him to lose blood. Chesterfield complimented his lordship on his chirurgical skill, and begged him to try his lancet upon him. "A propos," said lord Chesterfield, after the operation, "do you go to the house today?" Lord Radnor answered, "I did not intend to go, not being sufficiently informed of the question which is to be debated; but you, that have considered it, which side will you be of?"-The wily earl easily directed his judgment, carried him to the house, and got him to vote as he pleased. Lord Chesterfield used to say, that none of his friends had been as patriotic as himself, for he had "lost his blood for the good of his country."

Social Happiness.

A VILLAGE NEW YEAR.

For the Table Book.

"Almack's" may be charming,-an assembly at the "Crown and Anchor," and a hop of country quality at the annual "Race Ball," or a more popular "set to" at a fashionable watering-place, may delight but a lady of city or town cannot conceive the emotions enjoyed by a party collected in the village to see the "old year" out and the " new year" in. At this time, the

"country dance" is of the first importance to the young and old, yet not till the week has been occupied by abundant provisions of meat, fruit tarts, and mince pies, which, with made wines, ales, and spirits, are, like the blocks for fuel, piled in store for all partakers, gentle and simple. Extra best beds, stabling, and hay, are made ready, fine celery dug, the china service and pewter plates examined,-in short, want and wish are anticipated, nothing is omitted, but every effort used to give proofs of genuine hospitality. This year, if there is to be war in Portugal, many widowed hearts and orphan spirits may be diverted from, not to, a scene which is witnessed in places where peace and plenty abound. However, I will not be at war by conjecture, but suppose much of the milk of human kindness to be shared with those who look at the sunny side of things.

After tea, at which the civilities of the most gallant of the young assist to lighten the task of the hostess, the fiddler is announced, the "country dance" begins, and the lasses are all alive; their eyes seem lustrous and their animal spirits rise to the zero of harmonious and beautiful attraction.

The choosing of partners and tunes with favourite figures is highly considered. Old folks who have a leg left and are desirous of repeating the step (though not so light) of fifty years back, join the dance; and the floor, whether of stone or wood, is swept to notes till feet are tired. This is pursued till suppertime at ten o'clock. Meantime, the "band" (called "waits" in London) is playing before the doors of the great neighbours, and regaled with beer, and chine, and pies; the village "college youths" are tuning the handbells, and the admirers of the "steeple chase" loiter about the churchyard to hear the clock strike twelve, and Mestartle the air by high mettle sounds. thodist and Moravian dissenters assemble at their places of worship to watch out the old year, and continue to "watch" till four or five in the new year's morning. Villagers, otherwise disposed, follow the church plan, and commemorate the vigils in the old unreformed way. After a sumptuous supper, at which some maiden's heart is endangered by the roguish eye, or the salute and squeeze by stealth, dancing is resumed, and, according to custom, a change of partners takes place, often to the joy and disappointment of love and lovers. At every rest-the fiddler makes a squeaking of the strings-this is called kiss 'em! a practice well understood by the tulip fanciers. The pipes, tobacco, and substantials are on the qui vive, by the elders in another part of the house, and the pint goes often to the cellar.

As the clock strikes a quarter to twelve, a bumper is given to the "old friend," standing, with three farewells! and while the church bells strike out the departure of his existence, another bumper is pledged to the "new infant," with three standing hip, hip, hip-huzzas! It is further customary for the dance to continue all this time, that the union of the years should be cemented by friendly intercourse.

Feasting and

merriment are carried on until four or five o'clock, when, as the works of the kitchen have not been relaxed, a pile of sugar toast is prepared, and every guest must partake of its sweetness, and praise it too, before separation. Headaches, lassitude, and paleness, are thought little of, pleasure suppresses the sigh, and the spirit of joy keeps the undulations of care in proper subjection-Happy times these !-Joyful opportu nities borrowed out of youth to be repaid by ripened memory!--snatched, as it were, from the wings of Time to be written on his brow with wrinkles hereafter.

R. P.

Towards the close of the year 1825, the duke of York commenced to sit for this bust at his late residence in the Stable-yard, St. James's; and, in the summer of 1826, continued to give sittings, till its final completion, at the artist's house, in Dean-street, Soho. The marble was then removed, for exhibition, to the Royal Academy, and from thence sent home to his royal highness, at Rutland-house. The duke

VOL. I.-4.

and his royal sister, the princess Sophia, were equally delighted with the true and spirited likeness, and gratified by its possession, as a work of art.

The duke of York, on giving his orders to Mr. Behnes, left entirely to him the arrangement of the figure. With great judgment, and in reference to his royal highness's distinguished station, the artist has placed armour on the body, and thrown

a military cloak over the shoulders. This judicious combination of costume imparts simplicity and breadth to the bust, and assists the manly dignity of the head. The duke's fine open features bear the frank and good-natured expression they constantly wore in life: the resemblance being minutely faithful, is as just to his royal highness's exalted and benevolent character, as it is creditable to Mr. Behnes's execution. The present engraving is a hasty sketch of its general appearance. His royal highness kindly permitted Mr. Behnes to take casts from the sculpture. Of the many, therefore, who experienced the duke of York's friendship or favour, any one who desires to hold his royal highness's person in remembrance, has an opportunity of obtaining a fac-simile of the original bust, which is as large as life.

Mr. Behnes was the last artist to whom the duke sat, and, consequently, this is his last likeness. The marble was in the possession of his royal highness during his long illness, and to the moment of his death, in Arlington-street. Its final destination will be appropriated by those to whom he was most attached, and on whom the disposition of such a memorial necessarily devolves.

To the ample accounts of the duke of York in the different journals, the Table Book brings together a few particulars omitted to be collected, preceded by a few notices respecting his royal highness's title,

a correct list of all the dukes of York from

their origin, and, first, with an interesting paper by a gentleman who favoured the Every-Day Book with some valuable genealogical communications.

SHAKSPEARE'S DUKES OF YORK, &c.

For the Table Book.

The elastic buoyancy of spirits, joined with the rare affability of disposition, which prominently marked the character of the prince whose recent loss we deplore, rendered him the enthusiastic admirer and steady supporter of the English stage. I hope I shall not be taken to task for allud-. ing to a trifling coincidence, on recalling to recollection how largely the mighty master of this department, our immortal Shakspeare, has drawn upon his royal highness's illustrious predecessors in title, in those unrivalled dramatic sketches which unite the force of genius with the simplicity of nature, whilst they impart to the strictly accurate annals of our national history

some of the most vivid illuminations which blaze through the records of our national eloquence.

The touches of a master-hand giving vent to the emanations of a mighty mind are, perhaps, no where more palpably traced, than throughout those scenes of the historical play of Richard II., where Edmund of Langley, duke of York, (son of king Edward III.,) struggles mentally between sentiments of allegiance to his weak and misguided sovereign on the one hand, and, on the other hand, his sense of his other nephew Bolingbroke's grievous wrongs, and the injuries indicted on his country by a system of favouritism, profusion, and oppression.

Equal skill and feeling are displayed in the delineation of his son Rutland's devoted attachment to his dethroned benefactor, and the adroit detection, at a critical moment, of the conspiracy, into which he had entered for Richard's restoration.

In the subsequent play of Henry V., (perhaps the most heart-stirring of this interesting series,) we learn how nobly this very Rutland (who had succeeded his father, Edmund of Langley, as duke of York) repaid Henry IV.'s generous and unconditional pardon, by his heroic conduct in the glorious field of Agincourt, where he sealed his devotion to his king and country with his blood.

Shakspeare has rendered familiar to us the intricate plans of deep-laid policy, and the stormy scenes of domestic desolation, through which his nephew and successor, Richard, the next duke of York, obtained ing to strictness, he was legitimately entia glimpse of that throne, to which, accordtled just before

"York overlook'd the town of York."

The licentious indulgence, the hardhearted selfishness, the reckless cruelty, which history indelibly stamps as the characteristics of his son and successor, Edward, who shortly afterwards seated himself firmly on the throne, are presented to us in colours equally vivid and authentic. The interestingly pathetic detail of the premature extinction in infancy of his second son, prince Richard, whom he had invested with the title of York, is brought before our eyes in the tragedy of Richard III., with a forcible skill and a plaintive energy, which set the proudest efforts of preceding or following dramatic writers at defiance.

To "bluff king Hal," (who, during the lifetime of his elder brother, Arthur, prince

of Wales, had next borne this exclusively royal title of duke of York,) ample justice is rendered, in every point of view, in that production, as eminent for its gorgeous pageantry as for its subdued interest, in which most of our elder readers must have been sufficiently fortunate to witness the transcendant merits of Mrs. Siddons, as Queen Catherine, surpassing even her own accustomed excellence.

Had, contrary to the wonted career of the triumph of human intellect, a Shakspeare enraptured and adorned the next generation, what studies would not the characters and fates of the martyred Charles I., and his misguided son, James II., have afforded to his contemplation. Both these sovereigns, during the lives of their respective elder brothers, bore the title of duke of York.

The counties of York and Lancaster are the only two in England from which the titles conferred have been exclusively enjoyed by princes of the blood royal. It may be safely asserted, that neither of these designations has ever illustrated an individual, who was not either son, brother, grandson, or nephew of the sovereign of this realm.

Richard, duke of York, killed at the battle of Wakefield, may, at first sight, strike the reader as an exception to this assertion, he being only cousin to Henry VI.; but we ought to bear in mind, that this Richard was himself entitled to that throne, of which his eldest son shortly after wards obtained possession, under the title

of Edward IV.

By the treaty of Westphalia, concluded at Munster, in 1648, which put an end to the memorable war that desolated the fairest portion of the civilized world during thirty years, it was stipulated that the bishopric of Osnaburgh, then secularized, should be alternately possessed by a prince of the catholic house of Bavaria, and the protestant house of Brunswick Lunenburgh. It is somewhat remarkable, on the score of dates, that the Bavarian family enjoyed but one presentation between the death of Ernest Augustus, duke of York, in 1728, and the presentation of his great, great, great nephew, the lamented prince whose loss, in 1827, is so deeply and justly deplored.

W. P.

OTHO, EARL OF YORK.

More than five centuries before a prince of the house of Brunswick sat on the

66

from the pure well of Italian undefiled."

Azo, marquis or lord of Tuscany, married Cunegunda, a daughter of a Guelph, who was also sister of a Guelph, and heir ess of the last Guelph. The issue of this alliance was Guelph I., who, at a time before titles were well settled, was either duke or count of Altdorff. He was succeeded by his son, Henry the Black, who married Wolfhildis, heiress of Lunenburgh, and other possessions on the Elbe, which descended to their son, Henry the Proud, who wedded Gertrude, the heiress of Saxony, Brunswick, and Hanover. These large domains centered in their eldest son, Henry the Lion, who married Maud, daughter of Henry II., king of England, and, in the conflicts of the times, lost all his possessions, except his allodial territories of Lunenburgh, Brunswick, and HanoThe youngest son of this marriage was William of Winchester, or Longsword, from whom descended the dukes of Brunswick and Lunenburgh, in Germany, progenitors to the house of Hanover. His elder brother, Otho, is said to have borne the title of York.

ver.

This Otho, duke of Saxony, the eldest son of Henry the Lion, and Maud, was afterwards emperor of Germany; but previous to attaining the imperial dignity, he was created earl of York by Richard I., king of England, who, according to some authorities, subsequently exchanged with Otho, and gave him the earldom of Poictou for that of York. Otho's relation to this kingdom, as earl of York, and grandson of Henry II., is as interesting as his fortunes were remarkable.

The emperor, Henry VI., having died, and left his son, Frederick, an infant three months old, to the care of his brother Philip, duke of Suabia; the minority of Frederick tempted pope Innocent to divest the house of Suabia of the imperial crown, and he prevailed on certain princes to elect Otho, of Saxony, emperor: other princes reelected the infant Frederick. The contention continued between the rival candi

dates, with repeated elections. Otho, by flattering the clergy, obtained himself to be crowned at Rome, and assumed the title of Otho IV.; but some of his followers having been killed by the Roman citizens he meditated revenge, and instead of returning to Germany, reconquered certain possessions usurped from the empire by the pope. For this violence Otho was excommunicated by the holy father, who turned his influence in behalf of the youthful Frederick, and procured him to be elected emperor instead. Otho had a quarrel with Philip Augustus, king of France, respecting an old wager between them. Philip, neither believing nor wishing that Otho could attain the imperial dignity, had wagered the best city in his kingdom against whichever he should select of Otho's baggage horses, if he carried his point. After Otho had achieved it, he seriously demanded the city of Paris from Philip, who quite as seriously refused to deliver up his capital. War ensued, and in the decisive battle of Bovines, called the "battle of the spurs,' from the number of knights who perished, Philip defeated Otho at the head of two hundred thousand Germans. The imperial dragon, which the Germans, in their wars, were accustomed to plant on a great armed chariot with a guard chosen from the flower of the army, fell into the hands of the victors, and the emperor himself barely escaped at the hazard of his life. This battle was fought in August, 1215; and Otho, completely vanquished, retreated upon his devotions, and died in 1218, without issue.*

his brother, the duke of Gloucester; and an historian of the period calls him "a soft prince." It is certain that he had few stirring qualities, and that passive virtues were not valued in an age when they were of little service to contending parties. In 1402, three years after the accession of Henry IV., he died at his manor of Langley, and was interred in the priory there.

II.

Edward Plantagenet, second duke of York, was son of the first duke, grandson to Edward III., and great uncle to Henry V., by whose side he valiantly fought and perished, in the field of Agincourt, October 25, 1415.

III.

Richard Plantagenet, third duke of York, nephew of the second duke, and son of Richard earl of Cambridge, who was executed for treason against Henry V., was restored to his paternal honours by Henry VI., and allowed to succeed to his uncle's inheritance. As he was one of the most illustrious by descent, so he became one of the most powerful subjects through his dignities and alliances. After the death of the duke of Bedford, the celebrated regent of France, he was appointed to succeed him, and with the assistance of the valorous lord Talbot, afterwards earl of Shrewsbury, maintained a footing in the French territories upwards of five years. The incapacity of Henry VI. incited him to urge his claim to the crown of England in right of his mother, through whom he descended from Philippa, only daughter of the duke of Clarence, second son to Edward III.; whereas the king descended from the duke of Lancaster, third son of that monarch. The duke's superiority of descent, his valour and mildness in various high employments, and his immense possessions, derived through numerous successions, gave him influence with the nobility, and procured him formidable connections. levied war against the king, and without material loss slew about five thousand of the royal forces at St. Alban's, on the 22d of May, 1452. This was the first blood spilt in the fierce and fatal quarrel between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, which lasted thirty years, was signalized by twelve pitched battles, cost the lives of eighty princes of the blood, and almost annihilated the ancient nobility of England. After this battle, the duke's irresolution, and the heroism of Margaret, queen of Henry VI., caused a suspension of hostilities.