That now are sleeping where no day shall ever dawn. place; as inharmonious a one, perhaps, as ever "filled

SPECIMENS OF LOVELETTERS

IN THE REIGN OF EDWARD IV.

From the second volume of a Collection of Original Letters written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III. By John Fenn, Esq. M. A. and F. R, S.

I.

Right reverend and worshipful, and my right well beloved Valentine, I recommend me unto you, full heartilie desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto his pleasure, and your heart's desire.

And if it please you to hear of my welfare, I am not in good heele (health) of bodie, nor of heart, nor shall be till I hear from you

For there wottes (knows) no creature that pain I endure
And for to be dead (for my life), I dare it not discur (discover)
And my lady my mother hath labored the matter
to my father full diligently, but she can no more get
than ye know of, for the which God knoweth I am
full sorry. But if that ye love me, as I trust verily
that ye do, ye will not leave me therefore; for if that
ye had not half the livelihood that ye have, for to do
the greatest labour that any woman alive might, I
would not forsake you.

And if ye command me to keep me true wherever I go,
I wis I will do all my might you to love, and never no mo,
And if my friends say, that I do amiss

They shall not me let (hinder) so for to do,

Mine heart me bids ever more to love you-
Truly over all earthlie thing

And if they be never so wrath

I trust it shall be better in time coming

No more to you at this time, but the Holy Trinity have
you in keeping; and I beseech you that this bill be
not seen of none earthlie creature save only yourself.
And this letter was endited at Topcroft, with full
heavy heart &c
By your own

II.

MARGERY BREWS.

maiden on ground; and if ye think not yourself so satisfyed, or that ye might have much more good, as I have understood by you afore; good, true, and loving Valentine, that ye take no such labor upon you, as to come more for that matter, but let what is, pass and never more be spoken of, as I may be your true lover and beadwoman during my life.

No more unto you at this time, but Almighty Jesu preserve you both bodie and soul &c.

Topcroft 1476.7.

By your Valentine

MARGERY BREWS.

MARCELIA.

Then she is drown'd?
-Drown'd-Drown'd.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia !
And therefore I forbid my tears.- Hamlet.
It was a solitary spot!—

The shallow brook that ran throughout the forest,
(Aye chattering as it went,) there took a turn
And widened;-all its music died away,
And in the place, a silent eddy told
That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees
Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,
And spicy cedar,) cluster'd; and at night
Shook from their melancholy branches sounds
And sighs like death!-'Twas strange, for thro' the day
They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,
Like monumental things, which the sad earth
From its green bosom had cast out in pity,
To mark a young girl's grave. The very leaves
Disown'd their natural green, and took a black

And mournful hue: and the rough brier had stretch'd
His straggling arms across the water, and
Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching
With his tenacious leaf, straws, wither'd boughs,
Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current--and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's death-bed!

Never may net
Of vent'rous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts, as he ruffles with his shorten'd breath
The brook, and, panting, flies th' unholy place--
And the wild heifer lows and passes on ;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there; and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And chequer'd as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I listen, and
Can fancy to myself that voices there

Right worshipful and well beloved Valentine, in my most humble wise, I recommend me unto you &c. And heartilie I thank you for the letter, which that ye send me by John Beckerton, whereby I understand and know that ye be purposed to come to Topcroft in short time, and without any errand or matter, but only to have a conclusion of the matter betwixt my father and you; I would be the most glad of any creature alive, so that the matter might grow to effect. And thereas (whereas) ye say, an (if) ye come and find the matter no more towards you than ye did aforetime, ye would no more put my father and my lady my mother to no cost nor business for that cause a good while | Plain, and low prayers come moaning thro' the leaves after, which causeth my heart to be full heavie; and if For some misdeed! that ye come, and the matter take to none effect, then should I be much more sorry, and full of heaviness.

And as for myself I have done, and understand in the matter that I can or may, as God knoweth; and I let you plainly understand, that my father will no more money part withal in that behalf, but an 100l. and 50 marks (331. 6s. 8d.) which is right far from the accomplishment of your desire.

Wherefore, if that ye could be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest

The story goes, that a
Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world
Frown'd upon,) once strayed thither, and 'twas thought
Did cast her in the stream. You may have heard
Of one Marcelia, poor Molini's daughter, who
Fell ill, and came to want in youth? No?-Oh!
She loved a man who marked her not. He wed,
And then the girl grew sick, and pin'd away,
And drown'd herself for love!-Some day or other
I'll tell you all the story.

Critical Notices.

THE HEROINE.

and is one day turned out of the house for allowing certain undue liberties on the part of the butler. In revenge she commences a correspondence with Miss Cherry, in which she persuades that young lady that Wilkinson is not her real father-that she is a child of mystery, &c.-in short that she is actually and bonâ

The Heroine or Adventures of Cherubina. By Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. New Edition. Richmond: Pub-fide a heroine. In the meantime, Miss Cherry, in lished by P. D. Bernard.

rummaging among her father's papers, comes across an antique parchment-a lease of lives-on which the following words are alone legible.

This Indenture

For and in consideration of
Doth grant, bargain, release
Possession, and to his heirs and assigns
Lands of Sylvan Lodge, in the
Trees, stones, quarries, &c.

Reasonable amends and satisfaction
This demise

Molestation of him the said Gregory Wilkinson.
The natural life of

Cherry Wilkinson only daughter of

Cherubina! Who has not heard of Cherubina? Who has not heard of that most spiritual, that most ill-treated, that most accomplished of women-of that most consummate, most sublimated, most fantastic, most unappreciated, and most inappreciable of heroines? Exquisite and delicate creation of a mind overflowing with fun, frolic, farce, wit, humor, song, sentiment, and sense, what mortal is there so dead to every thing graceful and glorious as not to have devoured thy adventures? Who is there so unfortunate as not to have taken thee by the hand?-who so lost as not to have cultivated thy acquaintance?-who so stupid, as not to have enjoyed thy companionship?-who so much of a log, as not to have laughed until he has wept for very laughter in the perusal of thine incomparable, inimitable, and inestimable eccentricities? But we are becoming pathetic to no purpose, and supererogatively oratorical. Every body has read Cherubina. There is no one so superlatively unhappy as not to have done this thing. But if such there be-if by any possibility such person should exist, we have only a few words to say to him. Go, silly man, and purchase forthwith "The Heroine: or Adven-give Wilkinson "Sylvan Lodge," together with "trees, tures of Cherubina.”

De Willoughby eldest son of Thomas
Lady Gwyn of Gwyn Castle.

This "excruciating MS." brings matters to a crisis-for Miss Cherry has no difficulty in filling up the blanks.

lady in a letter to her Governess, "between this Gre"It is a written covenant," says this interesting young gory Wilkinson, and the miscreant (whom my being an heiress had prevented from enjoying the title and estate that would devolve to him at my death) stipulating to

some

stones, &c." as "reasonable amends and satisfaction"
that there shall be "no molestation of him the said
for being the instrument of my "demise," and declaring
Gregory Wilkinson" for taking away the "natural life
of Cherry Wilkinson, only daughter of"
follows "Lady Gwyn of Gwyn Castle." So that it is
body "De Willoughby eldest son of Thomas." Then
evident I am a De Willoughby, and related to Lady
Gwyn! What perfectly confirms me in the latter sup-
position, is an old portrait which I found soon after,
among Wilkinson's papers, representing a young and
beautiful female superbly dressed; and underneath, in
large letters, the name of "Nell Gwyn."

The Heroine was first published many years ago, (we believe shortly after the appearance of Childe Harold;) but although it has run through editions innumerable, and has been universally read and admired by all possessing talent or taste, it has never, in our opinion, attracted half that notice on the part of the critical press, which is undoubtedly its due. There are few books written with more tact, spirit, näïveté, or grace, few which take hold more irresistibly upon the attention of the reader, and none more fairly entitled to rank among the classics of English literature than the Heroine of Fired with this idea, Miss Cherry gets up a scene, Eaton Stannard Barrett. When we say all this of a rushes with hair dishevelled into the presence of the book possessing not even the remotest claim to origi-good man Wilkinson, and accuses him to his teeth of nality, either in conception or execution, it may rea-plotting against her life, and of sundry other mal-pracsonably be supposed, that we have discovered in its tices and misdemeanors. The worthy old gentleman matter, or manner, some rare qualities, inducing us is astonished, as well he may be; but is somewhat conto hazard an assertion of so bold a nature. This is ac- soled upon receiving a letter from his nephew, Robert tually the case. Never was any thing so charmingly Stuart, announcing his intention of paying the family written the mere style is positively inimitable. Ima- a visit immediately. Wilkinson is in hopes that a lover gination, too, of the most etherial kind, sparkles and may change the current of his daughter's ideas; but in blazes, now sportively like the Will O' the Wisp, now that he is mistaken. Stuart has the misfortune of bedazzlingly like the Aurora Borealis, over every page-ing merely a rich man, a handsome man, an honest over every sentence in the book. It is absolutely radi-man, and a fashionable man-he is no hero. This is ant with fancy, and that of a nature the most captivat-not to be borne: and Miss Cherry, having assumed the ing, although, at the same time, the most airy, the most capricious, and the most intangible. Yet the Heroine must be considered a mere burlesque; and, being a copy from Don Quixotte, is to that immortal work of Cervantes what The School for Scandal is to The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Plot is briefly as follows.

Gregory Wilkinson, an English farmer worth 50,000 pounds, has a pretty daughter called Cherry, whose head is somewhat disordered from romance reading. Her governess is but little more rational than herself,

name of the Lady Cherubina De Willoughby, makes a precipitate retreat from the house, and commences a journey on foot to London. Her adventures here properly begin, and are laughable in the extreme. But we must not be too minute. They are modelled very much after those of Don Quixotte, and are related in a series of letters from the young lady herself to her governess. The principal characters who figure in the Memoirs are Betterton, an old debauché who endeavors to entangle the Lady Cherubina in his toilsVOL. II.-5

To the Lady Cherubina. Your mother lives! and is confined in a subterranean vault of the villa. At midnight two men will tap at your door, and con

down the billet, and lifted my filial eyes to Heaven! Mother

Jerry Sullivan, an Irish simpleton, who is ready to lose his life at any moment for her ladyship, whose story he implicitly believes, without exactly comprehending duct you to her. Be silent, courageous, and circumspect. it-Higginson, a grown baby, and a mad poet-Lady Gwyn, whom Cherubina believes to be her mortal What a flood of new feelings gushed upon my soul, as I laid enemy, and the usurper of her rights, and who encour-endearing name! I pictured that unfortunate lady stretched on ages the delusion for the purpose of entertaining her guests-Mary and William, two peasants betrothed, but whom Cherry sets by the ears for the sake of an interesting episode—Abraham Grundy, a tenth rate meeting-our embrace; she gently pushing me from her, and performer at Covent Garden, who having been mistakenbaring my forehead, to gaze on the lineaments of my counte nance. All, all is convincing; and she calls me the softened image of my noble father!

by Cherry for an earl, supports the character à merveille with the hope of eventually marrying her, and thus securing 10,000 pounds, a sum which it appears the lady possesses in her own right. He calls himself the Lord Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci. Stuart, her cousin, whom we have mentioned before, finally rescues her from the toils of Betterton and Grundy, and restores her to reason, and to her friends. Of course he is rewarded with her hand.

We repeat that Cherubina is a book which should be upon the shelves of every well-appointed library. No one can read it without entertaining a high opinion of the varied and brilliant talents of its author. No one can read it without laughter. Its wit, especially, and its humor, are indisputable-not frittered and refined away into that insipid compound which we occasionally meet with, half giggle and half sentiment--but racy, dashing, and palpable. Some of the songs with which the work is interspersed have attained a most extensive popularity, while many persons, to whorn they are as familiar as household things, are not aware of the very existence of the Heroine. All our readers must remember the following.

Dear Sensibility, O la!

I heard a little lamb cry ba!
Says I, so you have lost mamma!

Ah!

The little lamb as I said so,
Frisking about the fields did go,
And frisking trod upon my toe.
Oh!

And this also.

TO DOROTHY PULVERTAFT.
If Black-sea, White-sea, Red-sea ran
One tide of ink to Ispahan;

If all the geese in Lincoln fens
Produced spontaneous well-made pens;
If Holland old or Holland new,
One wondrous sheet of paper grew;
Could I, by stenographic power,
Write twenty libraries an hour;
And should I sing but half the grace
Of half a freckle on thy face;
Each syllable I wrote should reach
From Inverness to Bognor's beach;
Each hair-stroke be a river Rhine,
Each verse an equinoctial line.

We have already exceeded our limits, but cannot refrain from extracting Chapter XXV. It will convey some idea of the character of the Heroine. She is now at the mansion of Lady Gwyn, who, for the purpose of amusing her friends, has dressed up her nephew to represent the supposed mother of the Lady Cherubina.

CHAPTER XXV.

This morning I awoke almost well, and towards evening was able to appear below. Lady Gwyn had invited several of her friends; so that I passed a delightful afternoon; the charm, admiration, and astonishment of all,

When I retired to rest, I found this note on my toilette.

a mattress of straw, her eyes sunken in their sockets, yet retaining a portion of their youthful fire; her frame emaciated, her voice feeble, her hand damp and chill. Fondly did I depict our

Two tedious hours I waited in extreme anxiety. At length the

clock struck twelve; my heart beat responsive, and immediately the promised signal was made. I unbolted the door, and beheld two men masked and cloaked. They blindfolded me, and each taking an arm, led me along. Not a word passed. We traversed apartments, ascended, descended stairs; now went this way, now that; obliquely, circularly, angularly; till I began to imagine we were all the time in one spot.

At length my conductors stopped.

Unlock the postern gate,' whispered one, while I light a torch."

'We are betrayed!' said the other, for this is the wrong key.' Then thou beest the traitor,' cried the first.

'Thou liest, dost lie, and art lying! cried the second. 'Take that! exclaimed the first. A groan followed, and the wretch tumbled to the ground.

'You have killed him!' cried I, sickening with horror.

'I have only hamstrung him, my Lady,' said the fellow. 'He will be lame while ever he lives; but by St. Cripplegate, that

won't be long; for our captain has given him four ducats to mur der himself in a month.'

He then burst open the gate; a sudden current of wind met us, and we hurried forward with incredible speed, while moans and smothered shrieks were heard at either side.

'Gracious goodness, where are we?' cried I.

'In the cavern of death!' said my conductor; but never fear, Signora mia illustrissima, for the bravo Abellino is your povero devotissimo'

On a sudden innumerable footsteps sounded behind us. We ran swifter.

'Fire!' cried a ferocious accent, almost at my ear; and there came a discharge of arms.

I stopped, unable to move, breathe, or speak.

'I am wounded all over, right and left, fore and aft, long ways and cross ways, Death and the Devil!' cried the bravo.

'Am I bleeding?' said I, feeling myself with my hands. 'No, blessed St. Fidget be praised!" answered he; and now all is safe, for the banditti have turned into the wrong passage.' He then stopped, and unlocked a door.

'Enter,' said he, and behold your mother!"

He led me forward, tore the bandage from my eyes, and re. tiring, locked the door after him.

sters.

Agitated by the terrors of my dangerous expedition, I felt additional horror in finding myself within a dismal cell, lighted with a lantern; where, at a small table, sat a woman suffering under a corpulency unparalleled in the memoirs of human monHer dress was a patchwork of blankets and satins, and her gray tresses were like horses' tails. Hundreds of frogs leaped about the floor; a piece of mouldy bread, and a mug of water, lay on the table; some straw, strewn with dead snakes and sculls, occupied one corner, and the distant end of the cell was concealed behind a black curtain.

I stood at the door, doubtful, and afraid to advance; while the

prodigious prisoner sat examining me all over.

At last I summoned courage to say, 'I fear, madam, I am an intruder here. I have certainly been shown into the wrong room.' 'It is, it is my own, my only daughter, my Cherubina! cried she, with a tremendous voice. Come to my maternal arms, thou living picture of the departed Theodore !'

"Why, ma'am,' said I, 'I would with great pleasure, but I am afraid-Oh, madam, indeed, indeed, I am quite sure you cannot be my mother!'

'Why not, thou unnatural girl?' cried she.

Because, madam,' answered I, my mother was of a thin habit; as her portrait proves.'