STATUE OF CHARLES I. Then we played again, till I said—“ My Dear, But the Darling she answered,-" O no! O no! You must play-you must play. I shan't let you go !" -And I woke with a start and a sigh of despair And I found myself safe in my Grandfather's-chair! THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF CHARLES I. THEN in 1674, the present "noble equestrian statue,” as Walpole styles it, was erected, not too promptly, by Charles II. Its story is singular, almost as singular as that of the statue of the Merry Monarch himself, which loyal Sir Robert Viner, "Alderman, Knight and Baronet," put up in the old Stocks Market. It appears to have been executed about 1633 by Hubert Le Sœur, a pupil of John of Bologna, for the Lord High Treasurer Weston, who intended it to embellish his garden at Roehampton. By the terms of the commission it was to be of brass, a foot larger than life, and the sculptor was to take advice of his Maj. (Charles I.) riders of greate horses, as well for the shape of the horse and action as for the graceful shape and action of his Maj. figure on the same." Before the beginning of the Civil War, according to Walpole, the statue, cast but not erected, was sold by the 44 LONDON SMOKE Parliament to John Rivett, brazier, dwelling at the Dial near Holborn Conduit, who was strictly enjoined to break it up. Rivett, whose "faith was large in time," carefully buried it instead, and ingenuously exhibited some broken brass in earnest of its destruction. Report further says that, making capital out of both parties, he turned these mythic fragments into knife and fork handles, which the Royalists bought eagerly as relics, and the Puritans as tokens of the downfall of a despot. In any case there is evidence to show that the statue was still in Rivett's possession in 1660, and it is assumed that it passed from him or his family to the second Charles. Strype says that he presented it to the King, which is not unlikely. (A Paladin of Philanthropy.) LONDON SMOKE ONE of the many projects of that indefatigable philanthropist, Mr. John Evelyn, of Sayes Court, Deptford, was a scheme for suppressing London smoke. Walking in the Palace at Whitehall, not long after the Restoration, in order to refresh himself with the sight of his Royal Master's illustrious presence (the expression is his own), he was sorely disturbed by the presumptuous vapours which, issuing from certain tunnels or chimneys in the neighbourhood of Northumberland House and Scotland Yard, did "so invade the court, that all the rooms, galleries, and places about it were fill'd and infested with it; and that to such a degree, as men could hardly discern one another for the clowd, LONDON SMOKE and none could support." Indeed that high and mighty Princess, the King's only sister, "Madame herself, accustomed as she had been to the purer air of Paris, was grievously offended, both in her breast and lungs, by this "prodigious annoyance," which not only sullied the glory of his Majesty's imperial seat, but endangered the health of his subjects. These "funest " circumstances set busy Mr. Evelyn a-thinking; and presently gave rise to his learned tractate "Fumifugium; or, the Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London dissipated,” which he inscribed to King Charles II., and in which he dealt summarily with the "hellish and dismal cloud of sea-coal," by recommending that all brewers, dyers, lime-burners, soap-boilers and the like inordinate consumers of such fuel, should be dismissed to a competent distance from the city, and moreover-as might be anticipated from the future author of "Sylva "-that every available vacant space should at once be planted with sweetsmelling trees, shrubs and flowers. "Our august Charles "—always a compliant monarch-highly approved these opportune suggestions, and a Bill was drafted accordingly. But there the matter rested. A century later, when Evelyn's pamphlet was reprinted, nothing had been done : while numerous glasshouses, foundries and potteries had added their baleful tribute to the "black catalogue." Nor can it be affirmed even now that the evil is entirely of the past, since, not many months ago, the London County Council [1909] were still assiduously concerting measures for what Evelyn terms the melioration of the aer." 44 (Old Kensington Palace and Other Papers.) THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS En los nidos de antaño SPANISH PROVERB. YEA, I am passed away, I think, from this ; And witness ye, I go without a fear. As once I dreamed, the show of shield and crest, Gone southward to the fighting by the sea ;There is no bird in any last year's nest ! Yea, with me now all dreams are done, I ween, Moving at morn on some Burgundian wall; Is she a dream I left in Aquitaine ?— My wife Giselle,-who never spoke a word, Although I knew her mouth was drawn with pain, Her eyelids hung with tears; and though I heard The strong sob shake her throat, and saw the cord Her necklace made about it ;-she that prest To watch me trotting till I reached the ford ;There is no bird in any last year's nest ! GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AND FAGIN Ah! I had hoped, God wot,-had longed that she Me, coming back again to her, Giselle ; But how, my Masters, ye are wrapt in gloom! This Death will come, and whom he loves he cleaves Sheer through the steel and leather; hating whom He smites in shameful wise behind the greaves. 'Tis a fair time with Dennis and the Saints, And weary work to age, and want for rest, When harness groweth heavy, and one faints, With no bird left in any last year's nest ! Give ye good hap, then, all. For me, I lie Broken in Christ's sweet hand, with whom shall rest To keep me living, now that I must die ;- GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AND FAGIN I MET George Cruikshank in December 1877. He came one morning to see Mr. Frederick Locker, at whose house I was breakfasting; and he was at once invited to join the party. He died on February 1, 1878, aged eighty-six. Writing his life, Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, at Mr. Locker's suggestion, applied to me for |