the custom till their meetings were fruitless.
The “hanging the shuttle” over them signified that no honest weaver should work a spring-loom to the injury of his fellow-workman. This prejudice having subsided and most of the weavers that assembled at the “Plough” being dead, their sons agree to the prevailing and supposed improvements.
I am, sir,
Yours respectfully,
*, *, P.
July 28, 1827.
For the Table Book.
Faith, Hope, and Charity.
P.
From the “True Protestant Mercury,”
No. 162.
Advertisement.
Lost, a Flowered silk Manto (Mantua) Gown of a sable and Gold Coulor, lined with Black, betwixt Arniseed Clere (St. Agnes le Clair) and the White Houses at Hogsden (Hoxton) on Wednesday last, the 19th instant, about 4 or 5 a clock in the Afternoon. Any one that can give Intelligence of the said Manto Gown to Mr. Blewit’s, at the Rose and Crown in Loathberry, shall have 10s. for their pains.
For the Table Book.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB’S ARMY.
And it came to pass that night, that the Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses!—2 Kings, xix. 35.
O. N. Y.
July, 1827.
For the Table Book.
Mr. Canning’s decease on the 8th of August, 1827, occasioned the following article in the newspapers.
In an old book, entitled The Prophecies of Robert Nixon, printed in the year 1701, is the following prophetic declaration, which appears to refer to the late melancholy event, which has deprived the English nation of one of her brightest ornaments:—“In the year 1827 a man will raise himself by his wisdom to one of the most exalted offices in the state. His king will invest him with great power, as a reward for his zeal. England will be greatly rejoiced. A strong party will enter into a league against him, but their envy and hatred will not prevail. The power of God, which reigneth over all, will cut him off in his prime, and the nation will bitterly bemoan her loss. Oh, England? beware of thy enemies. A great friend thou wilt lose in this man.”
The preceding is a prediction made after the event—a mere “hoax” on the credulous. There is nothing of the kind among the prophecies imputed to Nixon, who was not an astrologer, and probably existed nowhere but in the imagination of the writer of the manuscript copied by the “Lady Cowper.”
At this season when persons, at inns in Lincolnshire, ask for “eel-pie,” they are presently provided with “bush eels;” namely, snakes, caught for that purpose in the bushes, and sold to the landlords cheaply, which are made into stews, pies, and fries.
P.
Case containing the Heart of Lord Edward Bruce,
AT CULROSS ABBEY.
Lord Edward Bruce was eldest son of sir Edward, baron of Kinloss, so created by James I. in 1603, to whom the king gave the dissolved abbey of Kinloss, in Ayrshire, after he had been instrumental in his succession to the crown of England; whither accompanying the king, he was made master of the rolls in 1604, died in 1610, and was buried in the Rolls chapel. His son, the lord Edward, killed in duel by sir Edward Sackville in 1613, was succeeded by his brother, who was created earl of Elgin in 1633 and an English baron in 1641.
Sir Edward Sackville, by whose hand the lord Edward Bruce fell, was younger brother to Richard Sackville, earl of Dorset, on whose death he succeeded to the title. He was lord president of the council, a joint lord keeper, and filled several other distinguished offices under Charles I., to whom he adhered, by whose side he fought at the battle of Edge-hill, and whose death he took so much to heart, that he never afterwards stirred out of his house in Salisbury-court, but died there on the 17th of July, 1652.
Between these noblemen there arose a quarrel, which terminated in their duel; and all that is, or probably can be known respecting it, is contained in the following correspondence, preserved in a manuscript in Queen’s college library, Oxford.[319]
A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackvile.
“I that am in France, hear how much you attribute to yourself in this time, that I have given the world leave to ring your praises; and for me, the truest almanack, to tell you how much I suffer. If you call to memory, when as I gave you my hand last, I told you I reserved the heart for a truer reconciliation. Now be that noble gentleman, my love once spoke, and come and do him right that could recite the tryals you owe your birth and country, were I not confident your honour gives you the same courage to do me right, that it did to do me wrong. Be master of your own weapons and time; the place wheresoever, I will wait on you. By doing this, you shall shorten revenge, and clear the idle opinion the world hath of both our worths.
“Ed. Bruce.”
A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss.
“As it shall be always far from me to seek a quarrel, so will I always be ready to meet with any that is desirous to make tryal of my valour, by so fair a course as you require. A witness whereof yourself shall be, who, within a month, shall receive a strict account of time, place, and weapon, where you shall find me ready disposed to give honourable satisfaction, by him that shall conduct you thither. In the mean time, be as secret of the appointment, as it seems you are desirous of it.
“E. Sackvile.”
A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss.
“I am at Tergose, a town in Zeland, to give what satisfaction your sword can render you, accompanied with a worthy gentleman for my second, in degree a knight. And, for your coming, I will not limit you a peremptory day, but desire you to make a definite and speedy repair, for your own honour, and fear of prevention; at which time you shall find me there.
“E. Sackvile.”
Tergose, 10th
of August, 1613.
A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackvile.
“I have received your letter by your man, and acknowledge you have dealt nobly with me; and now I come, with all possible haste, to meet you.
“E. Bruce.”
The combat was fierce, and fatal to lord Bruce. The survivor, sir Edward Sackville, describes it in a letter, which will be inserted at a future time. For the present purpose it is merely requisite to state, that lord Stowell, in a communication to the earl of Aberdeen, president of the Society of Antiquarians, dated February 15, 1822, seems to have determined the spot whereon the duel was fought, and the place of lord Bruce’s interment. From that communication, containing an account of the discovery of his heart, with representations of the case wherein it was enclosed, the following detail is derived, together with the engravings.
It has always been presumed that the duel was fought under the walls of Antwerp; but the combatants disembarked at Bergen-op-Zoom, and fought near that town, and not Antwerp. The circumstances are still well remembered at Bergen, while at Antwerp there is not a trace of them. A small piece of land, a mile and a half from the Antwerp gate of Bergen, goes by the name of Bruce-land; it is recorded as the spot where Bruce fell; and, according to tradition, was purchased by the parties to fight upon. The spot is unclaimed at the present day, and marked by a little earthen boundary, which separates it from the surrounding corn-fields. It was considered, until the French revolution, as free ground, where any person might take refuge without being liable to arrest. Lord Bruce was buried at Bergen, and a monument is stated to have been erected to his memory within the great Protestant church, which was nearly destroyed in the siege of 1747.