chored his vessels, and took in the wood and water he required. This captain, notwithstanding the apparent tranquillity and security, did not suffer any of his people to sleep on the land till this had been perfectly reconnoitred. The day after, as he continued to follow the same route, he arrived at that same point which he had seen in the direction of the South, and he caused a large cross to be erected there. Having doubled this point he saw a shore which he called Praya Hermosa, or beautiful shore, on account of its broad and beautiful waters, the waves thereof gently breaking on the beach. Passing still on, they encountered between two points a furious torrent, the waters of which, however, were so clear that they stimulated the curiosity of some to ask leave to go and have a nearer view of them: the captain granted leave to two soldiers of Lagos, whom he much esteemed, who, despising the ford, and their life still more, wished to swim across this torrent: but, as if angry at their temerity, the torrent carried them away with so much rapidity that they would have perished if they had not been promptly succoured by their companions. This adventure gave to that torrent the name Dos Soccorridos, more fortunately than that Dos Agravados to another flowing into the sea of Arabia, of which our historians make mention. A little further on was seen a pointed rock which rose above the others, and which was surrounded by an arm of the sea which formed between this rock and a neighbouring stretch of land a sort of port into which Gonsalvo entered with his long-boats, imagining that this place might unveil to them greater secrets than the others, because they saw all the shore covered with traces of animals, which they had not yet chanced upon at any other spot: but they were soon undeceived, when they saw rushing into the sea with a very loud noise an immense troop of sea wolves that suddenly sprang from a cavern which had been hollowed out at the foot of the mountain by the water of the sea, and which seemed a sort of large chamber, which these animals used as a retreat, from which chamber of wolves, Camara Dos Lobos, Gonsalvo afterwards took an addition to his name, as Germanicus and the Scipios from the provinces which they had conquered to the Roman empire; and this same name he transmitted to his family. The cloud began at this place to assume such density both by sea and land, the rocks rose so high, and the noise of the waters increased in such a manner, that they thought that they would be acting with more rashness than they so far had been guilty of, if they ran the risk of losing by a disaster all the successes which they had that day had. Therefore the captain having taken his resolution and knowing all that the island contained, returned to the little islands where he had left his vessels; and having in a few days prepared water, wood, birds, herbs, plants of the land and everything which he thought would be likely to be agreeable to the Infanta, he put on board all these things and began his voyage back to Portugal, where he arrived without accident at the end of August of the same year, 1420. Learning that the Infanta was waiting for him at the court, he took, without sojourning at the province of Algarve, the road to Lisbon, into the harbour of which he entered without having lost a single man in his whole voyage; but, on the contrary, having gained to this kingdom the best island of all the western ocean." Such is a portion of the narrative, extremely rare, which Alcaforado has given of the discovery of the island of Madeira, which preceded by seventytwo years that of America. We possess no other detail of the life of this navigator, who deserves to be drawn from oblivion. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF SWIFT TO MR. MOTTE. Bristol Road, Edgbaston. MR. URBAN,-I have much pleasure in forwarding copies of several unpublished letters from Dean Swift to Mr. Benjamin Motte. They form, as you will perceive, part of a series, which has been broken by the alienation of others printed in your Magazines for February and March, 1855. I hope shortly to furnish you with a copy of the agreement between Swift, Pope, and Motte for the publication of the Miscellanies. The originals, with many letters of Pope to my grandfather, the late Charles Bathurst, esq. on the same subject, have been preserved in my family for a century and a quarter, and are now in my possession. Yours truly, CHARLES BATHURST WOODMAN. I. "To Mr. Benjamin Motte, bookseller, at the Middle Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, London." "December 9th, 1732. S,-I thank you for your packet, and I suppose shall hear of it as soon as it comes. I am not at all satisfyd with the last Miscellany: I believe I told you so in a former letter.* My part (which in the verses is seven-eighthsf) is very incorrect. I can assure you I had no advantage by any one of the four volumes, as I once hinted to you, and desire it may be a secret always. Neither do I in the least understand the reasons for printing this. I believe I told you formerly that booksellers here have no property, and I have cause to believe that some of our printers will collect all they think to be mine, and print them by subscrip tion, which I will neither encourage nor oppose. But as to the writings I have had long by me, I intend to leave them to certain friends,§ and that you shall be the publisher. I must tell you plainly I have now done with writing: verse grows troublesome, and hard to be got, and not worth my time, since they will neither entertain myself nor be of publick use. If you think the Letter|| you mention will do any service against that destructive design now on foot, I shall leave the matter to your discretion; and if the same wicked project shall be attempted here, I shall so far suspend my laziness as to oppose it to the utmost. I believe in both Kingdoms, those who by their function, their conscience, their honor, their oaths, and the interest of their community are most bound to obstruct such a ruin to the Church, will be the great advocates for it: for which, if I shall pray God to forgive them, His divine justice will not suffer Him. "My health is tolerable, and, although I feel my lameness, they tell me I do not limp. I hope your family is well. I desire my service to Mrs. Lancelot : tell her to refresh a certain person's memory whenever I write to a certain lady. "I am, with great sincerity, your assured friend "And most humble serv1, "J. S. "If you print that piece, I am content you should say, • Written many years ago by," &c., and name the Author, and get some short preface to show the reasons for printing it now by itself. *The letter printed in our March number, p. 259. † It is remarkable that Swift's calculation in this respect increases in each letter. In Dec. 1727 he says, "As to the poetical volumes of Miscellany I believe five parts in six at least are mine." (Gent. Mag. Feb. 1855, p. 151.) In Nov. 1732, of the last Miscellany (Vol. V.) he claims "almost six-sevenths of the whole verse part of the book" (Gent. Mag. March, 1855, p. 259); and now he says 66 seven-eighths." See in March, p. 259, Swift's remarks on the disregard, or non-existence, of copyright in Dublin. He had before (in July) mentioned Mr. Pope: see in March number, p. 258. This appears to relate to Swift's Letter against the proposed repeal of the Sacramental Test Act, originally written in 1708, and printed in the Miscellany in 1711. See the postscript to the present letter. Swift wrote in 1732 and 1733 several other papers on this subject, and the proposed repeal was again defeated. II. "To Mr. Benjamin Motte, bookseller, at the Middle Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, London. Dublin, Feb. 1st, 1732-3. "Sr, I received your last short letter, with an inclosed from Mr. Ewen.* What that Ewen is, I know not, but he appears to be a very odd sort of man. I have a letter of his dated last July, which I believe I told you of in one of mine to you. He there says some very silly things, and reflects on Mr. Davys, who left him all he had. I wonder what calling or character the man is of. You can tell him I acknowledged the 47. 15s. since you received it. I have advanced it all to the poor sister† who would needs have it. In his letter of July, he says he has several letters of mine to Mr. Davys, and a few to his widow; that he hath been importuned to lend them, and has often resisted it. Common sense and honesty would have directed him to burn them, or send them to me to do it. In the letter you sent me from him to you, he desires to know what I would have him do with them. Mrs. Davys hath been dead above 35 years. The letters were common letters of friendship among young people, and I believe I writ to her four or five after she was a widow and at Cambridge, and generally some present was mentioned. This Ewen must be a rascal, and has a mind to print them because he thinks they will bring money. Pray desire him to restore them to you to burn them; and, if he will not, let him do what he pleases, for they can be of no consequence, being only the common amusements of young people. I then lived in England, and he was a man I loved very well, but married very indiscreetly. "We have had the poem upon the Use of Riches, which our people here, for want of knowing London, think a little obscure. I desire my love to Mrs. Launcelot. I will answer her letter soon. "I find the business of the Test is quite dropt, and am very glad of it. But Satan was the adviser to a general Excise, or at least the greatest enemy that he could stir up against the Crown. "I am yr most humble serv', "My service to when you see him; I nues to please my L city.‡ "J. S. Mr. Pilkington, hope he contiMayor and the "I had your packet of papers from Mrs. Hyde, and kindly thank you for them. "I had a letter lately from one Grace Barmby, who says she lives at the King's Arms and Two Bishops, behind St. Clement's church. I suppose she is the widow of one Barmby, who made my gown in the late Queen's time, when I lived in London. I am very confident I owe her not a farthing, and so I told her or somebody from her when I was last in London. It is against my constant practice to leave a place without paying my debts. Looking at her letter again, I find her demand is for the year 1726, which was the first time I went to England since the Queen's death, which confirms me that I owe her nothing. Her demands are 41. 6s. 8d. Pray call at your leisure, and tell her what I say. Perhaps she may be poor. But it is impossible I should be in her debt, for I wanted not money, and the bill is exorbitant, being near 117. for one gown and cassock, more by a third than ever I used to pay. However, out of perfect charity, please to let her have 2 guineas, with a full acquittance for all accounts. I am sorry to give you so much trouble." III. "To Mr. Benjamin Motte, bookseller, at the Middle Temple Gate, in Fleet Street, London. "Dublin, Oct. 25, 1735. "S",-Yours of the fourth instant § I had not till very lately. Here lives one Mr. Hatch, who is a manager for * Ewen, of Cambridge: see in March, p. 259. § This letter of Mr. Motte's is printed among Swift's Correspondence in the several editions of his Works, including Sir Walter Scott's. It states that he had "punctually paid" the annuity which Swift allowed to Mrs. Fenton-who was his sister. Her marriage, which had deeply offended him, took place at the beginning of the GENT. MAG. VOL. XLIV. 2 H the Temple family. He came lately to the Deanery, and talked with great melancholy of Mrs. Fenton not having received any money from me in a long time; whereupon I paid him ten guineas for her use, and took his Receit; for, to say the truth, having not heard of you in a long time, nor caring one straw whether that woman had received one peny, or what became of her who had during her whole life disobliged me in the most circumstances of her conduct, I did not employ one thought upon her, except to her disadvantage; and I heartily wish you had demanded your money of me as you payd it, because then it would not have been such a load upon me as now it will. I desire therefore you will please to let me know how far I am got in your debt, and I will discharge it as fast as I can get any money in, which is almost as impossible to find here as honesty, so that I am hardly able to subsist for want of receiving any rents or interest. I desire therefore you will pay her no more, but only send me how her account lyes including the ten guineas I sent by Mr. Hatch, who was to send her a bill. It is not above three weeks ago. I would much rather assist my poor cousin Launcelot,* if it was in my power, for she was always kind and obliging to me. I did not know Mrs. Fenton had a son, nor will ever believe such a breed had either worth or ho- J. S. We have before published, in our Magazines for February, March, and July in the present year, three portions of the Correspondence of Dr. Jonathan Swift with his London publisher, Mr. Benjamin Motte, to whose charge he committed his most popular work, the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver. The first letter, opening the correspondence, was written by Swift under the pseudonyme of Richard Sympson, and dated the 8th August, 1726. The next, dated the 3rd Jan. 1726[-7], was written under the name of his friend Mr. Charles Ford, or by Mr. Ford himself at Swift's dictation, and inclosed corrections to Gulliver, of which the first edition had then been published. In April, 1727, Swift still communicated with Motte under the name of Richard Sympson ;§ but in December following he had thrown off his disguise, and wrote freely to him, not only respecting the proposed "cuts" in illustration of Gulliver, but also respecting the Miscellany, in which Swift's minor pieces were published with those of Pope and Gay, and on other topics. century. "During this period of Swift's life (writes Sir Walter Scott) his sister contracted an imprudent marriage with a person called Fenton, to his very high and avowed displeasure, which, as Lord Orrery has informed us, was solely owing to his ambition being outraged by her matching with a tradesman. This, however, was by no means the case. Fenton was a worthless character, and upon the eve of bankruptcy, when Swift's sister, against his warm remonstrances, chose to unite her fate to his. And although he retained his resentment against her imprudence, Lord Orrery ought not to have omitted that, out of his moderate income, Swift allowed Mrs. Fenton what was adequate to her comfortable support, amid the ruin in which that imprudence had involved her." "There is an honest man, whose name is Launcelot: he has been long a servant to my Lord Sussex: he married a relation of mine, a widow, with a tolerable jointure, which, depending upon a lease which the Duke of Grafton suffered to expire about three years ago, sunk half his little fortune." Letter of Swift to the Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Steward, Nov. 10, 1730; in which he proceeds to ask for some office for Mr. Launcelot, who had been disappointed in his expectations from the Duke of Dorset whilst his grace held that office. The Earl refused the request, on the 15th December: see his letter, and what Sir Walter Scott terms Swift's "most admirable answer," in Swift's Correspondence. † Motte had written that " Mr. Fenton, her son, who receives it, is a man of worth and honour, and I am persuaded will return me the money, should it be paid him from any other quarter." Magazine for Feb. p. 148. § July, 1855, p. 36. Subsequently, Swift employed Motte as his London agent in many matters of private business, as the letters written in the years 1732 and 1735, with copies of which we were favoured by Mr. Preston of Norwich,* have already shown. We are now enabled, by favour of C. B. Woodman, esq., to add a portion of the letters which were not so alienated from the possession of the family. In order to understand these letters fully, we must request the reader to take up our magazines for February and March, and follow the sequence of the subjects to which they refer. A note upon the several volumes and editions of "The Miscellany:" the joint production of Swift, Pope, and Gay, will be found in our February number, p. 152; and it was there mentioned that the third Miscellany, published in 1727, was in its title-page called "The Last Volume." When, in 1732, Pope resolved to publish another volume, Motte, as Pope relates, "deliberately refused." He therefore offered it to another publisher, Mr. Lawton Gilliver, who at once undertook it. Motte soon saw his error, and applied to Pope on the matter, probably backing his solicitation with a friendly word from Swift. Pope replied: "All I can do were to speak to Mr. Gilliver, as you requested, to give you the share you wd have in ye property, and to set aside my obligation and covenant with him, so far to gratify the Dean and yourself. You cannot object, I think, to the terms which he pays, and which at the first word he agreed to." This, though called "the third volume" of the Miscellanies, was really the fourth. We copy this statement from a recent writer (P. A. B.) in "Notes and Queries," July 28. JACQUES DE LELAING; THE GOOD KNIGHT, WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT DOUBT. BETWEEN the city of Namur and the quaint old town of Dinant, there is as much matter of interest for the historian as of beauty for the traveller and artist. War has been the most terrible scourge of the two localities on the Meuse which I have just named. Namur has a present reputation for cutlery, and an old one for "slashing blades" of another description. Don John, the great victor at Lepanto, lies entombed in the city, victim of the poison and the jealousy of his brother Philip. There the great Louis proved himself a better soldier than Boileau did a poet, when he attempted to put the royal soldier's deeds into rhyme. Who too can stand at St. Nicholas's gate without thinking of "my uncle Toby" and the Frenchman, for whose dying he cared so little, on the glacis of Namur? At present the place, it is true, has but a dull and dreamy aspect. Indeed, it may be said of the inhabitants, as of Molly Carew's lovers, that "It's dhrames and not sleep that comes into their heads." Such at least would seem to be the case, if I may draw a conclusion from what I saw a few days ago at the bookseller's stall at the Namur station, where there were more copies of a work professing to interpret dreams than of any other production, whether grave or gaillard. Dinant, a curious old town, the high limestone rocks behind which seem to be pushing it from off its narrow standing-ground into the Meuse, has even bloodier reminiscences than Namur; but of these I will not now speak. Between the two cities, at the most picturesque part of the stream, and on the loftiest cliff which rises above it, stands the vast ruin of the old titanic castle of Poilvache, the once rather noisy home of the turbulent household of those terrible brothers known in chivalrous history as the "Four Sons of Aymon." During one of the few fine evenings of the present summer, I was looking up at this height from the opposite bank, while around me stood in groups a number of those brilliant-eyed, soft-voiced, ready-witted Walloons, who are said to be the descendants of a Roman legion whose members colonised the country and married the ladies in it! A Walloon priest, or one at least who spoke the dialect perfectly, but who had a strong * Gent. Mag. March, 1855. |