goes

tion. The Countess d'Ossoli, describing the author's mode of conversation, says, "He sings rather than talks”—and on to tell how he pours upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up, near the beginning, some singular epithet, which serves as a refrain when his song is full, or with which, "as with a knitting-needle, he catches up the stitches if he has chanced, now and then, to let fall a row." His writings belong to the same type. The refrain is always more or less in request. This to certain antipathetic tastes, is as tedious as ever to jaded schoolmaster was the thousand-and-first repetition of Tityre tu patula, or Beatus ille, or (horror of horrors!) Tov d' araμelβόμενος προσεφη

But it is a true saying, that Carlyle's reiterations startle us like informations. And this is much. For it is also a true saying, that to genius pertains the prerogative of reviving truisms, and making them burn in our breasts. Nay, just because truths are truisms, they have sometimes ceased to be truths-living truths, practically recognised truths: the truism is too familiar an acquaintance to be any longer treated with consideration; and that Teacher is a Teacher who enforces the old claim by new arguments, and educes the wisdom of the wise saw by modern instances. An age, just as a man that has grown dull of hearing, must have the necessary intelligence dinned into its ears until the pith of it is verily caught, comprehended, and turned to account. And, as the satirist maintains,

"A reasonable reason, If good, is none the worse for repetition; If bad, the best way's certainly to tease on And amplify: you lose much by concision,

* Juvenal. S. VII.

Whereas insisting in or out of season
Convinces all men, even a politician;
Or-what is just the same-it wearies out.

So the end's gained, what signifies the route ?"*

The distaste of Carlylisms, rife in so large and natural a measure, has been vastly sped in its growth and intensity by the author's mimic satellites, who spaniel him at heels, and, incompetent to imitate what is inimitable in his manner, gravely caricature and soberly travestie and seriously burlesque what is very easily af fected in his mannerisms. What is perhaps an extravagance in him, becomes an extravaganza in them. He has had as much occasion as any man to note how decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile, and to address his attendant mob of gentlemen who write with ease, with Horatian contempt,

66

"O imitatores, servum pecus; ut mihi sæpe, Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movere tumultus!"+t Happily, this particular rage of imitation is on the wane: at one time there was overmuch reason to apply what was recently said of a foreign writer of eminence, by one who could tolerate his mannerisms, but not those of his umbra: "Mais après lui, à côté de lui, que deviendra cette mode croissante? Tant que le maître est là, je suis tranquille, et, tant que je le lis, je suis charmé; mais je crains les disciples." Southey's rule is, that in so far as any style is peculiar, the peculiarity is a fault; and he gives as proof, the easiness with which that style is imitated, or caught up: the peculiarity being pardonable in the original on account of its originality, and because originality is usually connected with power. Until the fashion comes round to imitate Southey's own style (no such easy matter), the aforesaid mob of gentlemen will concur in pronouncing Southey's rule a hopeless craze,

GREAT SEA L.

But the royal conscience, gentle reader -that is to say, the royal official conscience-for that alone is in the possession of the minister-is not by any means so destitute of tangible substance as might, from the nature of ordinary consciences, be supposed: it is, in fact, as capable of being placed by the sovereign in the hands of the chancellor, and carried home by him in his coat-pocket, as is his handkerchief or snuff-box.

If, disregarding all the severe penal enactments relative to burglary, you were, some quiet evening, to break and enter the dwelling-house of the high official just mentioned, and taking advantage of his absence in the country, were to turn over the piles of papers which doubtless choke up his escritoire, you would probly meet with a neat leather-covered x, about eight inches square, the royal ans richly emblazoned upon which, together with the Bramah lock securing it, would indicate the contents to be of no ordinary value. Carrying the illegal proceedings of which we have presumed you to be capable still further, and breaking open the box itself, you would meet with two silver disks, closely fitting one to the other, in appearance not very unlike two bright tin sauce-pan lids without handles; and these disks, upon being separated, would reveal, upon the inner surface of the one, a deeply-cut device of her present Majesty enthroned, with the cardinal virtues round her; and upon the other, a representation of the same exalted in

These two pieces of silver are doubtless reckoned by the chancellor among the choicest of his treasures; for not only does the mere possession of them, unconfirmed by commission, appointment, or any document whatever, constitute him the second man in the kingdom, the supreme judge of the Court of Chancery, the speaker of the House of Lords, and the possessor of a salary of £14,000 a year, with immense patronage both in the church and in the state; but the being intrusted with them is the greatest mark of confidence the sovereign can bestow, being no less than placing at his disposal nearly every power of the royal prerogative.

The two silver disks are, in fact, the matrix by means of which is formed that enormous wax-seal, in size and appearance something like a well-buttered muffin, commonly known as the "Great Seal of England," and which is appended to all those acts of the sovereign which it is the royal pleasure publicly to make known to the subject.

Sealed with this, whether by lawful authority or not, every document which can emanate from the sovereign is rendered valid, and irrevocable without the consent of the three estates of the realm; so that its holder can, if he chooses to betray his trust, pardon the most heinous offender, confer on whom he pleases the highest title of nobility, or grant charters to all the towns in the kingdom; he can, in fact, make use of almost all these prerogatives which law and custom have placed in the hands of the sovereign, to be exercised for the good of the subject; and therefore, when in possession of the important instrument, he is not unfitly said to be the keeper of the Queen's conscience.

It seems rather singular, considering the great importance always attached to

this emblem of royalty, that it should have been trusted out of the sovereign's hands at all; yet, from the earliest times, we find it in the possession of a certain "Lord Keeper." Before the time of Edward the Confessor, indeed it is doubtful whether the sovereign had any tangible conscience at all, for the charters preceding that reign are usually ratified by a cross made in gold ink; but as soon as the great seal came in fashion, some man eminent for his learning and attainments was selected to take the custody of it, the sovereign hanging it round his neck, and telling him to use it "to the honor of God and his king."

The first great seals were rude enough, the earliest one we possess being a dab of lead, hung by a silk string to a charter of Edward the Confessor. Lead was soon exchanged for wax; and the Conqueror, together with many of his successors, used green wax, to signify the perpetual nature of the document a custom retained at the present day in the seals attached to charters, patents of peerage, and other instruments having an unlimited duration. If we may credit the testimony of Stowe upon the subject, William I. had a curious and simple way of sealing his grants, being none other than that of putting on the wax the impression of his own royal teeth. In support of this assertion, a grant of a certain manor of Hope to one Paulyn Raydon is cited, which in modern English runs as follows:

"I William, king, in the third year of my reign, Give to thee, Paulyn Raydon, Hope and Hope town,

With all the bounds both up and down,
From heaven to earth, from earth to hell,
As truly as this king's right is mine,
From a cross-bow and arrow
When I shall shoot in yon yarrow;
And in token that this thing is sooth,
I bite the wax with my fang-tooth,
Before Meg, Maud, and Margerie,
And my third son Henry."

The keepers of the great seal in ancient times-much the same as at presentexacted good round sums of money before they would affix it to any document; and one can scarcely imagine the enormous profits made, some 600 or 700 years ago, by the fortunate holders of it. John, being in want of money, put the custody of his seal up for sale, and one Walter Gray bought it for 5000 marks-a sum

VOL. XL.-NO. II.

equivalent to about £61,000 of the present day; but gave it up in a few years, for the still more lucrative dignity of Archbishop of York.

Another of its custodians, John Maunsel, neglecting to distribute the churchpatronage as it fell vacant, which it vested in him, held at one time 700 livings; and a good 150 years later, so great was the sum of money which the revenues of his office permitted Chancellor Beaufort to lend to Henry V., that the sovereign placed his crown in the hands of his chancellor, as a guarantee for the repayment of the loan, Indeed, the vast wealth which its holders were enabled to realise, coupled with the enormous powers which the custody of it gave them, rendered it absolutely necessary to the safety of the sovereign that his seal should be intrusted only to the hands of persons well disposed to the royal cause; and in early times, it was frequently a very difficult matter to find a safe guardian for it.

An amusing instance of this occurred when Henry III. found it necessary, upon a certain occasion, to leave his kingdom for a short time, and could find no one whom he thought worthy and capable of performing the duties devolving upon the keeper of his seal. After vainly endeavoring to fix upon some male keeper, he at last placed it in the hands of his wife, Eleanor, who not only sealed all his writs and charters during his absence, but sat in propriâ personâ in the Court of Chancery, hearing causes and delivering judgment

her judicial functions being interrupted only for a short time by an accident peculiar to a female judge, no other, in fact, than her confinement! After being charched, she returned to her duties, and hd the seal of the kingdom for many a

r.

Our ancestors appear to have looked with a sort of suspicious veneration upon the great seal itself, for they not only recognised the sovereign as the fountain of justice, mercy, and honor, but they believed that that justice, mercy, and honor must be conveyed through this medium alone. A remarkable exemplification of this belief was given when the infant Henry VI., then but nine months old, was held in his nurse's arms to preside over his first council; the massive seal of his kingdom was laid in his lap, the child's little hands were closed over it, and thus it was supposed the seal re

13

ceived a royal virtue; and the Master of the Rolls, taking it into his custody, was presumed to be, by its possession, invested with all the powers of the sovereign.

We e may smile at these rude ideas of the fifteenth century; but let us not forget that nearly 400 years later, when the illness of George III. prevented him from giving his assent to the bill appointing his son regent, the great lawyers of the day, with the illustrious Camden at their head, seem to have been imbued with pretty much the same superstition; for they declared that although the king in his natural capacity was unable to act as a sovereign, in his political capacity he was as healthy as ever-the political king being the great seal; and by means of that political king the bill was passed. This dictum of Lord Camden has received the approval and affirmation of lawyers and politicians from his own to the present time; and therefore, however strange the assertion may appear, it is nevertheless true, that there are in reality, at the present moment, two sovereigns in the country-the natural one being the august lady so worthy of our allegiance and love; the political one being the two silver saucepan lids whose history we are examining. Indeed, the peculiar way in which the great seal is at the present day used-to render valid letters directed by the sovereign to private individuals, affords another proof of a belief in some peculiar and inexplicable virtue residing in it. Two kinds of instruments have "to pass under" the great seal-the one class, such as monopolies of inventions, commissions, &c., directed to all the Queen's subjects, and called "letters patent," have the seal affixed by a plaited silk cord at the foot; sometimes, as before mentioned, made of green, but ordinarily of yellow wax, which, in certain cases, where the instrument is likely to meet with a good deal of wear and tear, is enclosed in buff colored leather, upon which the obverse and reverse of the seal are stamped. But where the letter is directed to a private individual, the seal is, as in other letters, used to secure it from general observation, but used in a very singular manner: the parchment document is rolled tightly up, forming a little bundle about two inches long, from which a long strip protrudes, having the name and title of the person to whom it is addressed written upon it. A piece of twine is tightly tied round the

package; a bit of wax, about as big as a sixpence, is pressed with the thumb and finger upon the ends of the twine; and the sealing is effected by merely touching the writ with one of the halves of the seal, when it immediately becomes invested with the dignity of a letter proceeding from the sovereign.

Perhaps no one ever had a greater idea of the importance of the seal of the kingdom than the ill-fated Charles I., and very much delighted was he when a messenger came to him at York bearing this important instrument, which he fully believed had fallen into the power of the parliament. In proportion as he was rejoiced, however, the parliament was disconcerted, when they discovered that the emblem of sovereignty had slipped through their fingers. The king could issue whatever proclamations or other instruments he thought proper, and that in a perfectly legal manner, while they themselves could not fill up the place of a deceased member of their own body, or perform a single act of state in which the great seal was necessary. After deliberating, and waiting, and going to prayers many times, they resolved to form a new seal for their own particular use. The resolution was a notable one; but there were few Wyons in those days, and those who did exist, had a very righteous dread of a certain old statute of Edward III., which declared that any person imitating, forging, or counterfeiting the king's great seal, should suffer death as a traitor; and which statute they had not the slightest doubt would be rigorously enforced, should fortune again smile upon the king, and they be found to have performed such treasonable act. Money, however, like love, conquers all things; and after some time, a bold man named Master Symonds was found, who agreed-for £40 paid down, and £60 to be paid when the work was completed-to make them a new seal, the facsimile of the one in the possession of Charles. This facsimile was made, and used by the parliament until the Commonwealth was sufficiently settled to have a seal of its own, from which all regal emblems were carefully excluded. The original seal of the kingdom, coming into the hands of the parliament upon the capitulation of Oxford, in 1645, was broken in pieces by a blacksmith, at the bar of the House of Commons.

Since the Restoration, the great seal