Chapter VII: Part 7

Few painters, indeed, have so full a claim to the merit of originality as Rembrandt. It would be hard to point out any of his predecessors to whom he is indebted for any part of his style; but he has opened a rich treasure of excellence for his successors to profit by. The full powers of the management of light and shade, which we denominate by the Italian phrase _chiar’ oscuro_, were not known until Rembrandt developed them. It might have been supposed that the power and harmony, and splendour of Corregio left nothing to be desired in this department of the art; but Rembrandt gave to his masses a force and depth, and concentration, unequalled, and peculiar to himself. Nor is _chiar’ oscuro_ in his hands merely an instrument of picturesque effect; it is also a most powerful vehicle of sentiment, especially in subjects characterized by solemnity or terror. The ‘Crucifixion,’ ‘Christ and St. Peter in the Storm,’ and ‘Sampson seized by the Philistines,’ are striking but not singular examples of this:—it is the excellence which pervades his works. ‘Jacob’s Dream,’ in the Dulwich Gallery, deserves mention as a most remarkable instance of his peculiar powers, for it embodies images so vague and undefinable, that they might be thought beyond the grasp of painting. Forms float before us, apparently cognizable by our senses, yet so vague, that when examined, they lose the semblance of form which at first they wore, receding gradually to so immeasurable a distance, that it would seem as if in truth the heavens were opened. It is the most _spiritual_ thing conceivable, and breathes the very atmosphere of a dream.

As a colourist Rembrandt has scarcely a superior: if his tints are not equal in truth and purity to those of Titian, yet his admirable management of light and shadow gives to his colouring an almost unrivalled splendour. In that quality of execution which painters call _surface_, he was eminently skilled; perhaps none but Corregio and Reynolds can compare with him in it. To his portraits he gave a most speaking air of identity; but his delineations of the human form and character in works of imagination are almost ludicrous, and little better than travesties of the subject. Beauty certainly must have come in his way; but he seems to have avoided and rejected it for the sake of ugliness and vulgarity. The picture of a ‘Woman Bathing,’ in the National Gallery, is a good instance both of his merits and faults, treating with the utmost fidelity and beauty of execution a subject so disagreeable, that admiration is neutralized by disgust. Indeed his genius has no greater triumph than that of reconciling us to his defects.

Rembrandt’s style of engraving, as of painting, is in great measure of his own invention. His plates are partly etched, assisted with the dry point, and sometimes, but not often, finished with the graver. His prints possess the effect of colouring in a surprising degree; the light and shade is managed, as might be expected, with consummate skill, and the touch has a lightness and apparent negligence, which give to his etchings an indescribable charm.

De Piles and some other writers have asserted that Rembrandt was at Venice in the year 1635 or 1636. This mistake arose from the dates, and the name of Venice which Rembrandt put at the bottom of some of his prints, with the view of enhancing the price of them. He never quitted Amsterdam after he first established himself there in 1630. He could have had no inducement indeed to absent himself from a city in which he was so rapidly acquiring both fame and fortune. In what related to his art he never looked out of himself; and he was so far from seeking any general acquaintance with the world, that he associated only with a small circle in his own city, and that of an inferior class. The burgomaster Six, who appreciated his extraordinary talents, and wished to see him fill a place in society worthy of them, often attempted to lead him among the wealthy and the great; but that inveterate want of refinement which is visible in his works, pervaded his character, and he confessed that he felt uneasy in such company; adding, that when he left his painting-room, it was for the purpose of relaxation, which he was more likely to find among his humble associates, and in the convivialities of the tavern. He lived nearly to the age of sixty-eight years, and died at Amsterdam in 1674.

Those who may be curious to know the different impressions and variations of Rembrandt’s plates, and their respective rarity and value, will find information in the catalogue of his works, first published by Gersaint, at Paris, and P. Yver, at Amsterdam; which was afterwards enlarged by our countryman Dalby, and has since been added to in a publication by Adam Bartset, printed at Vienna in 1797.

Rembrandt’s works are nowhere more valued than in this country, which may account for the vast influx of them hither. Originals are not often met with on the Continent: here they may be found in every great collection. The National and the Dulwich Galleries contain some of his finest performances. Particulars of Rembrandt’s life and works may be found in La Vie des Peintres Flamands, par Descamps, and in De Piles. In English, in Bryan’s ‘Dictionary of Painters,’ and in Pilkington.

_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

DRYDEN.

_From a Picture by Houdson
in the Hall of Trinity College Cambridge._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

DRYDEN.

John Dryden was born at Aldwinkle, near Oundle, in Northamptonshire, August 9, 1631, according to Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Malone raises a doubt concerning the accuracy of this date. The inscription on his monument says, only, _natus_, 1632. He was educated at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, and elected Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1650. The year before he left the university, he wrote a poem on the death of Lord Hastings. Of this production Dr. Johnson says, that “it was composed with great ambition of such conceits as, notwithstanding the reformation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley still kept in reputation.” Dryden’s vacillation, both in religion and politics, proves, that though perhaps not completely dishonest, he had no firm and well-considered principles. His heroic stanzas on Oliver Cromwell, written after the Protector’s funeral in 1658, were followed on the restoration by his Astrea Redux, and in the same year by a second tribute of flattery to his sacred Majesty, ‘A Panegyric on his Coronation.’ The Annus Mirabilis is one of his most elaborate works; a historical poem in celebration of the Duke of York’s victory over the Dutch. He succeeded Sir William Davenant as poet laureat. He did not obtain the laurel till August 18, 1670; but according to Malone, the patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced from the Midsummer after Davenant’s death, in 1668. He was also made historiographer to the king, and in the same year published his Essay on Dramatic Poetry.

Among the works of so voluminous a writer, we can only notice those which are distinguished by excellence, or by some strong peculiarity.

Dryden was more than thirty years of age when he commenced dramatic writer. His first piece, the Wild Gallant, met with so mortifying a reception, that he resolved never more to write for the stage. The hasty resolutions of anger are seldom kept, and are seldom worth keeping; but in the present instance it would have been well had he adhered to the first dictates of his resentment. We should not then have had to regret, that so large a portion of a great writer’s life and labour has been wasted on twenty-eight dramas: the comedies exhibiting much ribaldry and but little wit; with neither ingenuity nor interest in the fable; with no originality in the characters: the tragedies for the most part filled with the exaggerations of romance, and the hyperboles of an extravagant imagination, in the place of nature and pathos. His tragedy seldom touches the passions: his staple commodities are pompous language, poetical flights, and picturesque description. His characters all speak in one language—that of the author. Addison says, “It is peculiar to Dryden to make all his personages as wise, witty, elegant, and polite as himself.” In confirmation of the proofs internally afforded by his writings, that his taste for tragedy was not genuine, he expresses his contempt for Otway, master as that poet was of the tender passions. But however uncongenial with his natural talent dramatic composition might be, his temporary disgust soon passed away. In his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, he tells his patron, Dorset, that the writing of that treatise served as an amusement to him in the country, when he was driven from London by the plague; that he diverted himself with thinking on the theatres, as lovers do by ruminating on their absent mistresses. But whatever opinion he might entertain of his own tragic style, he was himself sensible that his talents did not lie in the line of comedy. “Those who decry my comedies do me no injury, except it be in point of profit: reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend.” He retaliated on the criticisms levelled against his extravagances in tragedy, by an ostentatious display of defiance. We find in his Dedication of the Spanish Friar, “All that I can say for certain passages of my own Maximin and Almanzor is, that I knew they were bad enough to please when I wrote them.”

In 1671 he was publicly ridiculed on the stage in the Duke of Buckingham’s comedy of the Rehearsal. The character of Bayes was at first named Bilboa, and meant for Sir Robert Howard; but the representation of the piece in its original form was stopped by the plague in 1665: it was not reproduced till six years afterwards, when it appeared with alterations in ridicule of the pieces brought out in the interval, and with a correspondent change of the hero. Dryden affected to despise the satire. In the Dedication to his Translation of Juvenal, he says, “I answered not to the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce.”

An Essay on Satire, said to be written jointly by Dryden and Lord Mulgrave, was first printed in 1679. This piece was handed about in manuscript, for some time before its publication. It contained reflections on the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lord Rochester. Anthony Wood says, that suspecting Dryden to be the author, the aggrieved parties hired three ruffians, who cudgelled the poet in Will’s coffee-house.

In 1680 a translation of Ovid’s Epistles into English came out: two of which, together with the Preface, were by Dryden. In the following year he published Absalom and Achitophel; a work of first-rate excellence as a political and controversial poem. Dr. Johnson ascribes to it “acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of character, variety and vigour of sentiments, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition.” In the same year, the Medal, a satire, was given to the public. This piece was occasioned by the striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against Lord Shaftesbury being thrown out, and is a severe invective against that celebrated statesman.

In 1682 Dryden published ‘_Religio Laici_,’ in defence of revealed religion against Deists, Papists, and Presbyterians. Yet soon after the accession of James the Second, he became a Roman Catholic; and in the hope of promoting Popery, was employed on a translation of Maimbourg’s History of the League, on account of the parallel between the troubles of France and those of Great Britain. This extraordinary conversion exposed him to the ridicule of the wits, and especially to the gibes of the facetious and celebrated Tom Brown.

The Hind and Panther, a controversial poem in defence of the Romish church, appeared in 1687. The Hind represents the church of Rome, the Panther the church of England. The first part of the poem consists mostly of general characters and narration; which, says the author, “I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poetry. The second, being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could, yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had not frequent occasion for the magnificence of verse. The third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and familiar than the two former. There are in it two episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the main design; so that they are properly parts of it, though they are also distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use of the commonplaces of satire, whether true or false, which are urged by the members of one church against another.” The absurdity of a fable exhibiting two beasts discoursing on theology, was ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country Mouse, a burlesque poem, the joint production of Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, and Prior, who then put forth the first sample of his talents. Dryden is supposed to have been engaged for the translation of Varillas’s History of Heresies, but to have dropped the design, from a feeling of his own incompetency to theological controversy. Bishop Burnet, in his Reflections on the Ninth Book of the first Volume of M. Varillas’s History, classes together that work, and the Hind and Panther, as “such extraordinary things of their kind, that it will be but suitable to see the author of the worst poem become likewise the translator of the worst history that the age has produced.” Dr. Johnson supports the Bishop’s hostile criticism so far as to pronounce the scheme of the work injudicious and incommodious, and to censure the absurdity of making one beast advise another to rest her faith on a pope and council: but he allows it to be written “with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy to be embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective;” and a poem inlaid with such ornaments, however little worth the solid material might be, was but peevishly represented as “the worst that the age had produced.” Pope, a higher authority than the honest Bishop in such matters, considered it as the most correct specimen of Dryden’s versification. Malone has shown that Burnet was mistaken in attributing to our author the answer to Burnet’s Remarks on the History.

In 1688 Dryden published Britannia Rediviva, a poem on the birth of the Prince afterwards known by the title of the Pretender. The poem is to be noticed only for its extravagant and ill-timed adulation, which deservedly involved the author in the disgrace and fall of his party. But even had he not so identified himself with the ejected dynasty, his conversion to Popery disqualified him for holding his place. He was accordingly dispossessed of it; and the mortification of its being conferred on an object of his confirmed dislike, aggravated the pecuniary loss, which he could ill afford. Shadwell, his successor, was an old enemy, whom he had formerly stigmatized under the name of Og. In consequence of this appointment, Dryden again attacked him in a poem called MacFlecknoe; one of the severest as well as most witty satires in the English language. The poetry of the new laureat was so indifferent, as to give ample scope for ridicule:—

This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call’d to empire, and had governed long;
In prose and verse, was own’d, without dispute,
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute.

Although these lines be written of Flecknoe, Shadwell is the hero of the piece, introduced as if selected by Flecknoe to succeed him on the throne of dulness. Richard Flecknoe was an Irish priest, well known about the court; but notwithstanding Cibber’s assertion in his Lives of the Poets, he was never poet laureat. The above is the story told by all the biographers; but if Mr. Malone’s laborious and minute researches have been pursued with his usual accuracy, they have been mistaken in the date of the publication, which he fixes in October, 1682. If this be correct, the satire must have been a sportive anticipation of an event, which its author little expected to come to pass; and not the ebullition of revenge for the loss of an honourable and lucrative employment. Taking the earlier as the true date, we might suspect that the prophecy was fulfilled in the person of Shadwell, as a vindictive aggravation of the deposed laureat’s fall. Yet it is difficult to reconcile it to probability that Dryden should have dishonoured an office which he had been holding for the last twelve years, and must then have calculated on holding for his life, by a fictitious successive inauguration of two blockheads, who “never deviated into sense.”

Pope’s Dunciad, though more extended in its plan, and more diversified in its incidents, was professedly written in imitation of this poem. The leisure and pains bestowed on his performance gave the imitator the superiority in point of elaborate execution; but there are bursts of pleasantry in MacFlecknoe, and sallies of wit and humour, equal if not superior to any thing in Pope or Boileau, or perhaps in any poet excepting Horace. Dr. Joseph Warton says of it, that “in point of satire, both oblique and direct, contempt and indignation, clear diction, and melodious versification, this poem is perhaps the best of its kind in any language.”

Dr. Johnson doubts whether Dryden was the translator of the Life of Francis Xavier, by Father Bouhours, to which his name is affixed. The borrowing of popular names for title-pages was very prevalent in those days, and the loan probably not without profit to the lenders.

In 1693 a translation of Juvenal and Persius appeared. The first, third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires of Juvenal, and the whole of Persius, are Dryden’s: also the Dedication to Lord Dorset, a long and ingenious discourse, in which the writer gives an account of a design, which he never carried into effect, of writing an epic poem either on Arthur or the Black Prince. Lord Dorset well deserved the compliment of so masterly a dedication; for he continued to patronise the poet in the reverse of his fortunes, and allowed him an annuity equal to the salary which he had lost.

In 1694 Dryden published a prose translation of Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, with a Preface, exhibiting a parallel between painting and poetry. Pope addressed a copy of verses to Jervas, the painter, in praise of this work.

The most laborious of Dryden’s works, the translation of Virgil, was given to the world in 1697. The Pastorals were dedicated to Lord Clifford, the Georgics to Lord Chesterfield, and the Æneid to Lord Mulgrave: an economical and lucrative combination of flattery which the wits suffered not to pass unnoticed. The translation had an extensive sale, and has since passed through many editions. Like most of Dryden’s longer productions, it has many careless passages, which do not well accord with an original so remarkable for finish and correctness; but it still stands its ground, and is a stock-book in the face of the more careful and perhaps more scholarlike performances of Warton, Sotheby, and Pitt.

Besides the original pieces and translations already mentioned, Dryden wrote many others, the most important of which were published in six volumes of Miscellanies, to which he was the principal contributor. They consist of translations from the Greek and Latin poets; epistles, prologues, and epilogues; odes, elegies, epitaphs, and songs. Alexander’s Feast, an ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day, displays one of the highest flights within the compass of lyric poetry. Dryden, although no lover of labour, is said to have devoted a fortnight to this masterpiece. Yet the poetic fervour is so supported throughout, that it reads as if struck off at a heat; so much so, that the few negligences which escaped the enthusiasm of the writer are scarcely ever noticed. Dr. Johnson, seldom carried beyond the wariness of criticism by the inspiration of his author, did not discover that some of the lines are without correspondent rhymes, till after an acquaintance with it of many years. The splendour of this poem eclipsed that of his first ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day, which would have fixed the fame of any other poet. In Alexander’s Feast the versification is brilliantly worked up, and abruptly varied, according to the rapid transitions of the subject; the language is natural though elevated, and the sentiments are suited to the age and occasion. Had Dryden never written another line, his name would yet be as undying as the tongue in which he wrote. His Fables in English verse from Homer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, were his last work; they were published in 1698. The preface gives a critical account of the authors from whom the Fables are translated. In this work he furnished us with the first example of the revival of ancient English writers by modernizing their language. Yet those readers who can master Chaucer’s phraseology, and have an ear so practised as to catch the tune of his verse, will like him better in the simplicity of his native garb, than in the elaborate splendour of his borrowed costume.

Dryden was a voluminous writer in prose as well as in verse, and quite as great a master of the English language in the former as in the latter. His performances in prose consist of Dedications, Prefaces, and controversial pieces; the Lives of Plutarch and Lucian, prefixed to the translation of those authors by several hands; the Life of Polybius, prefixed to the translation of that historian by Sir Henry Shears; and the Preface to Walsh’s Dialogue concerning Women.

Dryden died on the 1st of May, 1701, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter to the Earl of Berkshire. He had three sons by this lady; Charles, John, and Henry. They were all educated at Rome, where John died of a fever. He translated the fourteenth satire of Juvenal, and was author of a comedy. Charles translated the seventh satire. There is a confused story respecting some vexatious and tumultuary incidents occurring at Dryden’s funeral, which rests on no satisfactory authority; and, even if true, would occupy more room in the detail, than would square either with our limits or its own importance.

Dryden was the father of English criticism; and his Essay on Dramatic Poetry is the first regular and judicious treatise in our language on the art of writing. Although, after so many valuable discourses have been delivered to the public on the same subject during the century and a half which has elapsed since his original attempts, his prose works may now be read more for the charm of their pure idiomatic English, than for their novelty or instructive matter, yet the merits of a discoverer must not be underrated because his discoveries have been extended, or his inventions improved upon. Before his time, those who wished to arrive at just principles of taste, or a rational code of criticism, if they were unacquainted with the works of the ancients and the modern languages of Italy and France, had no guides to lead them on their way. Dryden communicated to his own learning, which, though not deep nor accurate, was various and extensive, the magic of his style and the popular attraction of his mother tongue: the Spectator followed his lead, in essays less diffusive, and therefore more within the reach of the million: in our day, such is the accumulation of material, and so cheap and copious the power of circulating knowledge, that the poorest man who can read may inform his mind on subjects of general literature, to the enlargement of his understanding, and the improvement of his morals. But we must not forget our obligations to those who began that hoard, whence we have the privilege of drawing at will.

With respect to those prose works of our author which are devoted to controversy, their interest has quite passed away, farther than as they may evince his powers in argument, or command of language. Dr. Johnson gives a just estimate of his general character. “He appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius, operating upon large materials.”

Dryden’s works have been constantly before the public, in various shapes and successive editions. Those best deserving a place in the library are, his Prose Works in four volumes, edited by Mr. Malone; his Poetical Works in four volumes, with notes, by Dr. Joseph Warton, and his son, the Rev. John Warton; and the whole of his Works in eighteen volumes octavo, by Sir Walter Scott. The earlier authorities for his Life are Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses; the Biographia Britannica; and a Life by Derrick, poorly executed, prefixed to Tonson’s edition, in 1760. Johnson’s admirable Essay on this subject is in the hands of every reader, and is one of the most masterly among his Lives of the Poets. He was peculiarly well qualified to appreciate a writer in whom, to use his own words, “strong reason rather predominated than quick sensibility.” Scott also has written a copious Life, occupying the first volume of his edition of Dryden’s Works.

]

_Engraved by T. Woolnoth._

LA PÉROUSE.

_From a Miniature in the possession of
La Perouse’s niece at Alby._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

LA PEROUSE.

The latter half of the last century was distinguished by a rekindling of that spirit of maritime discovery which, active at the close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, had lain comparatively dormant for many years. The voyages of Wallis and Carteret, the circumnavigation of the globe by Anson, had done something to enlarge our knowledge, and to recall to mind the discoveries of Dampier, Tasman, and other early navigators of the western world. The leading objects, however, of those voyages were political and warlike; the information gleaned in them was secondary and incidental; and the first expedition sent out expressly for scientific purposes was that under the command of Cook, of which we have formerly given a short account. The brilliant success of that admirable navigator roused France to emulation; and, under the auspices of Louis XVI., a voyage of discovery was planned, and entrusted to La Perouse, a name well known for the interest excited by his mysterious disappearance, and for the frequent and (for a long time) fruitless attempts which have been made to trace his fate, and which interest has been recently renewed, by the unexpected discovery of the place and manner in which he perished.

Jean Francois Galaup de la Perouse was born at Albi, in 1741, where he entered the French marine in 1756; and, after passing regularly through the subordinate ranks, in the course of which he saw some active service, was promoted to the command of a frigate in 1778. In that year hostilities broke out between France and England, in the course of which La Perouse had the honour of capturing more than one British ship of war. In 1782 he was appointed to command a small squadron sent to attack our settlements in Hudson’s Bay. The object of the expedition was trifling, being confined to the capture of a few insignificant forts, which made no resistance. But La Perouse had the opportunity of displaying his merits as a seaman in the successful navigation of a tempestuous and icy sea, rendered more dangerous by the prevalence of thick fogs; and the credit which he thus acquired caused him to be selected as a proper leader in an intended voyage of discovery. He is entitled to still higher praise for his humanity, in leaving a provision of food and arms for the support and protection of those English residents who had fled into the woods on his approach.

The expedition in question was planned in conformity with the views of Louis XVI. Attached to the science, and well versed in the study of geography, he was desirous, on behalf of France, at once of emulating the glory which England had just acquired through Cook’s discoveries, and of opening new channels for her commerce in the most distant regions. A rough draft of the intended course was made out in conformity with the king’s views, and submitted to his perusal; and the nature of the scheme is concisely explained in a few sentences appended to the document by Louis himself. “To sum up the contents of this paper, and my own observations on them, the objects in view belong to the two heads of commerce and discovery. Of the former class there are two principal ones: the whale fishery in the southern ocean, and the trade in furs in the north-west of America, for transport to China, and, if possible, to Japan. Among the points to be explored, the principal are the north-west of America, which falls in with the commercial part of the scheme; the seas round Japan, which do the same, but I think the season proposed for this in the paper is ill chosen; the Solomon Islands, and the south-west of New Holland. All other objects must be made subordinate to these: we must confine ourselves to what is most useful, and can be accomplished without difficulty in the three years proposed.”

La Perouse’s official instructions were only a development of this sketch. Men of science were invited to communicate their views as to the objects to be pursued, and the best manner of pursuing them; and the expedition was fitted out with every appliance calculated to promote its success. It consisted of two frigates, La Boussole, commanded by La Perouse, and L’Astrolabe, commanded by an accomplished officer, his friend, named Delangle; each of them with a complement of a hundred men. They sailed August 1, 1785, doubled Cape Horn without adventures worthy of notice, and cast anchor in the Bay of La Conception, February 22, 1786. Hence he steered northward, touching at Easter and the Sandwich islands, until he reached the coast of America, at Mount St. Elias, in about the sixtieth degree of north latitude. In prosecution of the first part of his instructions, he ran down southwards, examining the coast minutely, to the harbour of Monterey, in California, a distance between five and six hundred leagues: hence he sailed for Japan, September 24. In crossing the Pacific, the group of small islands named after the statesman Necker was discovered. During this run, the two frigates, which were instructed always to keep close to each other, were in imminent danger of being wrecked on an unknown reef. They were upon it so suddenly, that La Boussole was thought scarcely to have cleared the rock by a hundred fathoms. They reached Macao without more adventures, visited Manilla, where they spent some time, and then set sail for the Japanese isles, and the coast of Tartary, a part of the globe little known, except through the reports of missionaries. La Perouse sailed up the narrow channel, called the Gulf of Tartary, lying between the Asiatic continent and the almost unknown island of Segalien, or Sagalin. His progress was stopped by shoals, consisting of the deposits brought down by the river Amoor; but he went far enough to be satisfied that Sagalin is not united to the continent; and his belief has since been shown to be correct. He discovered and gave his own name to the strait which separates that island from the neighbouring one of Jesso, or Matsmai; and having thus ascertained that the land to the north of the principal island of Japan, hitherto believed to be one island, consisted of two, he sailed northward, traversing the Kurile Islands, visited Kamtschatka, and passing southwards by the Friendly Islands, dropped anchor in Botany Bay, January 16, 1788.

It should be mentioned that from the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul, in Kamtschatka, M. de Lesseps was dispatched home overland, bearing the navigator’s charts and journals up to the period of their arrival at that place. To this precaution the world owes that any record of La Perouse’s wanderings and discoveries has been preserved; for neither vessel ever was seen or heard of, after they left Botany Bay. The last communication which reached home from La Perouse was dated February 7, 1788; and expressed his intention of returning to the Friendly Islands, of exploring the southern coast of New Caledonia, and the Louisiade of Bougainville. He proposed to coast the western side of New Holland to Van Dieman’s Land, so as to arrive at the Mauritius in the close of the same year. Of this scheme but a small portion could have been executed. Both ships were lost, there is every reason to believe, on the island of Mallicolo, or Vanicoro, one of the New Hebrides, a group lying about the sixteenth degree of south latitude; but the exact time and circumstances remain unknown, for not one of the crews ever reached an European settlement. When the non-arrival of La Perouse in France began to be the subject of alarm, an expedition was fitted out under Admiral d’Entrecasteaux, with orders strictly to pursue the route laid down above, and to use every means of ascertaining the fate of, and if they yet lived, ministering relief to, his unfortunate countrymen. The service was performed with zeal and ability, but without success. Chance led a private English trader to the solution of this question, vainly, yet anxiously, sought for many years.

In 1813, Mr. Dillon, a subordinate officer on board a Calcutta trading vessel, escaped almost by miracle from an affray with the natives of the Fegee, or Beetee islands, a group lying to the west of the Friendly Islands, about the eighteenth degree of south latitude, in which fourteen of the ship’s crew were killed, and of his immediate companions only two survived. One of these was a Prussian, named Martin Busshart, who had been for some time on the island where this tragical event occurred. This man, certain of being sacrificed to the revenge of the natives, of whom many were killed, if he remained there, requested to be transported to some other spot; and he was put ashore upon an island named Tucopia. In time Mr. Dillon became owner and commander of a vessel named the St. Patrick, and being again in those seas, he visited Tucopia in May, 1826, to procure some tidings of his old companion in danger. Here a silver sword-guard was offered for sale. Inquiry being made how the article was obtained, it was replied, that “when the old men in Tucopia were boys,” two ships had been wrecked on an island not very far off, called Mallicolo, or Vanicoro, and that there yet remained large quantities of the wreck. Captain Dillon guessed that these might be La Perouse’s vessels, and made sail for the island pointed out; but he was baffled by adverse circumstances, and forced to pursue his course to Calcutta without obtaining the desired satisfaction. Arrived at the capital of India, he laid before the government information and evidence which was deemed sufficiently conclusive to warrant the fitting out a ship, named the Research, with the design of fetching off two white men, who were said to have escaped, and to be living on the island; or, at least, to seek, by inquiry on the spot, some conclusive evidence of the fate of La Perouse. Captain Dillon reached Vanicoro, and obtained an ample harvest of European articles, both in wood and metal. The tale told by the natives was simple and probable: “A long time ago the people of this island, upon coming out one morning, saw part of a ship on the reef opposite to Paiow, where it held together till the middle of the day, when it was broken by the sea, fell to pieces, and large parts of it floated on shore along the coast. The ship got on the reef in the night, when it blew a tremendous hurricane, which broke down a considerable number of our fruit-trees. We had not seen the ship the day before. Four men were saved from her, and were on the beach at this place, whom we were about to kill, supposing them to be spirits, when they made a present to our chief of something, and thus saved their lives. They lived with us a short time, and then joined their people at Paiow, who built a small ship there, and went away in it. The things which we sell you now have been procured from the ship wrecked on that reef, on which, at low water, our people were in the habit of diving, and bringing up what they could find. The same night another ship struck on a reef near Whannow, and went down. There were several men saved from her, who built a little ship and went away, five moons after the big one was lost. While building it they had a great fence of trees round them, to keep off the islanders, who being equally afraid of them, they consequently kept up but little intercourse. The white men used often to look at the sun through something, but we have none of those things. Two white men remained behind after the last went away: the one was a chief, and the other a common man, who used to attend on the white chief, who died about three years ago. The chief, with whom the white man resided, was obliged, about two years and a half ago, to fly from his country, and was accompanied by the white man. The only white people the inhabitants of this island have ever seen were, first, the people of the wrecked ship; and, secondly, those before me now.”—Dillon’s Discovery of the Fate of La Perouse, vol. ii. p. 194.

Whannow and Paiow are two villages about ten nautical miles distant from each other in a straight line, on the western side of the island, which is nearly surrounded by an abrupt and dangerous coral reef. The climate is reported to be wet and hazy, so that probably the sufferers were not aware of their approach to danger till all chance of escape was past. The story just related is consistent and probable, and it was confirmed by examination of the shore at Paiow, where a small cleared space, of about an acre (the only one on the island), was found, in a place well suited for building and launching a ship; and in the neighbourhood of which stumps of trees, evidently felled with axes many years before, were discovered. The spot where one of the ships had struck was ascertained, and some heavy articles, as guns, raised in the shallow water on the reef. No trace of the others could be found; and it was said by the natives to have gone down in deep water. Captain Dillon returned to Calcutta, and thence to England, bringing the articles he had obtained along with him.

No doubt can be entertained but that two French ships, apparently ships of war, were wrecked at Vanicoro. There are no other vessels whose loss is to be accounted for, and the apparent length of time since their destruction, corresponds with the date of La Perouse’s expedition. There is therefore the strongest presumptive evidence for concluding that the fate of that intrepid navigator is at length revealed: but the articles collected, though indisputably belonging to French ships, could not be conclusively identified as having been on board La Boussole and L’Astrolabe. It was suggested that the point might be determined by comparing the marks of the cannon with the registers of the French ordnance, in which the numbers and weight of the guns supplied to each ship would of course be set down. We do not know whether, or with what success, this has been done. But the French government appears to have been satisfied; for on visiting Paris Captain Dillon received the personal thanks of Charles X., and the cross of the Legion of Honour, together with a liberal pecuniary reward for his exertions.

The French, even during the excitement of the early part of the revolution, manifested a lively interest for La Perouse and his crew. D’Entrecasteaux, we have said, was sent out expressly in quest of them; and a reward was offered to whosoever should bring intelligence of their fate, which Captain Dillon was the first to claim. A narrative of the voyage, compiled from the papers brought home by M. de Lesseps, was printed in four quarto volumes, with an atlas, at Paris, 1797, at the national expense, and a certain number of copies being reserved, the rest of the impression was presented to La Perouse’s widow, who continued to receive her husband’s pay. Recently the “Voyage de la Perouse” has been compiled from the original documents, with notes by M. de Lesseps, in an octavo volume, with an Appendix, containing an account of Captain Dillon’s researches, and of the voyage of a French ship, L’Astrolabe, which was engaged at the same time in the same office. To this work, to Captain Dillon’s publication above quoted, and to the “Bulletins de la Société de Géographie,” we refer the readers for a full account of all that is known of the progress and catastrophe of this celebrated expedition.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

CRANMER.

_From an original Picture in the Collection
at Lambeth Palace._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

CRANMER.

Thomas Cranmer was born July 2, 1489, at Aslacton, in Nottinghamshire. He was descended from an ancient family, which had long been resident in that county. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge; where he obtained a fellowship, which he soon vacated by marriage with a young woman who is said to have been of humble condition. Within a year after his marriage he became a widower, and was immediately, by unusual favour, restored to his fellowship. In 1523, he was admitted to the degree of doctor of divinity, and appointed one of the public examiners in that faculty. Here he found an opportunity of showing the fruits of that liberal course of study which he had been for some time pursuing. As soon as his teachers left him at liberty, he had wandered from the works of the schoolmen to the ancient classics and the Bible; and, thus prepared for the office of examiner, he alarmed the candidates for degrees in theology by the novelty of requiring from them some knowledge of the Scriptures.

It was from this useful employment that he was called to take part in the memorable proceedings of Henry the Eighth, in the matter of his divorce from Catherine.

Henry had been counselled to lay his case before the universities, both at home and abroad. Cranmer, to whom the subject had been mentioned by Gardiner and Fox, went a step farther, and suggested that he should receive their decision as sufficient without reference to the Pope. This suggestion was communicated to the king, who, observing, with his usual elegance of expression, that the man had got the sow by the right ear, summoned Cranmer to his presence, and immediately received him into his favour and confidence.

In 1531, Cranmer accompanied the unsuccessful embassy to Rome, and in the following year was appointed ambassador to the Emperor. In August, 1532, the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant by the death of Warham, and it was Henry’s pleasure to raise Cranmer to the primacy. The latter seems to have been truly unwilling to accept his promotion; and when he found that no reluctance on his part could shake the king’s resolution, he suggested a difficulty which there were no very obvious means of removing. The Archbishop must receive his investiture from the Pope, and at his consecration take an oath of fidelity to his Holiness, altogether inconsistent with another oath, taken at the same time, of allegiance to the king. All this had been done without scruple by other bishops; but Cranmer was already convinced that the Papal authority in England was a mere usurpation, and plainly told Henry that he would receive the archbishopric from him alone. Henry was not a man to be stopped by scruples of conscience of his own or others; so he consulted certain casuists, who settled the matter by suggesting that Cranmer should take the obnoxious oath, with a protest that he meant nothing by it. He yielded to the command of his sovereign and the judgment of the casuists. His protest was read by himself three times in the most public manner, and solemnly recorded. It is expedient to notice that the transaction was public, because some historians, to make a bad matter worse, still talk of a private protest.

In 1533, he pronounced sentence of divorce against the unhappy Catherine, and confirmed the marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn. He was now at leisure to contemplate all the difficulties of his situation. It is commonly said that Cranmer himself had, at this time, made but small progress in Protestantism. It is true that he yet adhered to many of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church; but he had reached, and firmly occupied, a position which placed him by many degrees nearer to the reformed faith than to that in which he had been educated. By recognising the Scriptures alone as the standard of the Christian faith, he had embraced the very principle out of which Protestantism flows. It had already led him to the Protestant doctrine respecting the pardon of sin, which necessarily swept away all respect for a large portion of the machinery of Romanism. As a religious reformer, Cranmer could look for no cordial and honest support from the king. Every one knows that Henry, when he left the Pope, had no mind to estrange himself more than was necessary from the Papal Church, and that the cause of religious reformation owes no more gratitude to him, than the cause of political liberty owes to those tyrants who, for their own security, and often by very foul means, have laboured to crush the power of equally tyrannical nobles. From Gardiner, who, with his party, had been most active and unscrupulous in helping the king to his divorce and destroying papal supremacy, Cranmer had nothing to expect but open or secret hostility, embittered by personal jealousy. Cromwell, indeed, was ready to go with him any lengths in reform consistent with his own safety; but a sincere reformer must have been occasionally hampered by an alliance with a worldly and unconscientious politician. The country at large was in a state of unusual excitement; but the rupture with Rome was regarded with at least as much alarm as satisfaction; and it was notorious that many, who were esteemed for their wisdom and piety, considered the position of the church to be monstrous and unnatural. The Lollards, who had been driven into concealment, but not extinguished, by centuries of persecution, and the Lutherans, wished well to Cranmer’s measures of reform: but he was not equally friendly to them. They had outstripped him in the search of truth; and he was unhappily induced to sanction at least a miserable persecution of those men with whom he was afterwards to be numbered and to suffer.

His first and most pressing care was by all means to reconcile the minds of men to the assertion of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, because all further changes must necessarily proceed from the royal authority. He then addressed himself to what seem to have been the three great objects of his official exertions,—the reformation of the clerical body, so as to make their ministerial services more useful; the removal of the worst part of the prevailing superstitious observances, which were a great bar to the introduction of a more spiritual worship; and above all, the free circulation of the Scriptures among the people in their own language. In this last object he was opportunely assisted by the printing of what is called Matthews’s Bible, by Grafton and Whitchurch. He procured, through the intervention of Cromwell, the king’s licence for the publication, and an injunction that a copy of it should be placed in every parish church. He hailed this event with unbounded joy; and to Cromwell, for the active part he took in the matter, he says, in a letter, “This deed you shall hear of at the great day, when all things shall be opened and made manifest.”

He had hardly witnessed the partial success of the cause of Reformation, when his influence over the king, and with it the cause which he had at heart, began to decline. He had no friendly feeling for those monastic institutions which the rapacity of Henry had marked for destruction; but he knew that their revenues might, as national property, be applied advantageously to the advancement of learning and religion, and he opposed their indiscriminate transfer to the greedy hands of the sycophants of the court. This opposition gave to the more unscrupulous of the Romanists an opportunity to recover their lost ground with the king, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. They were strong enough at least to obtain from Parliament, in 1539, (of course through the good will of their despotic master,) the act of the Six Articles, not improperly called the “Bloody Articles,” in spite of the determined opposition of Cranmer: an opposition which he refused to withdraw even at the express command of the king. Latimer and Shaxton immediately resigned their bishoprics. One of the clauses of this act, relating to the marriage of priests, inflicted a severe blow even on the domestic happiness of Cranmer. In his last visit to the continent, he had taken, for his second wife, a niece of the celebrated divine Osiander. By continuing to cohabit with her, he would now, by the law of the land, be guilty of felony; she was therefore sent back to her friends in Germany.

From this time till the death of Henry in 1546, Cranmer could do little more than strive against a stream which not only thwarted his plans of further reformation, but endangered his personal safety; and he had to strive alone, for Latimer and other friends among the clergy had retired from the battle, and Cromwell had been removed from it by the hands of the executioner. He was continually assailed by open accusation and secret conspiracy. On one occasion his enemies seemed to have compassed his ruin, when Henry himself interposed and rescued him from their malice. His continued personal regard for Cranmer, after he had in a measure rejected him from his confidence, is a remarkable anomaly in the life of this extraordinary king; of whom, on a review of his whole character, we are obliged to acknowledge, that in his best days he was a heartless voluptuary, and that he had become, long before his death, a remorseless and sanguinary tyrant. It is idle to talk of the complaisance of the servant to his master, as a complete solution of the difficulty. That he was, indeed, on some occasions subservient beyond the strict line of integrity, even his friends must confess; and for the part which he condescended to act in the iniquitous divorce of Anne of Cleves, no excuse can be found but the poor one of the general servility of the times: that infamous transaction has left an indelible stain of disgrace on the Archbishop, the Parliament, and the Convocation. But Cranmer could oppose as well as comply: his conduct in the case of the Six Articles, and his noble interference in favour of Cromwell between the tiger and his prey, would seem to have been sufficient to ruin the most accommodating courtier. Perhaps Henry had discovered that Cranmer had more real attachment to his person than any of his unscrupulous agents, and he may have felt pride in protecting one who, from his unsuspicious disposition and habitual mildness, was obviously unfit, in such perilous times, to protect himself. His mildness indeed was such, that it was commonly said, “Do my Lord of Canterbury a shrewd turn, and you make him your friend for life.”