[“Ernest John Biren was born in Courland [in 1690]. His grandfather had been head groom to James, the third Duke of Courland, and obtained from his master the present of a small estate in land. … In 1714 he made his appearance at St. Petersburg, and solicited the place of page to the Princess Charlotte, wife of the Tzarovitch Alexey; but being contemptuously rejected as a person of mean extraction, retired to Mittau, where he chanced to ingratiate himself with Count Bestuchef, Master of the Household to Anne, widow of Frederic William, Duke of Courland, who resided at Mittau. Being of a handsome figure and polite address, he soon gained the good will of the duchess, and became her secretary and chief favourite. On her being declared sovereign of Russia, Anne called Biren to Petersburg, and the secretary soon became Duke of Courland, and first minister or rather despot of Russia. On the death of Anne, which happened in 1740, Biren, being declared regent, continued daily increasing his vexations and cruelties, till he was arrested, on the 18th of December, only twenty days after he had been appointed to the regency; and at the revolution that ensued he was exiled to the frozen shores of the Oby.”
Catherine II, by W. Tooke, 1800, I 160, footnote
He was recalled in 1763, and died in 1772.
In a letter to his sister, dated June 18, 1814, Byron gives a slightly different version of the incident, recorded in his note (vide supra):
“The Duchess of Somerset also, to mend matters, insisted on presenting me to a Princess Biron, Duchess of Hohen-God-knows-what, and another person to her two sisters, Birons too. But I flew off, and would not, saying I had had enough of introductions for that night at least.”
—Letters, 1899, III 98
The “daughters of Courland” must have been descendants of “Pierre, dernier Duc de Courlande, De la Maison de Biron,” viz. Jeanne Cathérine, born June 24, 1783, who married, in 1801, François Pignatelli de Belmonte, Duc d’Acerenza, and Dorothée, born August 21, 1793, who married, in 1809, Edmond de Talleyrand Périgord, Duc de Talleyrand, nephew to the Bishop of Autun. (See Almanach de Gotha, 1848, pp. 109, 110.)] ↩
Napoleon’s exclamation at the Élysée Bourbon, June 23, 1815.
“When his civil counsellors talked of defence, the word wrung from him the bitter ejaculation, ‘Ah! my old guard! could they but defend themselves like you!’ ”
—Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by Sir Walter Scott, Prose Works, 1846, II 760
—Editor ↩
Who now that he is dead has not a foe;
—[MS. erased]
The last expired in cut-throat Castlereagh.
Immanuel Kant, born at Königsberg, in 1729, became Professor and Rector of the University, and died at Königsberg in 1804. —Editor ↩
“The castled crag of Drachenfels
Childe Harold, Canto III
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,” etc.
—Editor ↩
St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still extant in 1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever. ↩
“We left Ratzeburg at 7 o’clock Wednesday evening, and arrived at Lüneburg—i.e. 35 English miles—at 3 o’clock on Thursday afternoon. This is a fair specimen! In England I used to laugh at the ‘flying waggons;’ but compared with a German Post-Coach, the metaphor is perfectly justifiable, and for the future I shall never meet a flying waggon without thinking respectfully of its speed.”
—S. T. Coleridge, March 12, 1799, Letters of S. T. C., 1895, I 278
—Editor ↩
See for German oaths, “Extracts from a Diary,” January 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, V 172. —Editor ↩
With “Schnapps”—Democritus would cease to smile,
—[MS.]
By German, post-boys driven a mile.
With “Schnapps”—and spite of “Dam’em,” “dog” and “log”
—[MS. erased]
Launched at their heads jog-jog-jog-jog-jog-jog.
The French Inscription (see Memorial Inscriptions, etc., by Joseph Meadows Cowper, 1897, p. 134) on the Black Prince’s monument is thus translated in the History of Kent (John Weevers’ Funerall Monuments, 1636, pp. 205, 206)—
“Who so thou be that passeth by
Where this corps entombed lie,
Understand what I shall say,
As at this time, speake I may.
Such as thou art, sometime was I.
Such as I am, shalt thou be.
I little thought on th’ oure of death,
So long as I enjoyèd breath.
Great riches here did I possess,
Whereof I made great nobleness;
I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and
Great treasure, horses, houses, land.
But now a caitife poore am I,
Deepe in the ground, lo! here I lie;
My beautie great is all quite gone,
My flesh is wasted to the bone.
My house is narrow now and throng,
Nothing but Truth comes from my tongue.
And if ye should see me this day,
I do not think but ye would say,
That I had never beene a man,
So much altered now I am.”
—Editor ↩
—of higher stations,
—[MS. erased]
And for their pains get smarter puncturations.
See Childe Harold, Canto I stanza XXXII line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, II 93, note 16. —Editor ↩
See The Prince (Il Principe), chap. XVII, by Niccolò Machiavelli, translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, 1897, p. 121:
“But above all [a Prince] must abstain from the property of others. For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.”
—Editor ↩
India; America. —Editor ↩
Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) began her visits to Newgate in 1813. In 1820 she corresponded with the Princess Sophie of Russia, and at a later period she was entertained by Louis Philippe, and by the King of Prussia at Kaiserwerth. She might have, she may have, admonished George IV “with regard to all good things.” —Editor ↩
See The Age of Bronze,
