One book he had, a Bible great and old,
Whose large plain characters his untutor'd eye
Follow'd with pain, till as a mother's face
All were familiar. Most he loved to sit,
His cheek upon his hand, upon a cliff
That overlook'd the sea; when the storm
Hung dark around him, and above, the Lord
Opened a rent among his drifting cloud
And looked upon him, and the man sat there
Unconscious of the Lord.

But night and day
Came tempest seaward: sea and sky were join'd
Together, to the roaring of the winds;
The blackness gathered like a frowning face,
Till floating downward-like a living thing
A sunbeam would alight on Ailsa Craig,
And smile upon the waves until they sank
With deep low murmurs brightening as they fill,
Like to the lions licking Daniel's feet,
His brightness growing human in their eyes.
There Logan sat, content to hear and see
In silence, for his lonely soul was stirred
To watch with face unmoved a mighty power
Whose very moaning calm was like a threat,
Wherefore his soul grew fashioned to the place,
And in his brain the elements kept time
Unto the solemn music of the book
Until the tempest of the waves became
The spirit of the Lord.

Thou knowest now
How in the after days this man became
The trumpet of the tempest, with one blast
Blowing together all the scatter'd souls,
To whom the Lord was a tempestuous sign
And portent! In that dreadful wind so raised
He perish'd. Here beside the lonely sea
His very grave is wild and like a wave!

CHRONICLES OF LONDON STREETS.

ESSEX-STREET, STRAND.

THE town house of the proud Bishops of Exeter once stood at the bottom of that sloping street that lies westward of Temple Bar, in a sort of small bay or backwater southward of the Strand. Through a sort of picture-frame gate, from whence steps lead down to the shore of the river, you catch a pleasant green glimpse of the young plane-trees that line the new Embankment. On the left a passage leads into the Temple, reminding us that Exeter House once formed the outer part of the domain of those semi-ecclesiastical knights whom the lawyers first robbed, then burnt; and on the right stands a Unitarian chapel of considerable antiquity. Many an unfledged barrister, innocent as yet of law, has passed up this street towards Westminster. Many a Templar Ranger or Lovelace has reeled down it, zigzagging his way to his airy den in King's Bench-walk or Pump-court, heedless of Coke and contemptuous of Littleton. Many a knotty legal argument have those heads on the Essex-street knockers overheard. The wise Mansfield has passed this way, and Thurlow, who looked wiser

than any man ever was; Brougham with the dance of Saint Vitus in his ugly nose, and Adolphus, hot and angry from recent wrangle; great rich lawyers and poor hungry ones have trod these stones; lord chancellors that were to be yet never were; and needy ambitious men eating their own hearts out in the cruel waitings and deferred hopes of the most disappointing of all professions. Talk of purgatory! There is no place where men have suffered so much as they have in the purlieus of the Temple, and not even up Holborn-hill (the road to Tyburn) have heavier hearts come than up that street south of the Strand, and westward of Temple Bar.

In the reign of Edward the Second the Bishops of Exeter built a palace in Essexstreet. Walter Stapleton, the Lord Treasurer of England and Bishop of Exeter, trying to defend London for King Edward against the Queen Isabella, who had brought an army from France to chase away the Spensers, the evil counsellors of her hus band, the enraged Londoners sacked and burnt the bishop's palace. The bishop himself, on his way to take sanctuary at St. Paul's, was torn from his horse by a mob, stripped of his armour, and beheaded at Cheapside.

Lord Paget, Henry the Eighth's ambassador, afterwards had the palace. After him came the Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded by Elizabeth for his political intrigues with Mary Queen of Scots. Then the Earl of Leicester lived here in splendour. Spenser dedicated one of his poems to his patron, Leicester, whom he eulogises in his Prothalamion.

Near to the Temple stands a stately place,
Where I gayned gifts and goodly grace,
Of that great lord who there was wont to dwell,
Whose want too well now feels my friendless case.

Leicester left his Essex-street house to his step-son, the Earl of Essex, who here brooded over the plot that soon brought him to the scaffold. Essex was the grandchild of a favourite cousin of Queen Elizabeth. The mother of Essex, a bad woman, took the Earl of Leicester for her second husband, and for her third, Christopher Blount, her master of the horse, with whom she had long intrigued. The sister of Essex, a still more infamous woman, had been the mistress of Lord Montjoy. Essex's wife, Frances Sidney, the widow of Sir Philip, was a woman, as Mr. Dixon says, of inferior birth, without beauty, youth, or fortune. Honours fell thick on the young noble. At twenty-two he was Master

of the Horse. He became a member of the queen's council, Earl Marshal of England, General of the Forces in Ireland, and the recipient of three hundred thousand pounds in money. He fought in France and Portugal, and at Cadiz covered himself with glory. Yet Essex was not so handsome as Elizabeth's other favourites. He stooped, and was careless in his dress; he walked awkwardly, and danced worse; his morals were more than questionable. Still he won the queen by his fearless frankness, as he won friends by his warmhearted generosity and candour, his affability and noble courtesy. Spenser Essex especially favoured, and in a sounet preceding the first three books of the Faery Queen, the poet promised at the conclusion of that great poem

To make more famous memory

Of thy heroic parts.

In the Prothalamion, Spenser concludes with a compliment to the possessor of Essex House:

Yet therein now doth lodge a worthy peer,
Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder,
Whose dreadful name late thro' all Spain did thunder,
And Hercules' two pillars standing near
Did make to quake and fear.

Fair branch of honour, flower of chivalry,
That fillest England with the triumph'd of fame,
Joy have thou of thy noble victory,
And endless happiness of thine own name.

Nor was Essex ungrateful for this wreath of laurel. Why Spenser died poor and broken-hearted, on his return from the great misfortunes that fell upon him like thunderbolts in Ireland, will now probably never be known, but certain it is that the earl paid for his funeral and tomb in Westminster Abbey. Shakespeare, too, the friend of Fulke Greville and Southampton, the earl's sworn comrades, celebrates Essex in the Chorus at the commencement of the Fifth Act of Henry the Fifth, and falsely prophesies his victorious return from Ire

land:

Were now the general of our gracious empress
(As in good time he may) from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached upon his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him?

After the death of Leicester, Essex became a power at court, in spite of his wilfulness and rash heat of temper. Scarcely twenty-one, he rode at Tilbury, the captaingeneral of the cavalry. Always crossing the queen's wishes, he joined the unsuccessful expedition to Lisbon in 1581, and commanded at the unsuccessful siege of Rouen. But these discomforts he repaid by his chivalrous gallantry against Spain in 1596, when

fourteen thousand English took Cadiz, destroyed thirteen Spanish men-of-war, and obtained from the citizens one hundred and twenty thousand crowns as ransom. But this money was divided among the adventurers, and Essex, owing to the opposition of Cecil's friends, failed to snap up the Spanish treasure fleet, with its rich cargo of twenty million dollars. Sent to Ireland to check! Tyrone, Essex failed in every attempt, and began, it was rumoured, to hold traitorous communication with the rebels-worst of all, after thwarting the queen in every scheme, he suddenly returned to England, contrary to the royal commands. Essex was hastening fast to his ruin. In Ireland he had all but resolved to embark two thousand cavalry, land in Wales, and, marching to London, to drive Raleigh, Cecil, and Cobham from the court. Despising the faithful counsels of Bacon and Greville, Essex hurried on fast to destruction.

At a secret meeting in February, 1601, at Drury House (Drury-lane), this rash and wilful man, estimating his sworn adherents at one hundred and twenty earls, lords, knights, and gentlemen, agreed to give up his plan of seizing the Tower, and decided to surprise the queen at Whitehall, and force her to disgrace Burleigh, Raleigh, and Cobham, and restore her disgraced favourite. He relied much on Sheriff Smith, who had the power of calling to his side one thousand men of

the London train-bands. The Puritans were all for him, and many of the Roman Catholics were spirator's promises of increased toleration. won by the conOther men he allured by assurances that Cobham and Cecil were in favour of the Infanta of Spain as the successor of Elizabeth. The Scottish king there can be no doubt secretly favoured his attempt.

of February, 1601. Essex, sending his secre The plot was ripe on Saturday, the 7th tary to rouse his citizen friends, arranged his final plans. Sir Christopher Blount undertook to seize Whitehall Gate, Sir John Davis the Hall, and Sir Charles Danvers the guard-room and presencechamber. Essex was then to come out from the Mews (site of the National Gallery), and having secured an access, to seek the queen, and humbly demand that she should drive from her his chief enemies, whom he would then have brought to trial, or more probably summarily have killed. He then proposed to assemble a parliament and name a successor. But the court had already information of the plot, and Essex,

being sent for by the council, resolved on making his desperate attempt the next day (Sunday), when the citizens would be assembled for the sermon at St. Paul's Cross. That night secret messengers were employed rallying Essex's friends and convening them to the morrow's meeting. The next morning early there came from west and east to Essex House the Earls of Rutland and Southampton, Lords Sandys and Monteagle, and about three hundred other gentlemen. Essex told these partisans that plots were laid against his life, that the City was for him, and that he had resolved to force his way to the queen, and tell her his dangers. But an unexpected incident disturbed his plans. A little before ten o'clock on that quiet Sunday morning the excited crowd of hot-headed noblemen, turbulent soldiers, and musketeers, were startled by the appearance at the Strand Gate of four messengers from the court. Egerton, the Lord Keeper, the Earl of Worcester, Knollys, the Comptroller of the Household, and Lord Chief Justice Popham, demanded admission. At ten, the lord mayor and aldermen met for the Paul's Cross sermon, and after sermon, Essex was to meet them and call on them to follow him to Whitehall. There was no time to lose in parley. Rough scowling men, by the order of Essex, admitted the four dignitaries, but excluded all their attendants except the purse-bearer, and on the Lord Keeper asking, in the name of the queen, the meaning of the turbulent concourse, Essex, speaking loud, replied':

"Wait is laid for my life. There were some hired to murder me in my bed. I am traitorously dealt with, and my letters have been counterfeited both with hand and seal. Wherefore we have met here together to defend ourselves, and preserve our lives, since neither my patience nor misery will appease the malice of my adversaries except they drink my blood also."

The Lord Keeper, begging Essex to relate his grievances fully, that they might be inquired into, the crowd began to cry impatiently:

"Let us be gone; come. They abuse your patience; they betray you, my lord. The time hastens. Come."

The Lord Keeper, turning to them, put on his cap, and charged them all, in the queen's name, to lay down their weapons. Essex then entered the house, as if for a conference, followed by the four delegates and his partisans, the excited crowd shouting:

"Kill them! kill them! Keep them for pledges. Throw the great seal out of the window. Shut them up fast enough."

After passing through two rooms guarded by musketeers, Essex led them into a back parlour, and, placing the four courtiers under the guard of Sir John Davis, Sir Gilly Merrick, Francis Tresham, and Lord Salisbury, said to them:

"Be patient but a little, my lords. I must needs go into the City to take order with the lord mayor and the sheriffs."

The doors were then bolted on the prisoners, and returning into the court, Essex, about eighty knights and gentlemen, and two hundred retainers, wrapping their cloaks about their left arms, and drawing their swords, rushed through Temple Bar into the City. In Fleet-street he was joined by the Earl of Bedford and Lord Cromwell; but no citizen listened to his appeal to instantly arm, though they let him pass at Ludgate, when he shouted:

"For the queen! For the queen! There is wait laid for my life. Raleigh and Cobham would take my life. England is bought and sold by the Spaniards!"

At St. Paul's Cross he found no sermon preaching, for, by the lord mayor's orders, the citizens had remained at home. Then he rushed up Cheapside, shouting, "For the queen, my mistress!" till he reached the house of Sheriff Smith, in Fenchurch-street, where he expected to find one thousand of the train-bands. But there was no sheriff to be found, and there were no trainbands. Fretting and chafing, the earl, as Camden tells us, retired, hot and fatigued, to a private room, 66 to compose his spirits, and change his shirt."

In the mean time the court had not been idle. The guards had been mustered, the palace gates closed and barricaded, the neighbouring streets and passages barred with chains and blocked with carriages. With difficulty had the brave old queen been prevented from riding herself to meet the traitors. About two o'clock, Lord Burleigh, with the Garter King-at-Arms, the Earl of Cumberland, and Sir Thomas Ward, had entered the City and proclaimed Essex and all his accomplices traitors, offering a reward of one thousand pounds for his apprehension, and immediate pardon to all who at once deserted him, and returned to their duty. Essex, hearing of this, instantly rushed into the street, crying that England was to be given to the Infanta of Spain, and exhorting the citizens to take arms; but all in vain-no voice replied, no

sword was drawn, no doors flew open. The friends at his back were thawing away fast; the Lord Admiral, it was reported, was gathering a force quickly together. Reluctantly, with broken spirits, Essex resolved to return to his home, and by means of his prisoners secure some terms from the angry queen. But already musketeers and pikemen held Ludgate, and barred his passage. There were soldiers also at the chained-up road by the west gate of St. Paul's, headed by Sir J. Levison. At this juncture, Sir Ferdinand Gorges, careful of himself, persuaded Essex to let him return to Essex House to release the prisoners, and intercede with them to the queen for the earl's pardon before blood was shed, and before the queen felt sure that the City might not rise. Essex granted liberty to Popham only, but eventually Gorges released the whole four, and took them by boat to Whitehall, to procure his own pardon.

When Essex found his way barred between St. Paul's and Ludgate, his hot blood fired, and, calling for his horse, and shouting, "Charge, charge!" he drew his sword and told Blount to attack. Matches were blown, and swords flashed out. Blount killed a soldier. Henry Tracey, a young man very dearly loved by the earl," was stretched dead on the ground, and several citizens fell. The earl, with a bullet-hole through his hat, fell back with some fifty followers only left, and, retreating to Queenhithe, took boat and returned to Essex House. Enraged to find the hostages gone, Essex then began to fortify his house on all sides, vainly expecting help from the Londoners. He burnt many papers, and especially one with a few lines of dangerous matter contained in a black purse, which he always carried about him. There was little time for preparation. Almost instantly the house was invested. The Earls of Cumberland and Lincoln moved on the Strand side, with the Lords Thomas Howard, Grey, Burleigh, Compton, and a strong body of horse and foot, while on the Thames and garden side there gathered the Lord Admiral himself, his son Effingham, Lord Cobham, Sir John Stanhope, Sir Robert Sidney, and Mr. Fulke Greville. All being prepared for storming, the drums sounded for a parley, and the Lord Admiral sent Sir Robert Sidney to summon the two earls, who came out upon the leads to hear the terms proposed.

"Dear consin," said Southampton, "to whom would you have us yield? To our enemies? That were to thrust ourselves

into peril willingly. To the queen? Then we should confess ourselves guilty before we have offended." Sidney replied that the house was not strong; that the Lord Admiral had already sent to the Tower for powder and shot, and if that prevailed not that the house would be blown up. Then the Earl of Essex came and said:

"Judge you, brother, whether it be a grief or no to a man descended as myself, who have lived in account with her! majesty as I have done, to be pined up so long without any cause, and to be trodden under foot of every base upstart; far more than that, to have my life so narrowly sought by them. Would it not grieve you? Yes, yes, I am sure it would. Well, it is no matter, death will end all, and death shall be most welcome."

Sidney then offered (not to let the innocent perish with the guilty) to allow the countess, Lady Rich, Essex's sister, and the maid-servants, who were "shrieking and howling and making a terrible noise within | doors," to depart. This was about nine o'clock. The earl accepted the offer, on i condition that two hours should be allowed him to unbarricade the doors to let out the ladies, and another hour to close the doors up again. By this time powder, shot, and guns had come from the Tower, and a cannon had been dragged upon the tower of St. Clement's Church, and planted there to pour a plunging fire upon Essex House. Affairs were desperate indeed with the discomforted rebels, when old Lord Sandys proposed a desperate sally, either to cut a way through their enemies, or to die, as brave inen, he said, ought to die, sword in hand. But Essex having at last won the Lord Admiral's consent to treat them as honourable prisoners, and to secure to them a just trial, threw open the doors, and on his knees surrendered his weapon. It was not safe to start to London Bridge that night, as the water was dark and stormy, so Essex and Southampton were sent to Lambeth Palace, and the next morning removed to the Tower. To the archbishop Essex spoke with scorn and anger of the fainthearted citizens, saying that they were a base people, that he had trampled up and down the City without resistance, that he would undertake with four hundred choice men to overrun London, as he had passed many of their chained and barricaded lanes | on his way from Ludgate to Queenhithe, without one blow offered at him. Two days after Cecil wrote to a friend: "Even when a false alarm was brought to the queen

that

1

the City was revolted with them, she was never more amazed than she would have been to have heard of a fray in Fleet-street." Essex was taken on the 8th of February, on the 19th he was tried at Westminster Hall, found guilty, and executed on Tower Green on the 25th, at seven-thirty A.M., in the presence of about a hundred noblemen and gentlemen, Raleigh, from the armoury, watching the axe drop, and shedding tears when the head of his enemy fell. Essex died repentant, confessing his "great bloody crying infectious sin," but denying any intention to offer violence to the person of the queen. Marshal Biron, who died fifteen months after on the scaffold, raging like a madman, ridiculed the behaviour of Essex, and said he died like a clergyman rather than a soldier. Southampton was reprieved. Cuff, the secretary of Essex, and the main cause of his ruin, and Merrick, his steward, perished, as did Blount, the earl's stepfather, and Davers, the friend of Southamp

ton.

The son of Essex was that parliamentary general, whose divorced wife cruelly poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower. The general's son was that unfortunate man who, mixed up in the Rye House Plot, shot himself in the Tower. The Earl of Hertford lived in Essex House for a time, and after him, the Lord Treasurer Southampton, and the Lord Keeper Bridgman. Doctor Barbon bought the place in the reign of George the First, and divided it into separate houses. The Cottonian Library was kept here in the reign of Queen Anne, in a house afterwards occupied by Patterson, the bookseller, a friend of Johnson's. In the same room Charles Dibdin commenced his entertainment, and first sang the song of Poor Jack.

It was long suspected that the Pretender had secretly visited London, at least, on one occasion, after the defeat at Culloden, that finally crushed his party. Scott, with his fine eye for the picturesque, has made him a spectator, in disguise, of the coronation of George the Third, in 1761; but his real visit took place in September, 1750. This

proved by the publication, in 1818, of the interesting and trustworthy anecdotes of Doctor William King, the Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and a leading man among the Jacobites. The doctor says: 'September, 1750, I received a note from my Lady Primrose, in Essex-street, who desired to see me immediately. As soon as I waited on her she led me into her dressing-room, and presented me to-Prince

Charles. If I was surprised to find him there, I was still more astonished when he acquainted me with the notion which had induced him to hazard a journey to England at this juncture. The impotence of his friends, who were in exile, had formed a scheme which was impracticable. No preparation had been made, nor was anything ready to carry it into execution. He was soon convinced that he had been deceived, and therefore, after a stay in London of five days only, he returned to Italy." Doctor King, who afterwards corresponded for many years with the unfortunate scion of an unfortunate race, describes the prince as tall and well made, but stooping a little. He had a handsome face and good eyes, and exactly resembled the busts which were sold of him in Red Lion-street, so much so that when he came and took tea at Doctor King's lodgings, the doctor's servant, after the prince had gone, remarked how like the new visitor was to the busts of the Pretender. One day, in the park, a man recognised him and went down on his knees to kiss his hand, which served as a warning to the prince to be off to Rome. Doctor King describes Prince Charles as having a quick apprehension, and speaking French, Italian, and English, and with rather a foreign accent. In a polite company," he says, "the prince would not pass for a genteel man ;" and he sums up his character with these fatal words. "I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiment, the certain indication of a great soul and a good heart, or to discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause."

It is now certain that George the Second, through his spies, knew of this visit, but was too generous to seize his then almost powerless enemy.

The following anecdote may be relied on. The king one day asked Lord Holdernesse, the Secretary of State, where Charles Edward then was.

"Upon my word, sire," was the startled reply, "I-I-don't exactly know. I suppose in Italy; but I'll consult my last despatches."

"Pooh, pooh! man," said the king; "don't trouble your head about the despatches. I'll tell you where he is; he is now at No., Essex-street, Strand, and was last night at Lady Primrose's rout. What shall we do with him ?"

The astonished secretary proposed calling a council, but the king said, “No, no.