James the Second and the Duke of Berwick

Front matter

U U 1^

President Whjte Library, Cornell University.

Cornell University Library

Contents

REFACE . . . .

Life and Death. 1670-85 .

Before Buda-Pesth. 1686 .

Preface

OUR les esprits superieurs, mais pour ces esprits seulement, la guerre est une excellente ^cole, on y apprend a commander, a se decider, et surtout a administrer." The education, under fire, of the Duke of Berwick bears striking witness to the truth of M. Thiers' opinion. James Fitz-James was born to a high military position. As far as rank and pay went, a royal road lay before him ; but so vigorous were his natural parts, so sound was his common sense, so keen his determination to be a soldier in fact, as well as in name,, that every opportunity of gaining professional knowledge was turned to account, and by the force of merit, it may be fairly said, he rose to be a Marshal of France.

His exploits in that office are beyond the scope of this volume. It simply treats of the campaigns which made the young Englishman worthy of the baton. The fame of his later time fills an ample space in his Memoirs, and in the French annals, but so briefly do history and his own modest pen notice Berwick's earlier career, that I have attempted to string together some waifs and strays of information about his opening trials and growing aptitude for command.

It is impossible to glance at the intrigues which preceded, and the conflict which followed, the Revolution of 1688, without being confronted by the unhappy King, whose faults and illusions destroyed the Stuart dynasty. His errors may be kept in view without suppressing the good qualities he certainly possessed. And, in respect of the Williamite War in viii PRE FA CE.

Ireland, whilst we admire the disciplined advance of the Anglo-Dutch battalions, we should not forget that the Jacobite kerne and gallow-glass fought hardily, " though almost naked, without barneys or armure."

The hostilities of the seventeenth century may appear insignificant to many who rejoice over the vast hosts, the stupendous artillery, the complex administration of the present epoch ; still, the strategy of Turenne and Montecuculi, the works of Vauban, the battles of Luxembourg are full of instruction. When on the track of these brilliant generals, we cannot fail to observe the changes which the progress of science and the increase of wealth have wrought in military things. Mechanical contrivance is now proclaimed to be the prime guarantee of victory ; the genius of the chief, the spirit of the officers, the pith of the rank and file, were believed of old to constitute the essence of an army. Our ancestors looked mainly to the Leader and his Veterans ; to-day the popular mind confides rather in elaborate gunnery and drilled multitudes.

Whether or no the seeming degradation of morale from the first to the second rank portend a decline in the art of war, is a question which the curious may examine, but which the future alone can decide.

C. T. W.

JAMES II. AND THE DUKE OF BERWICK.

LIFE AND DEATH.

1670-1685.

JAMES FITZJAMES, the eldest son of James, Duke of York, and of Arabella Churchill, was born on the 21st of August, 1670, at Moulins in the Bourbonnais, where, too, his brilliant comrade the Mar^chal de Villars first saw the light. His mother was a daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, a decayed cavalier, sharp-set place-hunter, and dreary commentator " upon the lives of all the kings of this isle, from the year of the world 2855 until the year of grace 1660." But, if the " Divi Britannici " were ill served by his pen, he plied to good purpose the courtier's oily tongue : the Duchess of York was induced to make Arabella one of her maids of honour ; and he laid the first stone of his son John Churchill's fortune by obtaining for him the appointment of page to the Duke of York.

How Miss Churchill captivated the susceptible prince is racily told by Count Anthony Hamilton. A wan, lean thing, he says, one might think her unlikely to excite the jealousy of Ann Hyde ; but in love victory is not always to bright eyes and rosy cheeks. One day the Duke and Duchess were riding about the breezy heaths of Tunbridge Wells. James trotted beside Arabella, not to flirt, but to embolden, for she was timid in the saddle. Her palfrey being fresh that memorable morning, fear had so increased the maid's natural pallor that she looked downright ugly. The Duke was growing disgusted ; when, on a sudden, her horse broke into a gallop. The more Mistress Churchill tugged at the rein, the madder the pace. A scream, a frantic clutch at the mane, and Arabella lies rumpled by the wayside ! No hurt, however ; nay, the reverse of hurt, for the accident revealed what an unfair index of her charms were those sallow features. James dismounted to succour the damsel, who, stunned by the fall, could not arrange her somewhat disordered apparel ; and so the cavaliers gathering around marvelled to behold most shapely ankles associated with the unattractive face.'

Some time afterwards, Mistress Churchill went to drink the waters of Bourbon I'Archambault, and, when returning home, added to the fame of Moulins and to the family of York. Thus it chanced that, to the restiveness of an illhandled hack, the Stuarts owed a noble scion and France a great commander.

At the age of seven, the little James and his brother Henry proceeded, under the care of Father Gough, a priest of the Oratory, to Juilly, a college of the order in France. At this celebrated school the Duke of Monmouth commenced his training. Here too Napoleon's brothers, Louis and Jerome, finished their education, and the late M. Berryer, " lion of the tribune," began and ended his studies.

On the death of " ce bon homme" (as the Duke of Berwick affectionately calls F. Gough), the boys left Juilly, and entered the college of Plessis, where they remained till 1684, when they spent a holiday in England. The Duke of York now presented them to Charles H., who received them very kindly and offered to ennoble James ; but the favour was declined by his father, out of respect, perhaps, to the feelings of Mary of Modena, who warmly objected even to the semiroyal surname of Fitzjames. Returning to France, the lads,

' Memoires de Grammont.'

JAMES OF MONMOUTH. 3

by the advice of Father Petre, matriculated at the Jesuit College of La Fl^che.^

At noon on Friday, the 6th of February, 1685, Charies II. died, bewailed " with sobs and groans by the people." Such is the sway of unaffected urbanity over the human heart. There are few of us, verily, who prefer not the airy rake to the sour elect 1

"With every imaginable token of peace and joy throughout the whole kingdom," ^ James, Duke of York, ascended the throne. Nevertheless, trouble impended. The English and Scottish Whigs, who had taken refuge in Holland after the detection of the Rye House Plot, thinking the time propitious for a Protestant rising, called on the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyll to direct it.

The news of his father's death reached Monmouth at the Hague, where he was explaining to the austere William the art of Court revelry, and encouraging the buxom Mary to skating tours deforce. His uncle's accession suggested caution. After a secret consultation with the inevitable Bentinck, the Duke retired to Brussels, and in the boudoir of Henrietta, Lady Wentworth, seemed to slight the fascination of rebellion.^ In a little while, however, he joined the conspirators at Rotterdam, ambition and Puritanism once more aglow within him.

A large sum of money having already been obtained, chiefly, it is said, from a rich and sensitive Dutch widow, Argyll no sooner heard of the King's death than he bought arms, ammunition, and a ship at Amsterdam. But, " quot homines tot sententice" neither Duke nor Earl would stoop to a secondary part. There must, therefore, be two expeditions ; Monmouth with the English refugees would sail for England, while MacCallum- More lighted the croes-tara (fiery cross) on his native hills.*

' Founded in 1603 by Henry IV., whose heart is preserved in the church. It was converted into a military school by Napoleon I. ^ " Reresby's Memoirs."

' She was only daughter and heiress of the Earl of Cleveland. * Lingard, " History of England."

The Dutch authorities winking hard— notwithstanding the remonstrances of Skelton, the Enghsh ambassador — about three hundred Scots put to sea on the 2nd of May, and, four days after, made the Orkneys. But the British Government was awake ; regulars on the march, militia falHng in. The disaffected hesitated. Easily hunted down, "unfortunate Argyll " went a hero to the block on the 30th of June, with his last breath forgiving his enemies, and denouncing Popery, Prelacy, and Erastianism.

Monmouth's enterprise was a far graver affair. Accompanied by nearly lOO men, more or less familiar with arms, he landed on the nth of June at Lyme in Dorsetshire. The gentry stood aloof; but the tirades of Ferguson, " the Christian minister " at his Grace's elbow, being attuned to the Roundhead tastes and moody Puritanism of the western populace, mechanics and peasants enlisted freely, foot became abundant, and some uncouth horse joined from Somersetshire.

The King was busy. The Duke of Albemarle sped to Devonshire to muster the train-bands ; Brigadier Lord Churchill marched for the west with Life Guards and " standing foot ;" the Scotch brigade was recalled from Holland ; the English army ordered to be increased to 15,000 men ; new regiments were to be raised. Preferring action to words. Parliament voted ;^400,000 towards the expenses, attainted the Duke of Monmouth, and offered ;^5,ooo " to any one who would secure him dead or alive.''

Despite noisy rejoicing, events were inauspicious at Lyme ; Fletcher of Saltoun, the best officer among the adventurers, having shot a provincial agitator in a scuffle, the multitude became so excited that the Duke was compelled to dismiss the clever Scot from his service. A few days afterwards, Lord Grey of Wark, who commanded the rebel cavalry, endeavouring to seize Bridport, was disgracefully beaten by some Dorsetshire militiamen.

At Taunton, where Monmouth arrived on the i8th,a proud reception awaited him, " the rabblement hooted and clapt their chopt hands," flowers strewed his path, gratuitous beef and unstinted beer sustained the enthusiasm of the recruits. Espe-

FERGUSON ADVISES. 5

cially acceptable to so gallant "a champion of the public good," twenty pretty Puritan maidens presented him with a Bible and a sword. " I come to defend the truths contained in this book," he cried, " or to seal them, if need be, with my blood :— "

" Religion and redress of grievances.

Two names that always cheat and always please."

But the influential and well-to-do still frigid, Ferguson advised his pupil to assume his " rightful " title of king ; the country folk surely longed to crown their dainty edifice of cards, and could the Whig gentry resist the witchery of liberalism in royal guise i* —

" How long wilt thou the gen'ral joy detain, Starve and defraud the people of thy reign ?"

The counsel of the " d,x<^-boute-feu " (thus does the gentle Evelyn describe the lank Boanerges) prevailed, albeit not a squire answered to " boot and saddle."

The day after this absurd bid for popular favour, the Duke entered Bridgwater, the militia retiring before him, for Albemarle had orders to risk nothing till the regulars were in support. " King Monmouth," ho longer all smiles and confidence, now organized his infantry, some 6000 strong, in six regiments ; the cavalry numbered about lOOO troopers of equivocal mettle. Men indeed turned up plentifully, but arms were scarce ; a strong demand arose for scythes and pick-axes, and likely lads, not a few, had to be rejected for want of weapons wherewithal to smite.

If there was a rebel officer light of heart, his experience of war must have been slight. The royal troops were gathering thick. Oxford students had exchanged Latinity for the pikemanual. Albemarle's train-bands were ahead. Worse than all, by the time the insurgents quitted Bridgwater, Churchill's ired-coats were within reach of them, and no doubt tormented their flanks in a fashion that might have disturbed the march of veterans, much more the painful plodding of dejected counter-skippers and colliers.^

' Macaulay, " History of England."

To seize Bristol, then the second city of England, was Monmouth's desire, but the vigour of the Duke of Beaufort, who assured the burghers he would burn the town if they showed their teeth, foiled the project. Hence wild counsels; strategic suggestions often without rhyme or reason. Some one proposed to make for Gloucester ; whence a dash into Shropshire and Cheshire, where the comely and genial bastard had formerly made friends. But Churchill's activity, added to untrained Hodge's defective quick-step, forbade the venture. At length the Duke wheeled to his left on Bath. Alas ! not only did Bath reject him, but the townsmen slew the herald who summoned them to surrender.^

Here the rebels commenced their retreat, an operation demoralizing to disciplined troops and fatal to raw levies. Still, when little expected, a ray of success shot across their path. Hearing that the main body of the king's forces, under the Earl of Feversham, was nigh Philip's Norton, Monmouth lined the hedges of the road leading to it with musketeers, and kept his horse in hand. The royal advanced guard, consisting of Life Guards and the grenadiers of the 1st Foot Guards, led by the Duke of Grafton (Monmouth's half-brother), plunged into the ambush. A cross fire blazed from the hedges. The amazed red-coats struggled onward till they reached a barricade at the entrance into the village. There a volley blazed full in their faces. Thus beset they fled in disorder, the volunteer cavalry clumsily spurring at their heels. " The best part of a troop of horse " were either laid low or made prisoners, and the headlong Grafton narrowly escaped capture. The affair seems to have been a petty Balaclava.

The retreat continued. At Frome, the fate of Argyll and the torpor of the " Solymean rout" of London were reported. In despair, " Absalom, ambitious of a crown," ran about seeking advice from mouth to mouth ; and but for the expostulations of Lord Grey, a peer bold in debate if backward in the charge, he would have slunk away by night from his beguiled subjects. He pined for Brussels, where the blandishments of

' Sir John Dalrymple, " Memoirs of Great Britain," &c.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM. 7

an impassioned mistress might easily assuage the sorrows of a heart like his."^

Boding and undecided the Duke re-entered Bridg\vater on the 2nd of July. Should he intrench the town, and await attack behind earth-works ? Should he revert to the scheme of a rush at the Welsh marches ? He pondered thus, and many adherents, with the prescience of rats, deserted the Puritan colours.

A blow quick and desperate was now the only chance left. A reconnaissance kindled a little hope. Without a spark of his uncle's splendid genius, Feversham was a gallant gentleman and a smart colonel," but, after the manner of commonplace commanders, despising his enemy,' he had disseminated the troops more widely than was prudent. His head-quarters were with the cavalry (700 sabres) at Weston. The sixteen field-guns, guarded by dragoons, closed the road from that place to Bridgwater. The infantry, about 1,800 strong, lay at some distance off on the open moor. A broad ditch (unknown to Monmouth, it is said) covered their front. The Wilts Militia were in the rear at Middlezoy. Being detachments of Life Guards, Horse Grenadiers, Oxford's Horse, and Royal Dragoons, Foot Guards, Dumbarton's, Kirke's, and Trelawny's regiments, the regulars were of the stanchest sort.

Monmouth's plan was hazardous, as adventures in the dark must always be. To avoid patrols, he would march by a circuitous byway, on the night of the 5 th, against the infantry camped on Sedgmoor, and, falling upon them unawares, rout them ere cavalry and cannon could come up. From ale-house

' Macaulay, " History of England."

° Louis de Duras was son of the Due de Duras, and of a sister of the great Turenne. Shortly after the accession of Charles II. he came to England, where he was naturalized, and created successively Baron Duras and Earl of Feversham, the title of his father-in-law.

^ " On ne doit jamais m^priser son ennemi, et se relacher dans le service par le croyance qu'il est peu entreprenant, et qu'il n'a pas telle ou telle habitude. Ce qui n'a pas €\.€ dans un temps peut I'etre dans un autre. II suffit d'un homme intelligent et brave pour changer les moeurs d'une armde."— Le Marechal Bugeaud.

gossip he expected to find the Foot Guards dead drunk, and the gentlemen of the Life Guards snoring in bed.'

On that very Sunday morning, a young woman eager in the royal cause entered the lines to communicate the Monmouthite project, which seems to have been no secret in Bridgwater ; but, being taken to " a chief officer," she was brutally ill-treated, and in a transport of rage, terror and shame, went her way without uttering the warning. No thought, then, of danger. " Most of the officers " caroused, and the duties were carelessly performed.^

About one o'clock on Monday morning the insurgent column, preceded by Grey's unsteady squadrons and three iron guns, reached the waste. Thanks to guides, it managed to pass two of the broad ditches intervening between Bridgwater and the royal troops. But the report of a pistol (treacherously fired, it is said, by one Captain Hucker) roused a vedette of the Blues ; and immediately the main-guard of the camp, composed of loo of Dumbarton's Scots, stood to the front, calling lustily to arms.

Fully occupied in dressing his tangled files, Monmouth ordered Grey to rush in among the tents and cut down the disjointed soldiery. But the ditch protecting the men of Belial brought " the marsh mares and colts " to a stand. The guide was either not forthcoming or bewildered by the mist which was dense. The rebel horsemen fumbled for a causeway.

"Whom are you for.''" cried Sir Francis Compton of the Blues. Somebody answered, " King Monmouth." Whereupon Dumbarton's fired a volley, and to the winds went Grey's yeomanry.

And now the Duke urged forward his six battalions, their point of direction in the darkness being the lighted matches of the Royal Scots.^ Again the ditch stopped the way. But,

' Echard, " History of England."

^ " Account of a brave Officer of the Horse Guards,'' quoted by Kennet.

^ King James's account of Sedgemoor, in " Hardwick's State Papers." (Dumbarton's was the only battalion of the King's forces using matchlocks, the rest of the infantry being armed with snap-hance muskets of the latest pattern.

DESERTION UNDER FIRE. 9

unlike their mounted comrades, the fanatic foot stood firm, " with \ast shoutings and firings." The soldiers replied with -".'orkfnanlike deliberation. Well pointed by a Dutch gunner, the Monmouth pieces did no mean execution amongst the Scots and ist Foot Guards.^ The fight was lively.

Meanwhile the King's infantry were deploying, Feversham was up with the cavalry, and the cannon, tugged by the Bishop of Winchester's coach-horses, drew near. Parties of Life Guards and Horse Grenadiers were ordered to cross the ditch and threaten the rebel right. At the same time, heavy horse and dragoons formed on the right of Dumbarton's. And whose is the voice sharp and clear above the din } Churchill's : his calm judgment worth a grenadier battalion.

The dullest ensign could see the game was up. How, then, might Monmouth save what to such men is dearer than all things — life .' Only by leaving his dupes in the lurch before day dawned. In the congenial company of Lord Grey and a German adventurer he deserted ; the fog, the clash of arms, and active horses abetting the infamy.

Of sturdier breed the unhappy peasants. With the first streak of light, the guns, handled " by the fighting bishop " (who either from loyalty, or horror of dissent had turned bombadier) opened fire.^ And the Foot Guards passed the ditch. But the rustics held together ; crying aloud, " ammunition ! ammunition ! for the Lord's sake, ammunition ! " they faced the grenadiers with pike and flail, and gashed the dragoons cruelly with their scythes. Such their valour, whetted by despair, that once even the fiery Oglethorpe and his Life Guardsmen were beaten back ; and Captain Sarsefield (of whom we shall soon hear much), dashed out of the saddle with the butt-end of a musket, lay for dead.

But courage in the rough must eventually yield to skill and

' King James's account of Sedgemoor, in " Hardwick's State Papers." " Archdeacon Echard says, "The Bishop of Winchester performed singular service in managing the big guns." (" History of England.") And Ralph describes the ill-placed prelate as " a fighting bishop who acted as general of the ordnance (" History of England ").

lo LIFE AND DEATH.

discipline. Charged over and over again by " veterans trained to arms and bloody wars," the poor fellows broke at last. Then in the midst of the mob, the dragoons slashed con amore ; in awful contact the hellish impulse to destroy life, and the horrified instinct to preserve it. In the turmoil were slain i,000 (Ralph declares 2,000) rebels, " most of them," Evelyn thinks, " Mendip miners who did great execution with their tools, and sold their lives very dearly while their leaders were flying." " Great execution," in truth, for we are told 300 regulars were either killed or grievously mauled by those grimly wielded implements.'

After the runaway leaders the chase was hot. First, Grey was taken ; then the German ; lastly, one Parker discovered James of Monmouth cowering in a ditch near Ringwood in Hampshire. He delivered the famishing wretch to the soldiers.

At the request of the Queen Dowager, the King consented to see him. Sobbing like a girl, the culprit entered Chifiinch's room at Whitehall, and threw himself on his knees before James. He reviled " the bloody villain Ferguson " and his other associates. He would become a Catholic. No humiliation was too great for him provided his life were spared. It does not appear, however, that he disclosed anything of the momentous character suggested in the abject letter which he had previously written to the King."

' One hundred and forty years before, the peasantry of the west rose against the Government of Edward JVI. Of them, " Lord Grey, who had led the charge on the Scottish infantry at Musselburg, said that ' such was the valour and stoutness of the men that, in all the wars he had been in, he never did know the like.' It is remarkable that in 1545 the western countrymen fought thus heroically in defence of the Catholic religion, the German and Italian mercenaries, by whom they were mainly put down, being in the pay of the Reformers. Never before had English rulers used the arms of strangers against English subjects."— Froude, History of England.

= "There is good reason to believe that the secret to which he alluded was the correspondence which Sunderland held with the Prince of Orange, and that he had himself been encouraged by Sunderland to his fatal enterprise."— Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain.

ON TOWER-HILL. ii

James was obdurate : his heart was not tender ; and public opinion regarded the axe as the logical consequence of unsuccessful rebellion. In those days professed philanthropists were rare. To forbearance, indeed, the poor Duke had small claim. He had twice plotted against his uncle ; he had inflamed the wrong with personal calumnies. Consanguinity, which is popularly supposed to inspire affection, availed not here, for the King repudiated any tie of blood between himself and Monmouth. He spoke of him as the son, not of his brother Charles and Lucy Barlow alias Walters, but of Colonel Robert Sidney^ and that " browne, beautiful, bold, and insipid creature " (the virtuous Evelyn loquitur).

His conduct in the Tower must have been as wormwood to his pious friends. Coldly did he receive his wife, "a virtuous and excellent lady," the heiress of the bold Buccleuch, who had borne him several children. He protested to the Anglican bishops, insisting on the necessity of repentance, that (theology, law, and Duchess notwithstanding) the Lady Wentworth alone was the wife of his heart- On the scaffold he behaved manfully, reiterated his passionate devotion to the enchantress, and was horridly mangled by Ketch.

Thus perished, at the age of thirty-six, James, Duke of Monmouth, a gentleman notable for good looks and graceful manners. Such varnish could hardly fail to procure for the son of a king the favour of women and the hurrahs of the mob. Vain to excess, " made drunk with honour and debauched with praise," the warlike Absalom fell ah easy prey to "crafty knaves" hailing him devout Christian, skilful captain, and sagacious politician. Of a flimsy nature, he quailed at the first sight of the dangers he had recklessly provoked. In spite of his lax principles and immoral life, the Puritans regarded hifn almost as a saint, and some writers have considered him a martyr. Chacim a son goAt. No doubt

' Lingard, " History of England."

" " James behaved with fondness to the children, and delivered to the Duchess a grant of her husband's estate, which had fallen to the Crown by attainder." — Dalrymple, Memoirs of Gi-eat Britain.

he was a very pretty fellow, personally brave and socially pleasant, well cut out for a place at Court or a colonelcy in the Guards. If he could only have rested content with his Garter, his Chancellorship of Cambridge, " his accumulations without end," what a happy spark ! Dalliance with democratic emotions destroyed him.

Enough of the flashy, good-natured sinner. The digression concerning him will at least present a foil to what we have to relate about his cousin, " le simple Brochet," valiant soldier and loyal subject.

After the defeat of the sixth of July, the odious barbarities, often the lot of quelled insurrection, had infernal swing.

In order that the rebels should be punished according to the forms of law, a special commission, consisting of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Chief Baron and three puisne Judges, was issued ; and, strangely as it sounds, by a second commission, Jeffreys was singly appointed commander-in-chief of the troops quartered within the limits of the western circuit. The character of the campaign is indicated in the old song : —

" The pris'ners to plead to his lordship did cry : But still he made answer, and thus did reply : ' We'll hang you up first, and then after we'll try.' Sing, Hey brave Chancellor, O fine Chancellor, Delicate Chancellor, O !"

At least two rulings of this truculent Judge do not appear to have been distasteful to our forefathers. When one Hucker pleaded in extenuation, that, although a 'listed Monmouthite, he had sent important information to Feversham, the "Justice General " thundered, "Why, you deserve a double death ; one for rebellion against your sovereign, the other for betraying your friends." A mean and despicable fellow, the informer ; we virtuously loathe him, but in troublous times is there a minister who does not tempt and employ him I

Again, on arriving at Bristol, the chief justice discovered that the mayor and alderman had been accustomed to sell, for their own profit, to the planters of Barbadoes not only

JUDGE JEFFREYS AND "HIS WORSHIP." 13

prisoners charged with felony, but even simple vagabonds. Roger North relates that, after violently haranguing the grand jury on such an enormity, Jeffreys turned to the mayor accoutred with his scarlet and furs, and gave him all the ill names that scolding eloquence could supply, and never left off till he made him quit the bench, and go down to the criminal's post at the bar, and there he pleaded for himself as a common rogue or thief must have done, and when the mayor hesitated a little, or slackened his pace, he bawled at him, and stamping called for his guard, for he was still general by commission. Thus, the citizens saw their chief magistrate at the bar to their infinite terror and amazement.'

A laudable chastisement of "respectable " iniquity. At least, one act of equity, rough but wholesome, in the terrible campaign of George Lord Jeffreys of Wem. " Et Barbouc conclout qu'il y avait souvent de tres bonnes choses dans les abus."

' " Life of Guildford."

II

O part of biography is so apocryphal as that which records the "wise saws and modern instances" of heroes in the chrysalis state of petticoats or knickerbockers.

" Nurse — May not one speak ?

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl, For here we need it not."

Besides, youthful precocity by no means betokens powerful manhood ; the morning sun may shine too brightly. Sainte- Beuve is right, " Les plus beaux lauriers sont souvent les plus tardifs."

At any rate, we know little authentic of the " puerilites" ^ of James Fitz-James beyond this, that he was a grave boy, religiously inclined and very methodical in all his ways. It is likely that the love of order which marked his public career was early implanted within him at Juilly, a college no less noted for the discipline maintained there than for the practical scope of its curriculum. Peace being re-established throughout Great Britain, James Fitz-James, now fifteen years of age, quitted La Fleche, and, returning to England, paid a visit to his sister Henrietta, recently married to Sir Henry