AM confident that you will not object to finding a corner (an obscure one there is not in your Magazine) for the following proverb, which is quoted in Signor Montucci's excellent Collection of Italian Extracts," as being as old (for Wisdom is not young) as the year 1300. I believe, the more it is considered, the more its truth and importance will be felt

"Insegnare è cosa di Necessità, Dilettare è cosa di Suavità, Ma Muovere è di Vittoria." And it must be so; for an address to the reason will have little effect, unless an impression is made on the feelings. The voice of "the Charmer" will not, I trust, be less attended to, when delivered through the organ of the beautiful Italian language. The Proverb is an Address (implied at least) to the best feelings of our nature, and therefore deserves attention, in whatever language it is conveyed. Should you admit it jato your Magazine, it may perhaps excite some Correspondent of yours, who has a taste for the beauties of the Italian language, and a sense of the value of important (I might say sublime) truths, to transfuse (as far as may be done) those beauties into our language, or at least to give those truths the advantage (with a still greater to those who become acquainted with and feel them) of appearing in an English dress. Yours, &c.

RURICOLA.

Jan. 26.

BEG to offer my acknowledgements to G. W. M. for the information conveyed to me in p. 400 of Your last Volume; and to acquaint him that the perusal of the note in p. 156, of "Somerville's History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne" induced me to apply Some time since to Sir George Clerk for the inspection of his Ancestor's

Annotations upon the Memoirs generally and truly ascribed to Mr. Lockhart; and, having explained to him the nature of the papers I was arranging for the press, I ventured to suggest that the addition of Sir John Clerk's MS notes would be a valuable appendage to them, as tending to illustrate that portion of Mr. Lockhart's Work which relates to the Union but Sir George's absence upon the Continent proves an obstacle to iny wishes.

For the information of such of your Readers as may be unacquainted with the Memoirs, and with the character of their Author, allow me, Mr. Urban, to add, that Somerville makes frequent use of that performance, gives his reasons for relying upon Mr. L.'s testimony, says that he had excellent access to information, and acknowledges that, with abatement for the Author's political prejudices, his Memoirs may be adinitted as an authoritative voucher for many important facts. Somerville had found among the papers at Penycuik a copy of the Memoirs, with notes by Sir John Clerk, bart. who was a Commissioner for treating of the Union, and in many points differed in his political principles and conduct from his colleague Mr. Lockhart, so that his annotations may be considered as corrective of any errors into which Mr. L. might fall whilst writing under impressions of party heat, by which the best and most able men are naturally biassed.

I have great reason to hope, that G. W. M. will not be disappointed in the expectations he has formed of the Lockhart papers, and that he will be more especially gratified by the perusal of the correspondence with the Chevalier de St. George, and of the detailed adventures of his son. The Work, which will appear towards the close of April, in two quarto volumes, admirably connects with the Stuart and Culloden papers, and

is calculated to excite and reward the attention of all lovers of national history and political anecdote.

Philip Lord Wharton, who died at Wooburn in 1695, was the fourth, and not the first Peer of his family, as described by J. B. p. 328 of your October Magazine. He was a staunch Whig; and his daughter Philadelphia having married Sir Geo. Lockhart, the Lord President, her father interfered in the education of his grandson George L. the Author of the Memoirs, &c. and in vain attempted to suppress the Jacobite and Tory principles which the latter seems very early to have imbibed. In the Wharton genealogy I find no mention of Sir Polycarpus Wharton, inquired for by J. B. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

H

ANTH. AUFRERE.

1

March 12. AVING heard that that antient relick, London Wall, was about to be pulled down, I repaired thither a few days since, to survey its ruins, before the hand of Modern Improvement shall have swept them away from the surface of the earth.

The present remains are in length 75 yards; their height about nine feet; and thickness six. On the North

side the wall has been undermined, and shews a layer of Roman bricks level with the pavement of the street, an undoubted proof of its antiquity; The texture of the wall is, like all other Roman remains, exceedingly firm and well cemented.

London Wall is stated to have been built by Theodosius about the year 368, who also repaired several Cities and Castles, and fortified others. He left, says one of the Historians of London (Noorthouck), every thing so secure, that peace was preserved in Britain till the departure of the Romans in the reign of Honorius, A. D.

402.

In the reign of King John part of the old wall, which had been demolished after the Norman Conquest, was repaired, and carried up of the same thickness, and a height of between eight and nine feet, by the Barons.

Upon this was raised a wall wholly of brick, terminating in battlements, two feet four inches thick, and about eight feet in height. The whole was

adorned by upwards of forty stately towers.

Our forefathers were so careful to preserve this wall clear from incum. brance and prejudice, that they passed a law that no tenement should be built within 16 feet of the walls.

This fragment, emphatically called London Wall, being, though not the only portion, one of a very few now remaining open to view in the metropolis, it would be creditable to the taste of the city, to direct that any modern improvement might be so contrived as to spare it from destruction.

The other fragments of the walls of London, which occur to my recol lection, are those in Cripplegate Church-yard, and in Little Bridgestreet, Black Friars, Yours, &c.

G. O. P.T.

Tour through various Parts of the NETHERLANDS and GERMANY in 1815. (Continued from page 104.)

my last letter I gave a brief hech of the History of the Prince of Hainault down to the beginning of the 15th century, at which period the Counts of Hainault possessed the Sovereignty of Holland, Zealand, and

Friesland. This rich inheritance devolved in 1417 upon Jacoba, the only daughter of William Count of Hainault, and Margaret of Burgundy. The records of history seldom present a narrative more interesting than that of the Princess Jacoba of Hainault.

Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mor

talia tangunt.

For a detailed account of her misfortunes, I refer your Readers to Shaw's Sketches of the History of the Austrian Netherlands; from which 1 chiefly extract the following abridgement. Connected by consanguinity and affinity with some of the most illustrious families in Europe, and distinguished by beauty and mental accomplishments, Jacoba was married, at the age of fifteen, to the Duke of Touraine, the second son of Charles the Sixth, King of France, who, by the death of his elder brother, became Dauphin a few months after their marriage. The flattering prospect which was opened to her by this alliance soon vanished; for the Dauphin in the second year of his

marriage

marriage died suddenly, not with out suspicion of having been poisoned by his unnatural mother Isabella of Bavaria, to whom may be applied the character given by Dr. Robertson of Catherine of Medici, that "ber boundless and daring ambition never recoiled from any action necessary towards attaining the objects which she had in view." No sooner did Jacoba become a widow, than her father, with the view of strengthening the inheritance of the House of Hainault, planned a matrimonial alJiance for his daughter with the Duke of Brabant, a Prince who had neither personal nor mental accomplishments to win the heart of Jacoba. Her father, however, upon his death-bed requested that she would give her hand to the Duke of Brabant; and his request was backed by the solicitation of her mother, who foresaw that the match would ultimately prove advantageous to the House of Burgundy, from which the Duke of Bra. bant was sprung. Jacoba, from deference to her parents, who were influenced solely by motives of state policy, consented at the age of eighteen to be united to a man for whom she had no affection. This ill-advised step proved the grand source of her subsequent misfortunes: soon after their marriage, an occasion presented itself of exhibiting the conduct of her husband in a light which converted the indifference of Jacoba into feelings of the utmost contempt. Her uncle Johu of Bavaria, having asserted a groundless claim to Holland and Hainault, took up arms in the former province; and Jacoba, who was graced with both Minervas, took the field at the head of her troops of Hainault, and performed prodigies of valour, which were rendered ineffectual by the pusillanimity of her husband, who spread dejection and dismay among the ranks of the Brabanters. At length, that he might hide his shame, he drew away his forces from Hol land, commanding Jacoba to follow him into Brabant; and an ignominious peace was concluded with John of Bavaria. In that age of romance and chivalry, when ladies used to appear in the field of battle, armed cap-a-pee, we may easily conceive the impression which the dastardly conduct of the Duke of Brabaut was likely to make upon the mind of his

high-spirited and martial consort; she was filled with shame and disgust, and, upon her return to Court, she gave vent to her feelings in strong and indignant terms. This want of policy on her part produced the effect that might naturally be expected upon a narrow and base mind. Neglecting the Princess, the Duke gave himself up to the lowest gratifications; and, not satisfied with estranging himself from her society, he treated her with every mark of contumely, harshness, and brutality. Personal neglect from such a man, under all the circumstances of the case, could only excite, in the mind of Jacoba, remorse for having bestowed her hand without being able to give her heart; but his brutal treatment, which must have alienated the affection of any woman, was intolerable to Jacoba; her contempt was now changed into resentment; and, giving way to the dictates of anger, she formed the resolution of withdrawing entirely from her husband and from Brabant, and retiring into her native country, Hainault. This resolution she carried into effect in the full lustre of her beauty, and when she had attained only her twentieth year. With a heart susceptible of all the tenderness of love, and feeling the anguish of the bitterest disappointment in her union with the Duke of Brabant, she availed herself of a plea for dissolving it, which had been thought so powerful an objection to the marriage, as to render a Papal dispensation necessary, namely, the nearness of blood; and while she sought, upon that ground, to annul her marriage with the Duke of Brabant, she happened to cast her eyes upon a Prince who quickly made a complete conquest of her heart; and this was no other than the handsome, the brave, and accomplished Bumphrey Duke of Gloucester, the youngest brother of Henry the Fifth, King of England. -Jacoba, at their first interview, had made a visible impres sion upon the Duke of Gloucester; and the ardour of their mutual attachment soon arose to such a height as is seldom met with, except in the fancy of Poets.—But, although the Duke of Gloucester was captivated by the charms of Jacoba, he was not dead to ambition; and the prospect of attaining the sovereignty of so

many