Private Memoirs of the Earl of Leicester.

grounds he was suspected of having procured the removal of this nobleman, and of Lord Sheffield, by poison, prepared by Dr. Julio, an Italian physician, whom he employed. He was said also to entertain among his domestics, one who was very well skilled in the art of poisoning; and Dr. Julio, it is said, could prepare for him drugs of such subtlety, as to cause a lingering or speedy death, according to his wish. Besides the victims already mentioned, several others are said to have proved the efficacy of Dr. Julio's prescriptions; among them, Cardinal Chastillion and Sir Nicholas Throgmorton from political enmity, and an Irish lady from having tasted the cup which was prepared for the Earl of Essex.

Simier, ambassador of the Duke of Anjou, whose views were opposed by Leicester, revealed to the queen his private marriage with Lady Essex, and in the queen's anger on the occasion, we have the historical precedent for the resentment she displayed at the supposed discovery of his union with Amie; but he was soon reinstated in her favor, and enjoyed it almost uninterruptedly until the time of his death, which happened in the year 1588, at his house at Cornbury in Oxfordshire. Camden says he died of a fever-Sir Robert Naunton says, of poison, which he had prepared for another.

Leicester must have been either the most complete hypoerite or the most defamed of mankind. His character, according to most of his biographers, was a compound of villainy and dissimulation, and the meanest devices were resorted to for the increase of his property, while the darkest arts were employed in the pursuit of his revenge, and for the attainment of his unlawful pleasures. He has been accused of ambition, avarice and the grossest sensuality,; while in private life he affected regularity of habits, and pretended so much to piety as even to incur court-censure by his zealous protection of the puritans. It may be argued, that no direct proof has ever been brought of Leicester's proficiency in the art of poisoning, and that the credulity of the age attached the suspicion of violence to the death of almost every public character; but it is remarkable that Leicester's enemies have always died at the very time most opportune for his designs. In whatever manner the charge of absolute guilt may be determined against him, enough of undeniable villainy remains in the above-cited instances and in many others, to shew that the author of Waverly has represented his character in too favorable a point of view. It is probably one of the worst effects of the system of historical romances, that the actions

Irish Hospitality.

and motives of public characters are distorted to serve the private purpose of the writer; while, by the interest of the story, the romantic and partial description is retained in the memory longer than the dry and unprejudiced detail of history. Thus in the Romance of Kenilworth, Leicester is almost entirely exculpated from any participation in Amie's murder, and Varney, who was only his instrument, is brought forward as the principal actor. We must also notice the anachronism of which its author is guilty in bringing Amie forward at the festivities of Kenilworth, while she in reality had died fifteen years before. He is likewise blameable for confounding Lady Essex and Amie-to the latter Leicester was publicly married, while the disclosure of his hitherto concealed marriage with the former drew on him Elizabeth's most pointed resentment. In the minor circumstances of his tale our author has strictly adhered to historical truth. His character of the Queen is a beautiful and faithful portraiture;-her pride and female vanity,-her precipitancy of temper and her firmness of resolution are strongly drawn; and he has well displayed the glory of England's virgin monarch, whose learning and ability have been seldom equalled, yet, whose inconsistency could receive the flatteries of her courtiers, while her strong and piercing glance could penetrate their most hidden motives, and draw the long chain of consequences from causes the least likely to produce them-who could govern the turbulent nation which had disturbed the quiet of her despotic progenitors-whose choice of ministers displayed her capacity for government, and who was never deceived but by Leicester.

IRISH HOSPITALITY.

SIR,

To the Editor of the Dublin Inquisitor.

UNDER this head you must not expect from me, what you, gentlemen compilers, would denominate a regular essay; I am an elderly person, very little acquainted with the rules of composition, and generally write straight onward as the occasion may prompt. Should the following remarks, de

Irish Hospitality.

rived from an experience of some years, be considered by you as either useful or entertaining they are entirely at your service

Hospitality is well known to be a leading feature in the Irish character;-from the earliest period that amiable feeling has been a national trait, and over civilized Europe, Irish hospitality is to this day a proverb.. Yet, I remember the period, some forty years ago, when it was stretched beyond the bounds of propriety and decorum, and often, among country gentlemen, led the way to practises, which I cannot but consider as semi-barbarous.

In those days to which your old fox-hunting topers look back with delight, while they declare that the rising generation are unworthy of their fathers, there was no alternative left, after the ladies had retired from the dining parlour, but to join with what appetite we might in a scene of unlimited drinking, however loathsome to our habits or injurious to our constitution. In vain the guest attempted a retreat, for the door was locked, and the key in the pocket of the host or confided to the care of a confidential servant outside; and equally fruitless were his excuses on the plea of inability or indisposition. A glass of salt and water was ordered from the sideboard, and the choice offered him, to stand to his bottle, or submit to the penalty. In adopting the lesser evil he soon became an object of disgust, as sinking senseless from the table, he added the first laurel to the brows of the more hardy topers who witnessed and gloried in his fall.

I shall here notice another custom, which, at the period I allude to, was very generally practised by your sporting country gentlemen. I mean the locking up a refractory visitor in order to secure him as a guest at dinner.-No matter what his business or engagements might be elsewhere, he was forced to remain in durance vile till dinner was announced and it was too late to think of a retreat, I have to remark that society is much altered for the better since the time when those practises were so prevalent in the country parts of Ireland. The laws of true hospitality seem now to be better understood and practised; and, except in the province of Connaught, where the resident gentry still pride

Our correspondent will excuse our adding the following note, extracted from Jackson's account of Timbuctoo; which gives a different character to the modern system of fashionable entertainment. The author puts these words into the mouth of an intelligent Muhamedan

"We convert our superflux to jewels and costly apparel for our females, and we have the gratification of seeing them well apparelled and agreeably ornamented. Moreover a great part of our possessions are appropriated to the sacred rites of

Irish Hospitality.

themselves in maintaining the national character by the observance of laws many of which would be more honored in the breach, these scenes of boisterous and intemperate merriment,-locking doors, kidnapping visitors, are generally superseded by "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." The dreaded glass of salt and water no longer lies in ambush on the sideboard; and it is not now considered disgraceful to join the ladies in the drawing-room at an early hour. In truth the ladies were very hardly used under this barbarous system; thrown entirely on their own resources for three or four hours, (and, by the way, I am informed in confidence by a young lady of my acquaintance that an unmixed assemblage of her sex is not always the most harmonious society)— stunned by the rude uproar from the parlour, in which were occasionally mixed the mimic notes of hounds and harriers, with the ery of tantivy ho! hark way! sung in general chorus, as the sport of the day was again repeated-and conscious that this senseless shouting and intemperate mirth, had more charms for the gentlemen than their society,-those reflections indeed must have been truly mortifying; nor were they in the least removed, when, at last, four or five topers, who had survived the debauch came tumbling up stairs roaring for tea and coffee.

The most splendid instance of true Irish hospitality, of which I am aware, is that recorded by the father of the late celebrated Sheridan, of a Mr. Mathew, an ancestor of the present lord Landaff. This gentleman, possessing the national virtue in a more than ordinary degree, devoted a

hospitality, which you, Christians, know not how to practise; for you worship the idol of ostentation; you invite your friends to a dinner; you incur an intolerable and injudicious expense, and provide a multitude of dishes to pamper their appetites, sufficient for a regiment of Muselmin; when nature and rational beings, which men were born to be, require only one dish. Moreover, your sumptuous entertainments are given to those only who do not want; therefore it is an ostentations and a wanton waste! We on the contrary, that is to say, every good Muselman, give one tenth of our property to the poor; and moreover, much of our substance is appropriated to the support, not of the rich and independent, who do not want it, but to strange guests who journey from one country to another; insomuch, that with us a poor man may travel by public benificence and apt hospitality from the shores of the Mediterranean to the borders of the Sahara, without a fluce in the corner of his garment. A traveller, however poor he may be, is never at a loss for a meal, several meals, and even for three days entertainment, wherever he travels through our country; and if any man were to go to a douar in any of the Arab provinces of our sovereign's empire, and not receive the entertainment and courtesy of a brother, that douar would be stamped with a stigma of indelible disgrace. Pardon us, therefore, if we say you have not such hospitality in your country, although the great principle of our Lord Jesus is charity."

ED.

Irish Hospitality.

princely fortune to the entertainment of his friends. An extensive mansion was completed under his immediate inspection, capable of accommodating a great number of guests; and when all was in readiness, a circular was issued to the numerous circle of his friends, with a general invitation, and a carte blanche to all the men of wit and genius of the day. Dean Swift and Sheridan were among those who received an Irish welcome from the princely Mathew; and it was after his first visit, that the latter described in a letter to his friend, the extensive arrangements and elegant economy of Mathew-house, for a minute detail of which I refer your readers to the letter itself, which I remember to have met in a number of the Gentleman's Magazine. There are many, I am sure, will join me in the wish, that Mathew was still at home.

Another custom, now happily wearing away, was that of giving money to servants at the houses of noblemen and gentlemen, with whom you might have passed a few days, or partaken of a casual dinner. I remember when this was very generally in practise, and a great hardship it was on those of limited means; who, while they were partaking of the master's hospitality in the parlour, had the unpleasant reflection of being obliged to satisfy his expecting and rapacious retainers in the hall. The reply of Doctor Johnson to a nobleman who asked him to dinner was a good rebuke, "I thank your lordship for the honor you intend me," said he," but am sorry that my means will not allow me to avail myself of your kind invitation." On being pressed to explain himself, he confessed that, what with paying for a coach, and a shilling to each of his lordship's servants, he found it would exceed too far the rigid economy he was obliged to adopt; for that with one fourth of the expence attendant on his lordship's invitation he would dine at his own lodgings.

I

There is another custom, which yet retains its place, and which I would heartily wish to see entirely eradicated. I am fond of a game at whist or cassino, Mr. Editor; but when asked to take a hand at one or other of these games, am always forced to plead the excuse of Doctor Johnson, that I can't afford it-not from a fear of any loss I may sustain at the play, for I never go beyond a certain very limited stake, but from that most ungracious and inhospitable tax which your readers will recognise by the appellation of "card money." I cannot immediately name the