in music he had both taste and skill: he encouraged an art which formed one of his enjoyments; and if his patronage has brought forth no composer of the first order, the cause may exist in some circumstances of national inaptitude. it is necessary to go back some centuries for an english king to whom he bears the nearest likeness in _ensemble_ of character. the parallel at first sight may be thought injurious, but the likeness will upon consideration be found striking and complete. george iv. had in his youth the eclat of personal endowment, education, and accomplishment, of success in the fashionable exercises and graces of his age,and of that reckless prodigality which obtains popular homage and applause in a prince. henry viii. in his youth was one of the most brilliant personages of europe. a fine person,the accomplishments of his time in literature and the arts,the display of gorgeous prodigality,raised him to a sort of chivalrous rivalry with francis i. in mental culture he excelled george iv., who owes much of his reputation for capacity and acquirement to an imposing manner, and the eagerness to applaud a prince: stripped of this charm, his ideas and language appeared worse than common when he put them on paper. both had the same dominant ambition to be distinguished and imitated, as the arbiters of fashion in dress for the costliness, splendour, or novelty of their toilet. henry viii. and george iv. surrounded themselves with the men most distinguished for wit and talent, with a remarkable coincidence of motive, as ministering to their vanity or pleasures; but as soon as they became troublesome or useless, both cast them off with the same careless indifference. henry viii., it is true, sacrificed to his own caprices, or to court intrigue, the lives of those whom he had chosen for his social familiarity;whilst george iv. merely turned off his so called friends, and thought of them no more. but such is the difference between barbarism and tyranny on the one side, and civilization and freedom on the other: that which was death in the former, is but court disgrace in the latter. george iv. was not cruelhe had even a certain susceptibility; the spectacle of human suffering revolted him: but suffering to affect him must have been present to his sense. was henry viii. gratuitously cruel? that does not appear. he took no pleasure for itself in shedding blood, and avoided being a witness of it. had he been obliged to look on whilst anne boleyn and sir thomas more were bleeding, he probably would have spared them. he sacrificed them to his impulses from mere selfish indifference. with their wives and mistresses henry viii. and george iv. were governed by the same self-indulgent despotismthe same animal disgusts. henry viii. had six wives, and sent one to the scaffold as the prelude to his marriage with another. george iv. had only one wife, but she suffered the persecutions of six; and if she escaped decapitation or divorce, it was from no failure of inclination or instruments. henry viii. was the tyrant of his people, and george iv. was not: yet is there even here a similitude. both surrendered their understandings to their ministers, upon the condition of subserviency to their personal desires. what george would have been in the age of henry it might be ungracious to suppose; but it may be asserted that henry, had he been reserved for the close of the eighteenth century, would have a very different place in opinion and history as a king and as a man,such are the beneficent, humanizing influences of knowledge, civilization, the spirit of religious tolerance, and laws mutually guarding and guarded by public liberty! an eclipse at boossa. (_from landers travels, vol. ii._) about ten oclock at night, when we were sleeping on our mats, we were suddenly awoke by a great cry of distress from innumerable voices, attended by a horrid clashing and clattering noise, which the hour of the night tended to make more terrific. before we had time to recover from our surprise, old pascoe rushed breathless into our hut, and informed us with a trembling voice that the sun was dragging the moon across the heavens. wondering what could be the meaning of so strange and ridiculous a story, we ran out of the hut half dressed, and we discovered that the moon was totally eclipsed. a number of people were gathered together in our yard, in dreadful apprehension that the world was at an end, and that this was but the beginning of sorrows. we learnt from them that the mahomedan priests residing in the city, having personified the sun and moon, had told the king and the people that the eclipse was occasioned through the obstinacy and disobedience of the latter luminary. they said that for a long time previously the moon had been displeased with the path she had been compelled to take through the heavens, because it was filled with thorns and briers, and obstructed with a thousand other difficulties; and therefore that, having watched for a favourable opportunity, she had this evening deserted her usual track, and entered into that of the sun. she had not, however, travelled far up the sky, on the forbidden road, before the circumstance was discovered by the sun, who immediately hastened to her in his anger, and punished her dereliction by clothing her in darkness, forcing her back to her own territories, and forbidding her to shed her light upon the earth. this story, whimsical as it may seem, was received with implicit confidence in its truth by the king and queen and most of the people of boossà; and the cause of the noises which we had heard, and which were still continuing with renewed vehemence, was explained to us by the fact that they were all assembled together in the hope of being able to frighten away the sun to his proper sphere, and leave the moon to enlighten the world as at other times. this is much after the manner of many savage nations. while our informant was yet speaking to us, a messenger arrived at our yard from the king, to tell us the above tale, and with an invitation to come to see him immediately. therefore, slipping on the remainder of our clothes, we followed the man to the residence of his sovereign, from outside of which the cries proceeded, and here we found the king and his timid partner sitting on the ground