The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 386, August 22, 1829

Deal.

TYRE

(For the Mirror.)

"And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard"—Ezekiel, chap. xxvi. verse 13.

"It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Ezekiel, chap xxvi. verse 5.

Thy harps are silent, mighty one!
Thy melody no more:
For ocean's mourning dirge alone
Breaks on thy rocky shore.

The fisher there his net has spread,
Thy prophecy to show;
Nor dreams he that thy doom was read,
Two thousand years ago.

On Chebar's banks the captive seer,
Thy future ruin told:
Visions of woe, how true and clear,
With power divine unroll'd!

The tall ship there no more is riding,
Of Lebanon's proud cedars made;
But the wild waves ne'er cease their chiding,
Where Tyre's past pomp and splendour fade.

The traveller to thy desert shore
No cherish'd record found of thee;
But fragments rude are scatter'd o'er
Thy dreary land's blank misery.

The sounds of busy life were hush'd,
But still the moaning blast,
That o'er the rocky barrier rush'd,
Sang wildly as it pass'd:—
Spirit of Time, thine echoes woke,
And thus the mighty Genius spoke:—

"Seek no more, seek no more,
Splendour past and glories o'er,
Here bleak ruin ever reigns;
See him scatter o'er the plains,
Arches broken, temples strew'd,
O'er the dreary solitude!
Long ago the words were spoken,
Words which never can be broken.
Where are now thy riches spread?
Where wilt thou thy commerce spread?
Thou shalt be sought but found no more!
Wanderers to thy desert shore
Former splendours bring thee never,
Tyre is fallen, fallen forever!"

Kirton Lindsey.

ANNIE R.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART. [2 - See vol. xiii. MIRROR.]

(For the Mirror.)

Let science weep and droop her head,
Her favourite champion, Davy's dead!
The brightest star among the bright,
Alas! has ceased to shed its light.
Yet say not darkness reigns alone,
While "Safety Lamps" are burning on,
And shedding life that never dies.
Around the tomb where Davy lies

J.F.C.

HAMPTON COURT: BIRTH OF EDWARD THE SIXTH, AND DEATH OF QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR

(For the Mirror.)

Every hint, every ray of light, which tends, in the most distant manner, to illustrate an obscure passage in the history of our country, cannot we presume, while it affords great pleasure and satisfaction to the student attentively employed in such researches, be deemed either insignificant or uninteresting by the general reader.

The birth of Edward the Sixth must always be regarded as a bright star in the horizon of the Reformation, and one, which tended greatly to blast the prospects of those who were inimical to that glorious change in our religious constitution.

The marriage of Henry the Eighth, with the Lady Jane Seymour, [3 - Jane Seymour, or as is sometimes written de Sancto Mauro, eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour, Knight, and Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth, of Nettlestead, in Suffolk was born at her father's seat of Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire. From her great accomplishments, and her father's connexions at court, (he being Governor of Bristol Castle, and Groom of the Chamber to Henry VIII.) she was appointed Maid of Honour to Queen Anne Boleyn, in which situation, her beauty attracted the notice of Henry, who soon found means to gratify his desires, by making her his wife. The family of the Seymours had since the time of Henry II. been keepers of the neighbouring Forest of Savernac, "in memory whereof," says Camden, "their great hunting horn, tipped with silver, is still preserved."] immediately after the death of his former Queen, Anne Boleyn, is so well known as to render it superfluous, if not presuming in us to enlarge upon it in this place: suffice it to say, that the nuptials were celebrated on the day following the execution of Anne, the twentieth of May, 1536, the King "not thinking it fit to mourn long, or much, for one the law had declared criminall." [4 - Herbert, p. 386.] Old Fuller says, "it is currantly traditioned, that at her [Jane's] first coming to court, Queen Anne Bolen espying a jewell pendant about her neck, snatched thereat, (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence; but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the King's picture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining and the other's ascending in her husband's affection." [5 - Fuller's "Worthies."] About seventeen months after her marriage at the Palace of Hampton Court, Queen Jane gave birth to a son, Edward the Sixth.

The precise period of the birth of this prince has been variously stated by historians. Sir John Hayward, [6 - "Life and Raigne of K. Edward the Sixth," p. 1.] who bestowed considerable labour upon writing his life, places it on the seventeenth of October, 1537; while Sanders, [7 - Sanders', de Schism Anglic, p. 122.] on the other hand, fixes it on the tenth. Herbert, Godwin, [8 - "Octobris 12 Regina cum partus difficultate diu luctata, in lucem edidit, qui post patrem regnauit, Edvvardum, sed ex vtero matris excisum cum alterutri, aut parturienti nempe aut partui necessario percundum compertum esset."—"Annales," p. 64.] and Stow, whom, all [9 - "Chronicles," p. 575, edit. 1631.] his more modern biographers have followed, agree that it happened on the twelfth of the same month, and their testimony is fully corroborated by the following official letter, addressed to Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, informing him of the birth of a prince:—

By the Quene

"Right trustie and right welbeloved, wee grete you well; and, forasmuche as by the inestimable goodnes and grace of Almighty God wee be delivered and brought in childbed of a Prince, conceived in most lawfull matrimonie between my Lord the King's Majestie and us; doubtinge not but, for the love and affection which ye beare unto us, and to the commonwealth of this realme, the knowledge thereof should be joyous and glad tydeings unto you, we have thought good to certifie you of the same, to th' intent you might not onely render unto God condigne thanks and praise for soe greate a benefit but alsoe continuallie praie for the longe continuance and preservacion of the same here in this life, to the honour of God, joy and pleasure of my Lord the Kinge and us, and the universall weale, quiett, and tranquillitie of this hole realm."

"Given under our Signet, att my Lord's Mannor of Hampton Courte, the xii daie of October." [10 - Of this letter, which was a circular to the Principal Officers of State, Sheriffs of Counties, &c. four original copies are preserved in the British Museum; three among the Harleian MSS., Nos. 283, and 2131; and one, from which the above is copied, Cotton. MSS, Nero, C. x.]

Edward was christened with great state, on the Monday following, in the chapel at Hampton Court, Archbishop Cranmer, and the Duke of Norfolk being the godfathers, and his sister, the Princess Mary, godmother. [11 - Holinshed, v. ii. p. 944. edit. 1587.—"At the bishopping the Duke of Suffolke was his godfather."] "At his birth," says Hall, "was great fires made through the whole realme, and great joye made with thankesgeuyng to Almightie God which had sent so noble a prince to succeed to the crowne of this realme." [12 - "Chronicle," fol. 232, edit. 1548.]

The joy, however, which the birth of a son and heir to the throne, excited in the mind of Henry was soon dispelled by the death of his queen. It was deemed necessary, both for the preservation of her life, and that of her offspring, to bring the latter into the world by means of the Caesarian operation, a mode which in the greater number of cases proves fatal to the mother. It has been maliciously, and without the least appearance of truth, asserted by Sanders, [13 - This aspersion of Sanders, has been copied, greatly to the detriment of the character of Henry VIII. by several French writers; vide Mariceau "Traite des Maladies des Femmes Grosses," tom. i. p. 358.– and Dionis "Cours d'Operations de Chirurgie," p. 137.] one of the most bitter writers of the opposite party, that the question was put to the King by the physicians, whether the life of the Queen or the child should be saved, for it was judged impossible to preserve both? "The child's," he replied, "for I shall be able to find wives enough." Whether, however, her death originated from that terrible cause, we cannot, at this distant period, pretend to affirm, but from the report to the Privy Council of the birth of Edward the Sixth, still extant, it would appear not, as it informs us she was "happily" delivered, and died afterwards of a distemper incidental to women in that condition.

The death of Jane Seymour, like the birth of her son, is involved in considerable obscurity. Most of the chroniclers who appear to have followed Herbert [14 - Herbert, p. 430. Fox, Hall, Stow, Holinshed, and Speed, all agree in placing it on the twelfth. Hume, in his History of England, has made a singular mistake with regard to this date: he says "two days afterwards," and quotes Strype as his authority, while that author, who fully investigated the subject, says, "she died on Wednesday night, the twenty-fourth."—"Memorials," v. iii. p. 1.] in this particular, fix it on the fourteenth of October, two days after the birth of Edward; Hayward, on the contrary, states that "shee dyed of the incision on the fourth day following," while Edward the Sixth, in his journal, written by himself, informs us, but without stating any precise period, that it happened "within a few dayes after the birth of her soone." [15 - Cotton. MSS, Nero, C. x—A copy of this Journal will be found printed entire in Burnet's "History," v. ii.] We shall, however, see from the following letter, that this event did not take place on either of the abovementioned days, nor until "duodecimo post die," as George Lilly truly informs us, the day also mentioned in the journal of Cecil. [16 - Vide Burnet, v. iii, p 1.] This original document respecting the health of the Queen, which is still extant, is signed by Thomas Rutland, and five other medical men, is dated on a Wednesday, which if it were only the following Wednesday, and we shall presently prove that it was not, would, at least, make it five days afterwards.