New Monthly Magazine (Volume 131 ) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1864. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... the issue of that day--immortalising Miltiades--had been different, the Britons and the Saxons might still have been wandering in the woods. That belles lettres of the lighter sort be not neglected in these " pregnant instances," from the most masterly and philosophical of current writers in political economy, turn to the most masterly of contemporary writers of realistic fiction. The abortive rebellion of 1715 sets Mr. Thackeray on a sally of conjectural recreation. As one thinks of what might have been, says he, how amusing the speculation is. Relating how the doomed Scottish gentlemen came out at Lord Mar's summons, mounted the white cockade, that has been a flower of sad poetry ever since, and rallied round the ill-omened Stuart standard at Braemar, he holds that Mar, with 8000 men, and but 1500 opposed to him, might have driven the enemy over the Tweed, and taken possession of the whole of Scotland, --but that the Pretender's duke did not venture to move when the day was his own. Edinburgh Castle, it is further advanced, might have been in King James's hands; but that the men who were to escalade it stayed to drink his health at the tavern, and arrived two hours too late at the rendezvous under the castle wall. Suppose they had not stayed drinking--eighteen of them, " powdering their hair," as the facetious landlady said, for the attack on the castle. Then had Edinburgh Castle, and town, and all Scotland been King James's. " The north of England rises, and marches over Barnet, Heath upon London. Wyndham is up in Somersetshire; Packington in Worcestershire; and Vivian in Cornwall. The Elector of Hanover, and his hideous mistresses, pack up the plate, and perhaps the crown jewels in London, and are off via Harwich and Helvoetsluys, for dear old Deutschland. Th...