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envenomed arrows of Junius been shot by his hand. His Memoirs of George the Second may be quoted against us; but, besides that, there is a decided difference in the character of the two productions; the order which H. Walpole left for the delay of their publication, showed a timidity or reserve very different from the unfettered and licentious attacks of the other writer. Besides, we think that there are facts still hanging about the history of Sir Philip Francis, more especially the similarity of his writing, and his unaccountable transition from a paltry clerkship of the War-office to a seat in the Board of Control in India, that have not been so explained, as to leave the field quite clear to other characters, if unconnected in any way with him, as H. Walpole appears to have been. We feel convinced that Francis was not the author of the Letters; but we are not persuaded that he was not intimately connected with them. And we wonder that attention has never been directed to the fact, that his father, Dr. Francis, the translator of Demosthenes, was like his son a man of literature and a scholar. Whoever this mysterious writer may prove to be, his reputation for great abilities, for such it is impossible to deny him, will be deeply injured by the very immoral means by which he raised and supported it,

"Nameless the libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness,
Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,
Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood."‡

Whether this long concealed secret is now approaching towards its disclosure, we cannot say; but our own opinion, judging alone from the internal evidence of the writings, is, that the author will not be found among those who mixed in the arena of public life, or was personally engaged as a senator or statesman in the political parties and contentions of the times: that he was neither a man of rank nor station; for there pervades in more or less proportion the whole correspondence, a strain of unmodified vituperation, of uncompromising violence, of unmitigated rancour, which speak no intimate or personal acquaintance with the characters which the writer attacks. The portraits of the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford might have been drawn for Strafford or Sejanus. Whereas those who are engaged in public life, and come in contact with their opponents, know how much of the sternness and strength of opposition is softened down by a slight acquaintance with the general character of the man and of the sympathies

*The ancient writers used to express an acute saying or bitter sarcasm by the metaphor of a weapon discharged-tanquam telum missum. So Plato Theaetet, p. 190, on the Lacedæmonians, ἄν τίνα τις ἔρη ὠσπὲρ ἐκ φαρέτρας ῥηματίσκια αινιγματώδη ἀνασπῶντες ἀποτοξεύουσι. Plutarch de Sera Num. Vindicta. Αλλ' ουδ ̓ εἰ βαλὼν, εἶπεν, ἀπηλλάγη, καλῶς ειχε περιορᾶν τὸ βέλος ἐγκείμενον. Juv. Sat. vii. 157, "que veniant diversâ parte sagittæ." 194, "Jaculator," qui acute quid dixit.

And vs.

We are told by a literary friend, that the late Lord Essex, of Cashiobury, was possessed of a letter which Francis wrote when young, to some girl, or young lady, in Hertfordshire; and which so resembled the writing of Junius, that Lord Essex, had it lithographed, and gave away copies to his friends, much to Sir Philip's annoyance.

See Southey's Vision of Judgment, c. v.

of personal contact. But the scholar and the student may brood over his favourite opinions, uncorrected by actual acquaintance with the world, till they burn and glow with the intensest heat, and are ready to consume all within their reach. In the letters of Junius, there is often more of the vulgar declamation of the rhetorician, than of the severe judgment of the practical statesinan; and his strange recantations of opinion, show that he was in some important attacks careless of the correctness of his censures, and the consistency of his character.

BUCKDEN PALACE, co. HUNTINGDON.
(With a Plate.)

BUCKDEN is a small but pleasant village on the great North road, about six miles north of St. Neot's. To this advantage, now almost lost sight of in the general improvement of our means of communication, it probably owed the circumstance of its being selected as a residence by the Bishops of Lincoln, who have had a manor" or palace here during many centuries.

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Bugedene" is surveyed in Domesday book among the lands of the Bishop of Lincoln; the arable land was twenty carucates, of which five were in demesne. There is, therefore, no foundation for the statement, which, having been started by Leland, appears to have been taken for granted by the subsequent writers on the topography of the much neglected -county of Huntingdon; that this manor was transferred from the abbey of Ely, by way of compensation, when the latter was first erected into a bishopric in the reign of Henry the First. Leland adds, that "Rotheram bishop of Lincoln buildid the new brike towr at Bukden. He clene

translatid the Haul, and did much coste there beside."+

The period of the episcopate of Thomas Rotherham (who was afterwards Archbishop of York) in the see of Lincoln was from 1472 to 1480.

The works were continued by John Russell his successor, whose rebus of a throstle remains to the present day in the bosses of the dining room, (as seen in our plate) surrounded with this inscription, Je suis le Ruscellup. It may be remarked that the same motto in his own handwriting is engraved in Nichols's "Royal and Noble Autographs," fol. 1829, pl. 11, from a volume of Latin poetry, by Walter Mapes, &c. formerly in the Bishop's possession, and now in the Cottonian Library.

Our task of rehearsing the further history of this palace, is much facilitated by an excellent "Account," compiled by the Ven. Henry Kaye Bonney, Archdeacon of Bedford, which was printed at Oundle in 1839, and the substance of which we now, with his kind permission, take the liberty to introduce.

"Spaldwik and Bukden," says Leland, were "geven out of the fee of St. Etheldrede to the Bishop of Lincoln, for the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely in Cambridgeshire." Godwin added Biggleswade, "Ad resarciendum damnum sibi inferendum, Rex de alieno corio ludens, largitus est illi et successoribus tria manneria, ad Ecclesiam Eliensem hucusque spectantia, nimirum Spaldwick, Bicclesworth, et Bokden." That Spaldwick was so given is shown by the charter printed in the Monasticon; but it was remarked by Browne Willis, Cathedrals, vol. ii. p. 47, that Biggleswade was given to the church of Ely at a subsequent time, and another charter in the Monasticon shows the grant was made in 1132. Neither had Biggleswade ever belonged to the church of Ely; at the Domesday survey it was the manor of Radulphus de Insula, and the gift to the church of Lincoln came direct from the King. Itin. iv. 48.

There was no other manor-house of the see of Lincoln nearer than Liddington in Rutland, at a distance of forty miles: regarding which Archdeacon Bonney has appended the following note:

"Like Liddington, the Palace of Buckden was probably, in the beginning, not a GENT. MAG. VOL. XV. 21

There was a palace at this place in the time of the memorable Robert Grosstete, who died in it, October the 9th, 1252. Upon a minute examination of the older parts of the structure, as it remains at present, there appears to be no remnant of the house inhabited by this distinguished prelate. The great chamber, which had subsequently been converted into a drawing-room, passage, and bed-room, is the most ancient part now standing. The finials on the top of each of its gables are simple, and ornamented with a rude volute, and might induce some persons to attribute this building to the thirteenth century. But the coping upon the bay window of the eastern gable, (now the draw. ing-room window) seems conclusive to the contrary. It rises a very few inches, and shows the commencement of the embattled moulding; and this appears to have been introduced in the succeeding century. With this, the carvings at the ends of the timbers of the roof also agree. In the opinion of some persons, who are no inferior judges of such matters, it may be dated as far back as the very beginning of the fourteenth century.

The other parts of the palace bear testimony to the time of Bishop Russell, who was translated from Rochester to the see of Lincoln September the 9th, 1480, and died January 30th, 1494; fixing the building of the greater part of the structure between these dates. Upon the principal gateway into the court of the palace his armorial bearings (two che

vronels between three roses) is formed by coloured bricks, answering to its proper blazon. The same occurs in the gable of this part of the building towards the kitchen garden; and again, in bold relief, on the boss of the ceiling of the great dining room, in the lower story of the great tower. On another boss of the same ceiling is his rebus, a throstle or thrush, with this old French legend issuing from its beak, "Le Roscelluy je suis,' within a border of roses.

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The character of this part of the palace is that of the square-headed perpendicular, with a drip-stone; excepting the chapel, the windows of which are within a four-centred arch. The fitting-up of the chapel appears to have been done by his successor Bishop Smith, who came to the see November 6th, 1495, and whose arms (a chevron between three roses) are carved in relief on a shield held by an angel, as an ornament for the end of the Bishop's seat. Just below the ceiling of the chapel is a small window into a bed-room, probably designed for the Bishop, through which he was enabled both to hear and see the minister officiating at the altar. There was originally an entrance to the chapel at the bottom of a corkscrew staircase near the Bishop's seat, through which the chaplain entered from his chamber above the chapel. This staircase led up to the lobby, from which both the Bishop and chaplain had access to their sleeping apartments. The room below this lobby and the Bishop's bed-room appears to have been the pre

place of so much importance as it became after Bishop Russell's days. But still, judging from the size of Liddington (at which several documents were signed, and in which Bishop Gynewell died August 4, 1362) it may be supposed to have been more than a mere grange. Liddington Palace, which never assumed the castellated appearance of Buckden, (see a view of it in Gent. Mag. for June, 1796, p. 457,) still retains a large dining-room; at one end of which is a parlour and a small bed-room or oratory; (beyond which was an apartment now demolished;) and at the other, a pantry, butlery, and other offices. Below these was a kitchen, offices, and other rooms, now converted into an hospital; with an octagonal study at an angle of the orchard, still retaining the shelves in recesses. This was built by Bishop Smith, whose arms are on the exterior of the study, and also in the windows and cornice of the dining-room. His effigy, in pontificalibus kneeling, is still in the window of the parlour; the cornice of which, as well as that of the dining-room, consists of a series of small canopies of the richest tracery. Considering that a Bishop of the Romish Church had no family, but only domestics in attendance upon him, we may presume that all his minor palaces were sufficient for him not only to transact diocesan business in them and pass on, but to remain in them for a time and keep up a certain degree of hospitality."

* See Chaucer, 1. 13699.

late's private library, from which there was access to the chapel.*

In the centre of the main body of the palace there was a small court, open to the weather; out of which there was an arched door-way into the offices beneath the great chamber. This court was subsequently covered with a skylight.

The north-western parts of the palace having been rebuilt and altered from the original design, in consequence of the hall and its appendages, which stood in that direction, having been demolished when it was in the hands of the Parliamentary Commissioners in the seventeenth century, it is impossible to state to what purpose they were applied. It is probable that the principal entrance was opposite to the present principal gate, and that a lobby conducted to the hall on the left, and on the right to the staircase of the tower and great chamber, as at present. Besides this way of access the tower has a staircase in its northeast and north-west turrets. The whole of this, together with the en trance tower and the offices attached to it, was surrounded by a ditch, with curtain walls embattled, in those parts which were not defended by buildings. And when we recollect that this mansion was erected during the turbulent times of Edward the Fourth, and not finished till those of Richard the Third, its castellated character, though designed for the habitation of a man of peace, is accounted for.

The rooms on the ground floor on either side of the great gate were appro priated to domestic purposes. That on the right hand, as you enter, was originally the Almonry, the hatch of which still remains, as do the benches under the gateway itself, on which the poor sate. The rooms on the left, entered from a cloister, were appropriated to the dairy, and further northward to the brewery, attached to which is a spacious octagonal turret. A square turret leads up to two rooms, one above the other, over the gateway.

The

The lower, lately the diocesan library, was probably the secretary's apartment, as the rooms to the southward were his office and registry. chambers on the left of the entrance tower were applied to the purpose of a record room, and sleeping rooms for menials.

The ancient kitchen was, it is supposed, destroyed with the hall, near which it was always situate, under the ancient arrangement. The modern building applied to this purpose abuts upon the offices beneath the drawingroom. Above the great dining room, lobby, and small room adjoining, is the principal bed-room, dressingroom, and a small apartment; † and again, above these, the great dorter or dormitory, occupying the whole space at the top of the tower. In this were two chimneys. The present Bishop converted this room into two bed-rooms. The turrets, at the angles of this tower, are octagonal. Two contain stairs, as has been stated, and the other two small octagon rooms, fitted up with shelves in recesses, which seem to point them out as intended for retirement and study.

In the reign of King James the First the palace fell into decay, and the extent of the repairs then done to it will be best understood by the following extracts from Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, the prelate who possessed it at that time.

"He came to his seat of Bugden at disadvantage, in the winter; and winter cannot be more miry in any coast of England, than it is round about it. He found a house nothing to his content to entertain him. "Twas large enough, but rude, waste, untrimm'd, and, in much of the outward dress, like the grange of a farmer; for, from the time of his predecessor Dr. Russel, that was Lord Chancellor of England, and sat there in the days of Edward the Fourth, and laid out much upon that place, none that followed him, no not Splendian Woolsey, did give it any new addition; but rather suffered it to be overgrown with the decays of an ill

The writer is here referring to the time of Bishop Russell.

+ Probably the space these occupy was originally one large room, for the higher orders; who were accustomed, in times past, to repose in one apartment.

favour'd antiquity. This Bishop did wonders in a short time, with the will of a liberal man, and the wit of a good surveyor: for, in the space of one year, with many hands and good pay, he turned a ruinous thing into a stately mansion. The out-houses, by which all strangers past, were the greatest eye-sore; these he pluck'd down to the ground, and re-edified with convenient beauty, as well for use, uniformity. These were stables, barns, granaries, houses for doves, brewing, and dairies and the outward courts, which were next them, he cast into fair allies, and grass-plats.

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"Within doors the Cloysters* were the trimmest part of his reparations. The windows of the square, t beautified with stories of coloured glass, the pavement laid smooth and new, and the walls on every side hung with pieces of exquisite workmen in limning, collected and provided long before. The like and better was done for the Chapel in all these circumstances, and with as much cost as it was capable of; for the oversight from the beginning was, that it was the only room in the house that was too little.

"He planted woods, the trees in many places devised by him into ranks and proportions; but woods are the most needful supplies for posterity, and the most neglected. He fenced the Park, and stored it with deer. He provided for good husbandry, and he bought in all the leases of the demesnes, for them which would stock the grounds; which improvidently, and for hunger of monies, were let out to the very gates.

"He loved stirring and walking, which he used two hours and more every day in the open air, if the weather served; especially if he might go to and fro, where good scents and works of well formed shape were about him. But that this was his innocent recreation, it would amount to an error, that he should bury so much money in gardens, arbours, orchards, pools for water fowls, and for fish of all variety, with a walk raised three feet from the ground, of

*All of which must have been subsequently destroyed in the Rebellion, except the small cloister of the offices.-H.K.B. † Only three sides of which remain.

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about a mile in compass, shaded and covered on each side with trees and pales.

"He (Dr. Hacket) who reports this, knew best that all the nurseries about London for fair flowers and choice fruits were ransacked to furnish him. Alcinous, if he had lived at Bugden, could not have liv'd better. And all this, take it together, might have stood to become five ages after his reparation. But," he adds, (writing after the Rebellion,) "what is there that appears now? or what remains of all this cost and beauty? All is dissipated, defaced, pluc't to pieces to pay the army, following the rule which Severus the Emperor gave to his sons Antoninus and Geta, Locupletate milites, cæteros omnes contemnite.' Here's nothing standing of all the Bishop's delights and expence. Nebuzar-adan, the servant of the King of Babylon, hath been there, 2 Kings xxv. 8, and made profit of the havock of the place, though the building would have yielded more gain to have let it stood, than to be demolish'd. But such purchasers made ready mony of every thing to-day, dreading the right owner's return; or that another chapman, upon some new state project, might purchase it over his head tomorrow," &c. &c.

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"It were sad to part thus, with such a delightful pile of building. Therefore, return to it, while it stood and flourish'd. Above all, while the true owner kept it, the holy service of God was well order'd and observed at noon, and at evening with musick and organ, exquisitely, as in the best Cathedrals; and with such voices, as the kingdom afforded not better for skill and sweetness, the Bishop bearing a tenor part among them often. And this was constant every day, as well as on solemn feasts, unless the birds were flown abroad, for they are of a tribe of which some are not always Canons Regular; whose negligence the Bishop punish'd no further than with a merry story." (Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, Part II. p. 29.)

The worthy biographer's style is diffuse, and we have not space to quote him at length, though many of his de

The extent was less than a mile.

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