His Excellency David Hartley, Esq. &c. &c.

&c.

B. FRANKLIN. JOHN JAY.

"I HAVE stooped to flatter Farinelli, why should I hesitate to praise Pompadour?" In this speech, uttered by Maria Theresa when political necessity was bending her imperial neck beneath the heel of a French King's mistress, there was a mixture of insult and injury. Farinelli was as honest a man as any in the court of Charles VI. -Maria Theresa's father. Perhaps Pompadour was as honest a woman as any in the court of Louis XV.; but honesty was not to be found in the entourage of that able yet idle, accomplished yet worthless, monarch. Honour and honesty maintained a dull but respectable state in the saloons of his consort and of his royal daughters.

The King's own circle was made up of incarnate iniquity, galloping gaily to meet the deluge which Pompadour had prophesied, and in the eddies of which so many French governments have encountered destruction. To place Farinelli on the same level as Pompadour was therefore to inflict on the former no inconsiderable wrong. To admire the artistic skill of either was no condescension, even in an Empress. To speak of Pompadour as an artist is to notice her in a character which looks strange to the general public; GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXIX.

but in truth her line of art, in which to excel she needed but the poor qualifications of necessity and virtue, was superior to that by which Farinelli achieved renown and fortune. Let us glance at both in their respective pursuits.

At the court of Vienna, at the beginning of the last century, the chief favourite of the imperial amateur Charles VI. was Porpora, the great master of recitative and measured art, a man whose tuition enabled many to become rich, but whose profuse generosity rendered his extreme old age one of miserable penury. Porpora owed his position at Vienna to what would have ruined a composer any where else. The Emperor, who cared only for solemn music, and was never known to smile, burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter at hearing a shower of trills in one of Porpora's capering fugues. The man who could excite risibility in a sardonic Kaiser, was accounted as something above the common, and Porpora was more esteemed than if he had been a philosopher.

About this time there was a marvellously tuneful boy at Naples, who was distinguished by the title of Il C

T. E. T. wishes to obtain information as to the father of the family described in an entry in the Parish Register of Islington, Middlesex, whereof the following is an exact copy:

"Memorandum, whereas in this Register the 12 June, 1740, page 63, Catherine Broune; and 24 August, 1741, page 64, Henry Broune; and also 28 May, 1743, Charles Broune, are registered to have been christened as the children of William Broune and Catherine Broune of this parish. Now it appeareth unto me by the fullest proof, as well as my own knowledge, that the three children abovementioned are the children of the honourable Colonel William Herbert, brother to Henry Earl of Pembroke, and Catherine his wife, who thought fit to go by the name of Broune at those times, in this parish. Given under my hand, this third day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-six.

"G. WILLIAMS, Vic of Islington." Our correspondent will be satisfied by referring to Sir Egerton Brydges's edition of Collins's Peerage, vol. v. p. 390; where he will find that the family abovementioned were admitted as legitimate, and that Henry, the eldest son, became a peer by the title of Lord Porchester, in 1780, and was advanced to that of Earl of Carnarvon, in 1793. He was grandfather of the present Earl.

com

The Speeches in Parliament of the late Duke of Wellington are, we are informed, about to be collected and published uniformly with the far-famed Wellington Despatches. The collection was menced by the late Colonel Gurwood, continued by the Colonel's widow, and actually corrected in many places by the Duke himself. They will appear with the imprint of Albemarle Street, and the imprimatur of the present Duke.

The present Duke will, it is said, throw Apsley House open to the public on certain days, and under certain regulations necessary for the security of the property and the comfort of visitors. Apsley House contains some fine works of art-a firstrate Correggio, good examples of Velasquez, and throughout seems to represent the peculiar likings of the hero. Napoleon is very prominent, and always honourably so. Here we shall see the Duke's orders so charmingly arranged by Mr. Garrard at his house in Panton Street -where we

had the pleasure of examining them,lingering with eyes historically pleased at the diamond George originally given by Queen Anne to the great Duke of Marlborough on the victory at Blenheim-obtained, no one knows how, by George the Fourth when Prince Regent-and given by the Prince to the Duke of Wellington on the victory at Waterloo!-Atheneum.

In the memoir of Dr. Mantell (Dec. p. 644) two errors escaped correction. For "St. John's sub Easter," read "sub Castro ;" and in the note, p. 645, for "Horsfield's" read Baxter's Agricultural Library. It may also be here noticed that a letter has appeared in the Sussex Agricultural Express from Mr. Thomas A. Mantell of Lewes, brother to the deceased, contradicting a statement made in the Lewes Journal that their father was a humble and small tradesman. "He was neither the one or the other, for a more independent man never existed; a man of strong natural abilities, and a popular speaker on public occasions. I don't know what the editor's idea of a small tradesman is, but I recollect my father having twenty-three men in his employ at one time, and he left to his family considerable property in land and houses. The statement as regards the old lady, Dr. Mantell's schoolmistress, is a palpable falsehood. My father articled my brother to Mr. Moore in 1795, with a premium of 200 guineas. The old lady, whose name was Cornwell, was of a highly respectable family, and one of the nearest relatives of the late Richard Andrew Turner, esq., an eminent attorney of this town. She was possessed of sufficient property of her own to live on, and she carried on her little school more for amusement than profit. At her death, which occurred on the 24th December, 1807 (nearly three years after my brother was articled to Mr. Moore), she gave the whole of her property to an only brother, a farmer at Mayfield, who cultivated and lived on his own land, with the exception of a few trifling legacies to my family. My brother, after leaving Mr. Button's academy, was three years at a school in Wiltshire, conducted by a clergy

man."

Dec. p. 638.-The present Mr. RugglesBrise married in 1847, Marianne-Wayland, fourth daughter of the late Sir Bowyer Edward Smijth, Bart. and sister to Sir William Smijth the present Baronet.

THIS is not a book the editor's portion of which we think it desirable to review. We suppose it is a first attempt, and are therefore inclined to treat it leniently; we suppose, also, that it has been published in haste, and are willing to attribute to that circumstance its incompleteness, its omission of proper acknowledgments to authors whose works have been used, and the many mistakes which we have regretted to find in it. The compiler is evidently doubtful of his own competency. We regret that he did not consider that circumstance a reason for leaving such work alone. But we will pass by his part of the volume, and consider only the original papers which he has published.

Charles 1. being at Hampton Court Palace in November 1647, in the custody of the army, became apprehensive that some attempt was about to be made upon his life. The circumstances justified the suspicion, and the King determined to seek safety in flight. As in all previous periods of his history, when trustworthy advice was most needed, it was either not at hand, or the King disregarded it. He now took counsel of the same person who had accompanied him from Oxford to the Scotish army-" Jack Ashburnham," as his majesty seemed to delight in terming him, who had the charge of

the privy purse. The result brought upon Ashburnham an accusation of unfaithfulness to the King, which was probably entirely unmerited. He was a weak man; vain, self-conceited, and altogether incompetent to deal with business of such importance as was then in agitation, or with such persons as Cromwell and Ireton. In spite of the experience of the last few years, and the still more emphatic warnings of the last few months, Ashburnham retained all the old high notions of the power and sacredness of the royal person and authority, and he seems, moreover, to have been of a trusting nature, disposed to believe men honest, if they, or anybody else for them, but said they were so. Charles was likely to think highly of such an adviser; one ready to execute without scruple whatever his majesty thought proper to command. Everything Ashburnham said, and everything he did, tended to confirm the King in all his own delusions, and therefore, in his majesty's opinion, there was nobody so trustworthy, or so much to be relied upon, as "Jack Ashburnham."

November 1647 was a dark and stormy month, and Thursday the 11th peculiarly rough and wet. After dinner the King retired to his chamber, according to his usual custom, and continued there, occupied, as

was sup