THE FANCY BALL. "A visor for a visor! what care I What curious eye doth quote deformities ?" "You used to talk," said Miss Mac Call, "Of flowers, and flames, and Cupid; Your 're getting vastly stupid. I made that night a solemn vow, Oh! a Fancy Ball's a strange affair, Light heads, light heels, false hearts, false hair, The dullest Duke in all the town, Hail, blest Confusion! here are met The Lancers flirt with Juliet, The Brahmin talks of races; And where 's your genius, bright Corinne ? Lo! dandies from Kamschatka flirt The Cardinal is here from Rome, The Commandant from Seville; And Hamlet's father from the tomb, And Faustus from the Devil. What mean those laughing Nuns, I pray, I guess they told no beads to-day, And sang no Ave Mary; From Mass and Matins, Priest and Pix, I wish all pretty Catholics Were thus emancipated. Four Seasons come to dance quadrilles, And Raleigh talks of rail-road bills, Dec.-VOL. XXIII. NO. XCVI. 2 L 1 1 I find Sir Charles of Aubyn Park Puck halts, and Ariel swaggers; And the heaviest foot that ever trod There Yorick looks most grave, Sir, "The Giraffe"-" plays the fiddle"- "Good Heaven! who taught that man to valtz ?"— "A pair of Shetland ponies." “Lord D——”—“ an enchanting shape❞— "Will move for"-" Maraschino" "Pray, Julia, how's your mother's "He died at Navarino!". ape?"— "The gout by Jove is"-" apple pie” "Don Miguel"-"Tom the tinker" "His Lordship's pedigree's as high As"-"Whipcord, dam by Clinker." "Love's shafts are weak"-"my chesnut kicks""Heart broken"-" broke the traces""What say you now of politics?" Change sides and to your places.”— "A five-barred gate"-"a precious pearl”— "Grave things may all be punn'd on !” "The Whigs, thank God, are"-" out of curl !”— "Her age is"- four by London!" Thus run the giddy hours away, As these our fancy-dresses. NARES'S LIFE AND ADMINISTRATION OF LORD BURGHLEY.* THIS is of a good school: by a veteran in literature-familiar with the story of the times in which his hero flourished, and evidently fond of discussing them-bringing to the task he has undertaken, the advantages of long practice and matured experience-accustomed to search and sift, to unravel intricacies, to balance probabilities, and fix results-neither daunted by labours, nor shrinking from difficulties, but boldly diving into the depths of his subject, and bringing forth treasures new and old. His authentic materials were abundant: Lord Burghley was a man of business, carefully gathering papers and documents, and his descendants have religiously preserved them. They have been picked and culled by numbers, but never with the direct purpose of illustrating the merits of the original possessor. gularly enough, Lord Burghley has never had fair justice done him-his actions have never been fully detected and canvassed-though confessedly the leading counsellor of the whole of Elizabeth's reign, the main spring and support of a successful government for forty years, at a period when society, thrown into a state of disturbance by the fermentation of new opinions and principles, required the very wisest and most watchful management while superintending its subsidence. He has been mixed up, impersonally, with the general government, and has, in a measure, lost some of the individualizing features of the man. Sin In the common estimate, which after all perhaps seldom very widely misses the mark, Lord Burghley is the very representative of prudence and political sagacity—a man of a Macchiavelian cast, not, apparently, very nice about the means of accomplishing important ends-the protector of Protestantism and the church hierarchy-the persecutor of heretics-the unscrupulous agent of Elizabeth's worst excesses; but, at the same time, the resolute de fender of his country's superiority-the seaman who safely conducted the vessel among shoals and quicksands-the pilot that weathered the storm. Let his faults have been what they may, success has thrown a veil over them, and success, with those at least who share the advantages of it, if it be not made the measure of worth exactly, is pretty sure of a liberal construction. Besides, the depreciators of Lord Burghley were a defeated, we need not add, an oppressed party, and a party notoriously distinguished (we are not speaking with any invidious allusion to existing circumstances) for sticking at no calumnies or corruptions; and therefore the less entitled, and the less likely, in the long run, to fix a lasting stain upon those they desire to asperse. Nevertheless, looking to the unmitigated facts of Burghley's history-and few do more-the balance is decidedly against him. We know him to have been charged with betraying both Somerset and Northumberland-we know him to have been trusted by the one, and to have acted officially under the other; and we find him successively in the service of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. The bare facts irresistibly suggest the existence of pliancy of principle; and yet the known influence he possessed with one party, permanently and uninterruptedly, shows a sort of confidence which nothing surely but consistency, steadiness, and sincerity, in no common degree, could justify or originate. That he must, however, have submitted to compliances is indisputable-the question will be, how far they were warrantable, how far they were specifically prompted by private interests, or how far they were directed and contributed to the establishment of permanent and pervading good. The end is not to justify the means; but the greatness of the end will nevertheless, in the eyes apparently of the sober and practical moralist, and certainly in the estimate of common observers, excuse occa Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Hon. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. By the Rev. Edward Nares, D. D. Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 2 vols. 4to. sional obliquity. We are much afraid, if it were even nakedly stated, that his conformity to Catholic rites and practices enabled him to further the interests of Protestantism, few would be found staunch enough to censure him very deeply for conforming; and Dr. Nares, upon due examination, and full evidence of the fact, discovers reasons for justification, evidently, with very little difficulty. Glancing at the character of the man generally, we must conclude him to have been a very able person-originally well introduced, and closely and early connected with a set of men, scholars and statesmen, who were bent upon introducing the new learning'- when favoured with opportunities for action, active, prompt, and prudent-useful by these qualities to political leaders-advanced by them to places of trust and confidence, and by his efficiency, gaining at every step new influence-when repulsed, never defeated nor disheartened-yielding to the storm, bending till it blew overwhen associates and patrons were suffering, himself by dexterity escapingwhen thrown out of office by one party, quickly recalled by another from his known experience and promptitude of expedient-and finally, when what was strictly his own party recovered the ascendency, becoming, all competitors being now swept away, their sole and acknowledged leader—a post, which in spite of court favourites and political enemies, in troops, he maintained for forty years-a result which implies, no doubt, extraordinary talent, but also extraordinary pliancy and management. Dr. Nares has taken a large and liberal view of the matter, and entered very fully into the chief events of the times, the more fairly and completely to estimate the actions and importance of the subject of his biography. He has successfully traced his agency upon occasions in which he was before scarcely known to have had any share, and has thus been enabled effectively to rebut and remove some calumnies, and alleviate the pressure of others. He finds him to have been a much more influential person in the days of Edward, than he was before supposed to have been, and at a very early period regarded, by the scholars of the day, and the chief of the reformers, as the main pillar, at least politically, of the great cause of Protestantism. From the very extensive range which the author has taken, the biography is brought down, in the very considerable volume before us, only to the death of Mary. This, however, is the period of Cecil's life, with which the public is least acquainted; after Elizabeth's accession, his course is better known; and it is always more interesting, more instructive, to trace the rise of an extraordinary person while fighting his way to distinction, than to contemplate his after-career, when the character is fixed, the authority established, and all plain sailing. We shall, therefore, glance over this early period, which will enable us to appreciate the author's success-how far, we mean, he has succeeded in one main object of his performance, removing the calumnies which have been penned upon Lord Burghley-effacing the stains which have somewhat tarnished the splendour and purity of his fame. Cecil was born in 1520 at Bourne, in Lincolnshire, and though not, beyond all dispute, as his admirers eventually asserted, descended in a right line from the Roman Cæcilii, yet undoubtedly of a very respectable Welsh family, the Sitsils. His father was Master of the Robes to Henry VIII. Young Cecil, at the age of fourteen, according to the custom of those times, was sent from Grantham school to St. John's, Cambridge, where he was quickly distinguished by propriety of conduct, and extraordinary acquirements. At a period when Greek was but newly introduced at Cambridge, he entered eagerly into the study of it; and before he was nineteen actually gave volunteer lectures on the language. Greek came in with the new learning,' which in those days meant the new doctrines of Protestantism, and all the early promoters of Greek at Cambridge were either avowedly favourers of them, or laboured under the scandal of being so. Cecil's acquaintance lay wholly among the leading scholars, all of them older than himself, and some considerably so-Smith, Cheke, Parker, Ascham, Bacon,-and among them seemed destined for academical distinctions. Circumstances, however, not at all developed, diverted him from this course; and at twenty we find him at Gray's Inn, where he had the reputation, with great ardour, of coupling antiquarian researches with his legal studies. These must have quickly met with interruptions, nor indeed is it known that he was studying for the bar. From his father's position, the Court seemed open to him, and a political career the most obvious. Scarcely had he been three months at Gray's Inn when he married a sister of Cheke's; and the same year chance introduced him personally to the King's notice. On some occasion, in the presence-chamber, to which his father's office gave him a ready entrance, he got into a dispute with two chaplains in attendance on the great Irish chieftain O'Neale, and by dint of argument fairly reduced them to silence. The dispute had been carried on in Latin, was long and warm, and excited the notice of some of the courtiers, who, by way of chitchat, told the King young Cecil's victory. The King sent for him forthwith, and after a long talk with him, being exceedingly delighted with his ready and prudent answers, desired his father to find out a suit for him,' which of course was speedily accomplished, and the reversion of Custos Brevium in the Common Pleas accordingly solicited and granted. The dispute apparently concerned the King's supremacy-a subject of deep interest with the King; and Cecil luckily took the right side. The reversion did not fall in till after the King's death, and it is not certainly known that he either obtained any thing else, or ever had another personal interview. But his connexions with the Court were rapidly increasing. Cheke, his brother-in-law, was appointed tutor to the young Prince; and in 1545-his first wife dying within two years of the marriage-he married one of the learned daughters of Sir Antony Cooke, himself one of the Prince's governors. Cooke's other daughters, being all of them well married, multiplied Cecil's Court connexions, and tended of course materially to forward his interests. The Through Cheke apparently he became known also to Somerset (then Lord Hertford) and Cranmer; and immediately on the accession of Edward, he reaped the fruits of these fortunate, or rather, perhaps, well-chosen connexions. About this time also the reversion of Custos Brevium fell in, worth then, it appears, 240l. a year; and among the first acts of Somerset was Cecil's appointment to be" his Master of Requests," -a matter of great importance, as bringing him in immediate contact with the Protector. office, whatever it might really have been, is spoken of as a new one, and Camden, it is stated, asserted that Cecil told him, he was the first who ever held it; but Courts of Requests, if not instituted in the reign of Henry VII., were certainly in existence in that of Henry VIII., for Sir Thomas More had been a master. This office of Cecil's was undoubtedly something quite different, and though represented as destined for the "furtherance of poor men's suits, and for the more effectual speeding them without the delays and charges of law," it seems more probably to have been what in modern terms would have been called the private secretaryship. Still the office was in some degree recognized as a public one, and evidently by the numerous letters still in existence, addressed to him, was considered as the direct and regular channel of communication with the Government. The duties, some of them at least, were such as have since merged in those of the Secretary for the Home department. The circumstances of the times made it of considerable importance, and more, as Dr. Nares suggests, was certainly done in those days by letter than now-a suitor could not so readily then be whisked from one end of the country to the other. The same year Cecil accompanied his patron in the expedition to Scotland, -"the rough wooing,"-partly in his capacity of "Master of Requests," or private secretary rather, for the office plainly attached him to the Protector, and partly also, apparently, as one of a Judge-Advocate Duumvirate. One Patten, who published an account of the expedition; and the battle of Pinkey, calls himself a judge of the Marshalsea, and speaks of Cecil as his colleague. Robertson evidently understood this to be a military appointment-a sort of Provost-Marshalship, and accordingly calls him Judge-Marshal of the Army; but he may be wholly mistaken, and the office, after all, nothing but a civil one, and connected, as appears from Patten's titlepage, with the Marshalsea |