vel of ordinary men? Jean Jaques was fashioned for celebrity, but his manner of thinking will, I believe, make him miserable. He united qualities which appeared incompatible. Sensible and generous, his heart delighted in comforting the unfortunate. But little formed for gratitude, he soon forgot an obligation-often even his friends were to him but as monsters, which he shunned, without knowing why. Sometimes cherishing them, sometimes detesting them, he was for ever at contradiction with himself;desiring to-day what he abandoned to-morrow, his way of thinking would not suffer him to embrace any party, or fix to any thing. On his return from Turin, whence he parted without cause, it was proposed to him at Annecy to go into the churcha few days disgusted him. I placed him with a music-master, whom he quitted in a few months. He how travelled for some time, refused what was offered to him, undertook the education of one without finishing it, and came again to me during the first years of my residence at Chambery. He there appeared to have a decided taste for agriculture, and I took him to attend to the culture of the lands which I then had; but the shepherds and the nymphs of his imagination not being to be found there, as he fancied, his taste for the pursuit was soon gone. An opportunity now offered of putting him in a counting-house at Chambery, and my interest succeeding in placing him there-a very little of this quickly satisfied him. In a word, I neglected nothing to merit the name of Mamun, by which he sometimes called me. However Jean Jaques left Chambery without saying a single word; and my friend, Mademoiselle du Ch, whom he visited in passing through Lyons, informed me afterwards by the following letter, what ideas he entertained of me, and with what insult and outrage he repaid my generosity. June 12, 1809. This JAQUES. passage, in the letter alluded to, contains the scandal. Il (Rousseau) ne donne d'autre cause à son départ de Chambery qu' une juste délicatesse de sa part; un refus de partager ta tendresse avec le premier venu, fait, dit-il, qu'il s'éloigne de toi ; et ton domestique même (Claude Anet) entre pour quelque chose dans les contes qu'il m'a débités.” ON THE REGALIA OF ENGLAND. BY THE REV. MARK NOBLE, F. A. S. OF L. AND E. [Concluded from P. 11.] THE reign of George I. was an unique in our history; he had a queen, who never received that title. She died but a little before him, a victim to suspicion and enfuriated vengeance. The most fortunate sovereign in Europe, this monarch seemed to regard his new dignity only as an incumbrance. He loved the sweets of private friendship and unconstrained ease. We see no alteration. in our regalia under his government, only it was now necessary to provide a diadem for his elder son, the Prince of Wales, for, except the ill-fated unfortunate son of James II. who was exiled whilst an infant, England had seen no Prince of Wales since the reign of Charles I. The diadem of the heir apparent to England has two bars only; it is not worn, but is always on great state occasions set near the eldest son, or the eldest daughter, if there is no son. The reign of George II, afforded nothing new, I believe, as to the regalia. The imperial crown must have been too large, unless the lining was proportionably filled up, as his majesty was extremely diminutive. At the accession of our present august beloved Sovereign, it was very properly suggested, that as we had made so great a progress in all the fine arts, it ought to be shewn in nothing more than in the most splendid ornament of majesty, the imperial crown; and accordingly it was new made, under the direction of Mr. Francis Grose, a jeweller in London, but a native of Switzerland; and it must be confessed that it is very superior in elegance of design and execution to the preceding one. It is eight inches in diameter, and twelve to the top of the cross which surmounts the whole. It is adorned with 2621 brilliants of the finest water, furnished by Mr. Aaron Franks, several of which weigh more than one hundred grains each, and in the whole, twelve ounces, or one pound troy weight. I have viewed it with peculiar pleasure, more than once, in the Tower, where it is kept with the other regalia, and when wanted for his majesty, is taken to West minster, in a common hackney-coach, by confidential persons. No accident has happened in the regalia that I know of, since that daring wretch, Colonel Blood, stole the crown and sceptre; the latter he broke in two, the better to conceal it. Happily the theft was in time detected, and the audacious thief seized, who coolly replied to the reproaches and execrations he received, that it was a noble attempt, being nothing less than a design to gain a crown. Those who shew the regalia, turn the key upon the company present. When some of it was intrusted to my hands, I remarked, "You have a very great confidence in me:" the reply was, No, sir, the door is fastened;" which I soon perceived to be the fact, and I applauded the careful precaution, for though I had no wish to commit spoil, upon what I would spend my life to defend, yet the warder could not know the rectitude of my mind and it may be observed that Blood personated a clergyman, the robes helping the better to conceal the robbery; at that time: the clergy wore their gowns and cassocks at all times. : His majesty, the queen, and other parts of the royal family, have a great profusion of gems of the finest water, and pearls of the clearest kind. These, however, purchased out of individual income, are not national property. As we have now the land of diamonds and pearls, we ought to see the sovereign and his family highly adorned with the treasures of Golconda and Ceylon, as well as of other countries, which yield the precious stores of various colours.* As our prelates and nobility are often very rich, it might strike *The British monarchs latterly have acquired no valuable jewels. Other kingdoms possess finer than his Britannic majesty. The Pitt diamond purchased for 20,4001. weighing 106 carats, was sold to the regent duke of Orleans, for 135,000l. for the use of the sovereigns of France, and is worn by the present ruler. Count Orloff gave 104,166l. to an American merchant for that which he presented to the empress Ca-. therine II. of Russia: it weighed 193 carats. The diamond once owned by the grand dukes of Tuscany, now belonging to the emperor of Germany, is valued at 117,0137.: it is called the Medici diamond. Those of Portugal far exceed these in dimensions, but are inferior in colour. The value affixed to the largest, weighing 1680 carats, exceeds all credibility. It came from the Brazils, where there have lately been found very productive diamond mines, but the stones are not of fine water, being usually of a yellow tinge. The Asiatic ones of equal size generally sell for more than these South-American ones. a person not conversant in ceremonials, that a bishop or a lay peer might so adorn their mitre or coronet, that it would vie with the crown in splendour. Jewels were discontinued in mitres after the reformation, and unless upon seals, carriages, or as ornaments, they now are entirely laid aside. The lay peers bear their coronets at coronations, as do kings-at-arms, crowns; but there is always an especial command that no person shall presume to have any jewels or pearls in them; they are of gold, or of other metal gilt, so that the sovereign, his consort, and the princes and princesses are properly distinguished by the resplendency of their crowns or princely coronets, more than by their particular forms. When the sovereign goes to the house of peers, a cap of maintenance is borne by some one of the attendants. This is now of ermine. Anciently it was the abacot, which was made like a double crown, and richly set with jewellery. Henry VI. in his flight from the victorious Edward IV. lost his, to his rival, and conqueror; for the man who had the care of it, by the swiftness of his horse, was unseated, and the brilliant prize fell into the hands of the pursuers. As I believe nothing of the like nature has ever been offered to the public, I humbly suppose this may not be an improper subject to offer to your elegant publication. I therefore request its acceptance from, Barming Parsonage.va 1809. Sir, Your most obedient servant, MARK NOBLE. P. S. It appears that Mr. Stevenant, jeweller, in Berwickstreet, Soho, who died on April 15, 1771, was employed in setting the jewels on the crown, used at the coronation of his present ma jesty. Let me remark that it was Berquen of Bruges toward the close of the fifteenth century, who by cutting, gave splendour to diamonds, and consequently much enhanced their value. The Flemish, the Dutch, and the French, excelled in cutting dia monds before us. The art appears to have been brought him ther after the Restoration, and it was thought so excellent that William Forster, who died in 1687, has it recorded upon his grave-D slab in the church of St. Catherine Cree-church, that he was a diamond-cutter. I SIE, ROUSSEAU. Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, And cheers the nations with redoubled ray! HAVE never seen the memoirs to v which your correspondent refers. I am not certain that I ever heard of them before. They ought to stand on the most respectable proof of authenticity, before they can have any claim to be placed in competition with an assertion of ROUSSEAU, made against himself, and of a kind for which no motive seems possible to be stated with any appearance of probability, but a respect for truth. Without reversing all rules of moral probability, can this be supposed? Thirty-one years ROUSSEAU has been dead. His fame has taken root too vigorously and too deeply to be shaken. And, however we regret the existence of those faults which his canhas confessed, we may at least console ourselves, that his sincerity and veracity are unimpeachable. GRAY. Of GRAY'S Ode to Adversity, even Dr. JOHNSON has confessed, that" of this piece, at once poetical and rational," (he might have added sublimely moral and philosophically pious)" he would not, by slight objections, violate the dignity. Асн. How SPENSER pronounced this word, is sufficiently ascertained. by the underwritten : "Wherefore with mine thou dare thy music match, Or hath the cramp thy joints benumb'd with ach.” I apprehend the a in "match," was then pronounced long like the a in " cage." |